Welcome to the 21st WCP Virtual Congress Program Scheduling

Conducting intensive psychotherapy is particularly challenging during times of national and international crises. The COVID-19 pandemic, with high morbidity and mortality, caused economic devastation and led to heightened xenophobia, political anarchy, and triggered burnout and fatigue in health professionals. The pandemic and post pandemic environment shifted and forced clinicians to change their practice patterns creatively to be able to adapt to the reality of providing care virtually and remotely in most instances. This symposium, organized by the Psychoanalysis in Psychiatry Section of the WPA, will examine the provision of intensive psychotherapy in the current mental health climate in different areas of the world. Professor Alfonso, from New York, will revisit the applicability of the contributions of American cultural anthropologists who collaborated for decades with psychoanalysts and diplomats to enhance intercultural communication by studying all dimensions of nonverbal communication worldwide. Professor Ammon, from Berlin, will provide clinical correlations looking creatively at paralinguistics and kinesics and their place in psychotherapy treatments. Dr. Tavakoli, from Tehran, will examine parallel process and universality of shared experiences when patients and therapists are affected by similar stressors, and discuss the clinical management of such situations. Although the speakers will discuss some theoretical material, this symposium is clinically focused and will provide ample case examples of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy treatments from different corners of the world.