IX International Convergence Congress

What does psychoanalysis say about love and violence?

March 12, 13, and 14, 2026, in Puebla, Mexico.

MORE INFORMATION ON THE CONGRESS WEBSITE: https://ixcongresoconvergencia.org/

Title and Argument
What does psychoanalysis say about love and violence?
Freud’s formulation in Civilization and Its Discontents points to the impossibility of the endeavor of
achieving happiness. The renunciation of instinctual satisfaction is the price each individual pays for entering the social order. The bond, discontent, dissatisfaction, culture, symptom, and jouissance are inherent to the human condition and form part of the misunderstanding that founds subjectivity as articulated to the trauma of language.
Today’s conditions of fractured social bonds are made evident in the individual’s suffering, showing
the effects produced by dominant discourses. However, psychoanalysis links discontent and symptoms while sustaining an ethical and political position grounded in the “not-all” that concerns the subject of the
unconscious — the very basis of psychoanalytic praxis.
Discourses around homogenization, happiness, success, and immediate gratification coexist with the
rise of insecurity, violence, poverty, social unrest, among others. In this way, the proliferating imperatives are consumerism, medicalization, the furor curandis, urgency, and the command to enjoy without limits —generating a disavowal of the other that impacts one’s own anxiety, destructiveness, and segregation. Could these be the effects of capitalist politics sustained by the necropower that defines today’s global context? In contrast to the consequences derived from this logic, psychoanalysis proposes other possibilities: to dogma, it opposes heresy; to repetition, invention; to segregation, difference.
Lacan already warned us that although capitalism moves so fast it ends up biting its own tail, in our
time we see clearly what he said in his lecture at the Sainte-Anne Hospital in Paris about the effects of
capitalism on discourse and the social bond: “What distinguishes the discourse of capitalism is Verwerfung, the rejection outward of all things symbolic […] The rejection of what? Of castration. Every order, every discourse that aligns with capitalism sets aside, my friends, what we can simply call the things of love.” If we follow Lacan in Seminar XX, setting aside the things of love implies setting aside “the axis of everything instituted by analytic experience.”
The speed at which the market operates creates an urgency that characterizes daily life. Under the
principle that everything is possible, scientific discourse tends to universalize, and as a consequence, it covers over structural lack, disrupting the capacity to ask questions in the face of loss and pain, offering a homogenized response to any situation designated as traumatic. This mode of operation seeks to erase the difference brought by the things of love and, by insisting on the existence of the sexual relation, promotes violence. It’s a scenario in which we move from the word to the thing, leaving no time for understanding. Speed erases delay, seemingly wiping out the space to inscribe into fantasy, memory, and recollection the original trauma. Within these coordinates, the subject seems to fall off the track of desire, left in the helplessness of acting out that stems from limitless jouissance. The analyst, for their part, offers themselves as a reader, precisely where urgency has dissolved meaning.
Given this panorama, we might ask ourselves: is it possible to approach trauma as a real that is
impossible to access, while also articulating it with the violence that fractures social bonds? Does trauma carry a message to be deciphered, or rather does it reveal the evidence that something is equivocal and potentially articulable? What can psychoanalysis inscribe in urgency through its praxis? What does the analyst hear, what do they read, in trauma encountered in urgency? How do we work within urgency to make space for the emergence of the subject? Does the fracturing of social bonds affect the ways in which transference is established in analysis? How can we sustain analysis when the demands we receive go no further than urgency to eliminate anguish and obey the mandate of happiness? Might it be that the coordinates of our time call us to rethink the ethical and political position of psychoanalytic discourse — and of analysts situated in the polis?

Thematic Axes

Working Framework

The working framework seeks to build a structure that enables the participation and encounter of the
greatest number of institutions affiliated with the movement, in order to strengthen our collaborative bonds.
To that end, we propose returning to what already exists, so that from there, new ways of weaving together spaces, times, positions, and connections can emerge to foster dialogue and exchange.
We believe it’s important to recall that psychoanalytic discourse aims to sustain difference in the face
of the universalization proposed by dominant discourses. Therefore, it is fundamental to create a space and a time for understanding — without letting haste and urgency become the modes of operation imposed by the prevailing logic.
Within this context, we’re committed to making room for a know-how with that which forecloses
castration. In this sense, we aim to create a space for face-to-face encounter — something essential for
establishing bonds and sustaining the discourse of psychoanalysis. The Congress will be held in person on
March 12, 13, and 14, 2026, in Puebla, Mexico.

Presentation Modalities

  1. Plenary sessions by institutional representatives.
  2. Working groups within the framework of convergence.
  3. Individual paper presentations.
  4. Team panel discussions from participating institutions.

If you wish to submit a paper, please send an e-mail to: inscripcion.convergencia2026@gmail.com no later than November 31 with the following information:

a. Full name of the author or group coordinator, as the case may be.
b. Modality of presentation in which you wish to participate.
c. Thematic area in which the group wishes to participate.
d. Name of the Institution you belong to.
Once the information has been sent, you will receive a confirmation e-mail and the acceptance of your
work will be followed up.

Congress Fees
The cost of registration for the Congress is $3,500 MXN, but we will offer early-bird discounts.

Congress Registration
Early payment discount:
Payment until August 31, 2025: $3,000.00 MXN
Payment until October 31, 2025: $3,300.00 MXN
Payment from November 1, 2025 onward: $3,500.00 MXN
Note: All amounts are in Mexican pesos.

Addresses
Place of the congress: Hacienda Paz Lomas
Address: Blvd. América 401, San Antonio Cacalotepec, 72828 San Andrés Cholula, Puebla

Payment Method
Payments via PayPal:
Name: Pablo Nudelman Osorio
PayPal: @PNudelman
Email: p_nudelman@hotmail.com
Note: When making your payment, please ensure you include the PayPal transaction fee in your total.
Once the payment has been made, please send the receipt with your personal data to the following e-mail: inscripcion.convergencia2026@gmail.com

See more Congresses