SERBIAN DEVELOPONG GROUP REPORT, 2024.
Review
Our group was recognized as a Developing Group by the IAAP in 2001. In the course of our ongoing educational work, and with the dedication of our liaison person – Martin Schmidt, the group has had the opportunity and great pleasure to work with eminent members of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, through various activities – lectures, workshops, group and individual supervisions, as well as discussion groups. We are grateful to all of them for sharing their knowledge and professional experience with us and for their selfless support in our development.
The Developing Group is affiliated to the Serbian Analytical Society, SAS. This unit represents the modality of analytically oriented psychotherapy with Jungian approach in the Association of Psychotherapeutic Societies of Serbia. Since 2006, our education program for analytically oriented Jungian psychotherapists has been certified by this association. https://savezpsihoterapeuta.org/
During this time, ten members achieved the status of Individual Members of IAAP, but four of them have decided to leave the group, and the oldest member, who was one of the founders of the society, unfortunately, passed away. There are some more Jungian analysts in Serbia, educated in Zurich, who did not have the intention of joining us. To date, there is no other Developing Group in Serbia.
As a collective which now has six analysts, one provisional analyst and eight routers, we have applied this year to become IAAP Group Member. We are delighted to cooperate with other IAAP members, to share resources, and create a supportive network for personal and professional growth.
You can find more information about the Serbian Analytical Society – DG of IAAP in Serbia – on our website, including details about the international events which we have so far organized in Serbia, as well as a list of our activities over the past few years.
Over the past three years
Immersed in our society, we experienced common joys and sorrows together. In addition to the planned work program, we have adapted some of the professional activities to the specifitc circumstances. The course of our boat was directed by good winds and dark storms:
The end of the pandemics. It was such a pleasure to meet face-to-face, both with our clients and with each other! The richness of these encounters was important to all of us, as was processing the experiences of isolation, uncertainty and loss. With the kindness of our guest analysts, in 2022, we organized a joint seminar with the Greek Developing Group in Belgrade. This led to a rich exchange among routers, along with other guests` meetings with analysts and supervisors in Serbia. After the kind invitations of DG Romania to participate in some of their Zoom seminars during the pandemic, there was also a live meeting in Bucharest, in the summer of 2022.
During the winter of this year, we had two guests at our seminar, routers from Poland.
Luckily, the familiarity with Zoom and other social networks that we have built over the past period has also been maintained. Two of our routers were invited by Jill Fisher from New England Jung Institute to attend the online course „Arts and Cultural Transformation“, between February and June 2022. Our colleagues had an enriching experience of exchanging with the group in the United States.
Some of us continued two follow the lectures and the seminars which were organized by: ARAS Gaia, NAAP Seminars 2022, Bulgarian Society of Analytical Psychology, SAP public lectures, Psychosocial Wednesdays, Analysis and Activism Talks, Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex.
Our colleague, Jelena Sladojević Matić (analyst), gave a presentation at the Conference: Thinking about Analytic Training in a Changing World. The conference was held online over three afternoons: November 17th, 18th, 19th 2023. The Convenors were Jan Wiener, Richard Mizen and Catriona Wrottesley.
The tragedy of the war in Ukraine. Some of our members offered professional support on the appropriate social networks. The war has also led some inhabitants of Ukraine and Russia to move to our country . We were aware of most of the difficulties they face because, within our group, we recognize similar experiences from our past. We know that these similarities must be checked and we actively seek out the differences in experience (as they are important to notice and they offer valuable lessons). In our group, there are people who were refugees as children, whose fathers participated in the wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. We all lived under the embargo; our older members belonged to anti-war groups in their youth (and they know that this does not diminish the exclusion and condemnation by the majority of people abroad). We survived the bombing…Us and our clients. That is why we are glad that colleagues from Eastern Europe feel good as our guests at lectures and that some of them have become members of our group in a formal sense.
For many of us, the experience of working online with clients of other nationalities from the countries of our region is very valuable. The realization of these activities is further supported by the absence of significant language barriers.Thus, the search for a Jungian analyst/psychotherapist, or Jung’s ideas, work in favor of emotional reparation in this region for all of us.
The tragic shootings. Unfortunately, we have encountered another painful sadness. Within two days, in May 2023, mass killings took place in one of Belgrade’s central elementary schools, and in a nearby town. The victims of the shootings were children and young people. The absurd destruction of the lives of innocents schocked families, and brought paralyzing misery on all of us…Henry Abramowitch wisely and delicately brought out an online group session with us…Members of the group volunteered to help the families and friends of the victims. Some of the processes that started then are still going on today.
Film and Analytical Psychology Conference. The conference, as the first one organized by the IAAP on this topic, was supposed to take place in May 2020, and had to be postponed three times due to the epidemic. The key words that describe our experience of this event are positive excitement and exchange. So, the Developing Group of the Serbian Analytical Society in cooperation with the Italian Association of Analytical Psychology (AIPA), Mercurius Prize and the Faculty of Dramatica Arts in Belgrade successfully organized the Conference on „Film and Analytical Psychology“ supported by the IAAP Academic Sub-Committee, in June 02-04, 2023.
https://web.sas-srb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/FAP-brochure.pdf
Ivana Radovanović Novaković was a member of the Programm Committe, and, together with Ana Jelić Komlenić participated in the Organisational Team.
Two of our analysts held discussion groups at the Conference:
„La Caduta degli dei“ by Luchino Visconti (The Damned) – The Failure of Individuation by Georgije Vuletić and „Inside Out – The Embodied Imagery of Maya Deren“ by Bojana Stamenković Rudić. The last presentation was adapted for the Summer double issue of „Kinoteka magazine“, 2023. It was a magical meeting with colleagues from 17 countries, as well as with very dear representatives of the domestic film scene. We attended great presentations and were enriched by direct exchange with colleagues from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Friends of our society – professor and internationally renown pianist, Maja Rajković and prominent web designer, Marija Gotovčević have once again volunteered to contribute significantly to the beauty of our gatherings.
The tragedy in the Middle East has brought back deep sadness and concern. Our thoughts are with our colleagues – friends and all those who are suffering in the region, struggling to save themselves and their loved ones, and unable to change anything. We used to have the hope that conflict can turn into an encounter…
We also harbored the hope that the imposition of a universal configuration of the world would not completely rob us of and banish the idea of a „pluriversal“ image of the world. That in the seas and lands we will recognize both what separates and what unites us, so that we can learn to really know the other. And that we will learn to reach at least a little bit of the other in ourselves.
The Syracuse Conferences are approaching. Below us will be the body of Typhon, whom mother goddess Gea generated with Tartarus…with its head a little further north, under the volcano Etna. A reminder of the end of a great and terrible battle, full of mutual suffering. In the splendor of the established order of Zeus – black clouds and periodic murderous lava that Catania has so far persistently resisted with great sacrifices.What does this story have to do with us? I’m just wondering how much we know our collective Typhons in addition to our personal ones, do we have a plan for them, whether we think about all those who are swept away by volcanic lava…
Membership
There are six analysts in the group (IM of IAAP):Jelena Sladojević Matić, Marijana Popović, Bojana Stamenković Rudić, Snežana Manojlović, Georgije Vuletić and Natalia Serebrennikova. Elisabetta Iberni (IM of IAAP) votes in our group, but now lives in the Nederland. Ljubica Zamurović Dunđerović is a provisional analyst.
We have eight members who are routers:Ivana Radovanović Novaković, Zorana Filipović, Jelena Lukić, Marija Tucović, Ana Komlenić, Branislava Piper, Jelena Đurđević and Bojana Đurić Čumić.
Close cooperation with theNational Body for Psychotherapy has continued. At the monthly Presidency meetings of the National Body for Psychotherapy, we represent the smallest and the only actively present group with an analytical approach. We are pleased that our colleagues recognize our specifics and consider our proposals, e.g. longer time limits in regulations about training. In Serbia, some modalities have certified their psychotherapeutic education at the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP). So, colleagues from other countries in our region (no language barrier) could easily carry out the nostrification of their diplomas on the completed training in a psychotherapeutic modality. Although there is in interest in our education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro, we cannot offer the same solution. Namely, the EAP has tightened the requirements for registration of education and it does not allow a lecturer to also be the therapist to the same candidate. It is clear that small groups, such is ours, can never meet this requirement.
The education we offer for Jungian-oriented psychotherapists has consistently followed the rhythm of enrolling a new generation of students every two years. We hope that some of the experienced and talented students will apply to become routers so that we have more young analysts in the near future.
In the next period, we expect several routers to take the exams. Our plans for the future are now focused on the effort to become a Group Member of IAAP.
The Composition of our Boards and our personal contacts can be found on our website. Our group e-mail address is: srpskoanalitickodrustvo@gmail.com . If you have any suggestions, comments or questions, please do not hesitate to write to us.
Sincerely,
Bojana Stamenković Rudić, President of SAS- DG Serbia
