For our Eleventh Symposium, the Alliance was very pleased and honoured to be joined by the Serbian NAO and our colleagues Professor Nevena Calovska and Milena Marković, who helped to jointly host and fund the Symposium. This was an excellent collaboration for us and, we hope, for their organisation as well.

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The theme of the Eleventh Symposium was “Preserving Humanness in Spite of the Catastrophe of War.” This theme was chosen with great care to reflect the reality of the terrible full-scale war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, and the toll it continues to take on Ukrainian psychotherapists as they sustain themselves and their work. Preserving humanness in their lives and in their professional practice remains a monumental challenge. We hope that this theme, and the Eleventh Symposium as a whole, brought support, renewed a sense of hope, and helped Ukrainian psychotherapists to preserve their humanness — such an essential quality in these times.

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We were honoured to have excellent speakers at the Eleventh Symposium. We also held our third Large Therapy Group, which gave all participants of the Symposium an opportunity, and a containing space, in which to articulate their experience of having their humanness challenged by the catastrophe of war, and to share the ways in which they seek to preserve their humanness.

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We are deeply grateful to everyone who joined us and contributed to the Symposium.