Making Room for Change: A Special Event with Lord John Alderdice
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May 3, 2026
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
***This meeting is virtual and will be held on ZOOM.***
MAKING ROOM FOR CHANGE
A Special Event with Lord John Alderdice
Sunday, May 3rd, 2026
12:00 – 2:00 PM (EST)
Presenters: Lord John Alderdice, FRCP, Karim Dajani, PsyD & Eyal Rozmarin, PhD
Lord John Alderdice, whose interests include religious fundamentalism, political violence and the problems of indigenous peoples, will describe how a psychoanalytic perspective can catalyze tangible change and foster dialogue across divides. He will discuss the conditions necessary for change, as illustrated in ROOM’s video Speaking of Home: An Intimate Exchange between Israel and Palestine, featuring Drs. Eyal Rozmarin and Karim Dajani. A panel discussion will follow in which Dr. Rozmarin, Dr. Dajani, and Lord Alderdice consider the role psychoanalysis can play in addressing intractable conflicts and divides inside our analytic institutions and in the outside world. The video will be distributed in advance to all registrants.
2 Contact Hours. 2 CME/CE credits will be offered. See details below.
General Admission: $50
Student Admission: $35
Free Admission for current NYPSI members/students and HFI Candidates
Please note registration closes at 2 PM on Friday, May 1st
THIS MEETING IS VIRTUAL; READ INSTRUCTIONS BELOW:
***Registration in Zoom Before the Meeting is Required to Attend***
After you have completed registering for the event, please look out for a confirmation email with more details on how to receive your Zoom Link.
Evaluation Survey and CME/CE documentation will be emailed after the event.
Please make sure you type your email correctly when you register! Contact with questions.
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- Alderdice, L., J., (2021). Conflict, complexity, and cooperation. New England Journal of Public Policy, 33(1), Article 9. https://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol33/iss1/9
- Dajani, K. G. (2018) Cultural dislocation and ego functions: some considerations in the analysis of bi-cultural patients. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 15(1), 16-28. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1562
- Rozmarin, E. (2024). Belonging and its discontents. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 34(3), 250–263. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2024.2346516
- Alderdice, Lord John (2023) Beyond Reason, Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action. https://analytic-room.com/essays/beyond-reason-by-john-alderdice/
- Dajani, Karim (2023) Oedipus in Arabia, Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action. https://analytic-room.com/essays/oedipus-in-arabia-by-karim-dajani/
- G Pertegato, From Psychoanalysis to Group Analysis: The Pioneering Work of Trigant Burrows. Routledge 2013.
Professor, the Lord John Alderdice FRCPsych trained in medicine, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, undertaking teaching, research, and clinical work at Queen’s University Belfast, and in the NHS Centre for Psychotherapy that he established in Belfast. Increasingly he also worked to address the long-standing political violence in Northern Ireland and beyond. From 1987 to 1998, Lord Alderdice was the Leader of Northern Ireland’s Alliance Party and one of the negotiators of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement that ended the centuries-long violent political conflict in Ireland. He then became the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly, serving until 2004 when he was appointed one of the four members of the Independent Monitoring Commission, charged by the British and Irish Governments with overseeing security normalization in Ireland. The IMC completed its work in 2011. In 2015 – after the ‘Fresh Start Agreement’ – he was appointed by the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland to a three-person panel charged with reporting on a strategy for disbanding paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. This report was completed and published in June 2016.
Since 1996 Lord Alderdice has been an active Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British Parliament and was Convenor/Chair of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2010 to 2014 during the Conservative/Liberal Coalition. In 2020-2021 he was a Deputy to the Lord Speaker, and a member of the COVID-19 Select Committee of the House. He is currently a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations and Defence and, since January 2025, the UK Trade Envoy to Azerbaijan and Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan). In 2015, Lord Alderdice was awarded the Liberal International Prize for Freedom – the only former President of LI to have received this prestigious award – and, in the same year, he was elected a Presidente d’Honneur of Liberal International. He remains an active member of the governing Bureau of LI. In 2025 he was elected President of the National Liberal Club in London – the home of Liberal International. Having retired from clinical psychiatry some years ago he has continued to work on conflict issues especially through academic positions at the University of Oxford where he is a Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College and an Honorary Fellow at Pembroke College. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, and a Professor of Practice both at the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University, Belfast and at the Global Humanity for Peace Institute of the University of Wales Trinity St David. He has been recognized with many international prizes, honorary doctorates, and fellowships for his academic and practical contributions including the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and, in 2024, Honorary Fellowship of the British Psychoanalytical Society.
Karim Dajani, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and training and supervising psychoanalyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis specializing in cultural dislocation and displacement. He sits on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies and his recent work includes a special issue on the social unconscious and an upcoming chapter on race and ethnicity in contemporary psychoanalytic theories.
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Eyal Rozmarin, PhD is a psychoanalyst and writer. He was born in Israel-Palestine and now lives in New York. He writes at the intersection of the psychological and the social, about the relations between subjects and collectives, and about the drive to belong. Dr. Rozmarin is Co-Editor of the book series Third Way Psychoanalysis and on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. He teaches at various venues, and maintains a psychoanalytic practice in New York.
Lois Oppenheim, PhD
Chair, NYPSI Program Committee
Hattie Myers, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Educational Objectives: Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
- Describe how unconscious process underlies political-cultural realities and individual misunderstandings.
- Explain the role played by the unconscious to cause political violence, unrest, and polarization.
- List 3 conditions necessary for intractable conflicts to be addressed productively.
Psychologists
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY – 0073.
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education programs for psychologists. New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content. DISCLOSURE: None of the planners and presenters of this CE program has any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
Social Workers
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW – 0317.
Training, Treatment & Outreach