Lisbon, 2025. The 54th IPA Conference, Psychoanalysis: an anchor in chaotic times, gathers at the Centro Cultural de Belem. Across the street from the conference venue, the Monument of Discoveries is revealed in its grandiose presence.
Deadness and Aliveness
Critica is an inclusive, transdisciplinary, and creative psychoanalytic publishing platform – a space for social, political and critical thinking.
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CRITICA MAGAZINE
Editorial Notes
Editorial Notes
Some Reflections on Aliveness and Deadness
My reflections on the topic of Aliveness and Deadness began a few months ago when I was invited by Monica Bomba from the Milan Psychoanalytic Institute to participate along with Luisa Marino in a Congress on the work of Winnicott and Bion.
Presidents Remarks
The Conundrum of Hope and Despair
In this issue’s theme—Deadness and Aliveness–it caught my attention that “deadness” comes first. This placement led to thoughts of Sabina Spielrein’s 1912 essay, Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being, in which she argued that destruction and creativity/vitality are not merely contradictory but, in fact, interdependent.
Art
Art
Choreography of Exile
Choreography of Exile, Oil paint on wood panel, 24in x 48in, 2025 As a multimedia artist, curator, and e
Art
Exit 111
Installation, Vintage wingback armchair, found and collected objects, 33″W x 32″D x 42″H, 2025
Poetry
Forrest Floor
When the fire pressed close to our home, so close that I could see how amber bleached red, narcotic in its beauty, I thought about the roof and the trees, all the things that would feed the flames, the advice we had ignored.
Art
California Autumn Dreaming
California Autumn Dreaming, Edition: “Autumn”, Oils on linen panel, 24in x 28in, 2025
PINC Corner
Fragments of Becoming: Time as a Medium of the Psyche
This paper reframes psychoanalysis through the lens of temporality, proposing that the psyche is not simply shaped by drives or defenses, but by the dislocations and symbolic demands of time itself.
Art
Art
Poetry
Surviving Social Death
Our bodies were turned into statues, an act of calcification disguised as care. Carving out the space we were allowed.
Art
Essay
Aliveness and Deadness in Murder and Psychosis
The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the California Department of State Hospitals or the California Health and Human Services Agency, or any federal, state, county government entity, university, or private affiliation.
Art
Essay
Creativity Spawning From Loss
Ok, good morning to myself and to Kathy and to the world. I feel like I’m having an inkling of waking up. It’s been very obscure and my vision of myself has been very shadowed by this mysterious arrival of a brain block, if that’s the most direct way of putting it.
Poetry
Art
Memorial to Icarus
The sea in the photo is reputed to be site where Icarus drowned when his wax wings-designed by his father- melted when he flew too close to the sun.
Poetry
Essay
Haunted by Innovation: Technology, Psychoanalysis, and Growing Up in Palo Alto
Recently, I visited my hometown of Palo Alto, California. Sitting in the gentle sunshine outside Philz Coffee, watching well-heeled Stanford students studying for their classes, the city felt like a utopia.
Poetry
Widow Soliloquy
Oh, young maid! Your life (and laying) ahead of you, the tingle of edges, just brushing near. Ever-encirclement of electrified perfume.
Essay
The Dead: A Brief Existential and Psychoanalytic Essay
It is from a novella by James Joyce, written in 1906-1907, that I want to reflect first on the meaning of Deadness and Aliveness.
Art
From the Depths of Deadness to a Sense of Aliveness
Encaustic Paint on Wood Panel, 30″x 40″, 9/2025
Poetry
Art
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Critica is an inclusive and transdisciplinary publishing platform that focuses on offering a reflective and aesthetic space to consider social and cultural issues through a psychoanalytic and creative lens. It is also a forum for ideas at the intersection of psychoanalysis, creativity, philosophy, and the social sciences.
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