Call for Papers
Clio’s Psyche — Fall 2026 Issue
Reflections on How Psychoanalysis & Other Depth Therapies Changed Your Life
Due Date: September 1, 2026
Invitation to write a response to a symposium paper related to this Call for Papers:
Dear Colleagues,
You are invited to respond to the symposium paper by Paul Elovitz related to this Call for Papers, which can be found at the following link : A Psychoanalyst’s Journey: How Psychoanalysis Freed Me from the Prison of My Childhood (by Paul Elovitz)
Feel free to download this paper from the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/az48o5soaoiplcvg3a8wb/Elovitz-Symposium-paper-How-Psychoanalysis-Freed-Me-from-the-Prison-of-My-Childhood-6-19-26.pdf?rlkey=zcpevdndqizxqhyifm2znn6xq&dl=1
Your responses are due: September 1st, 2026
Length: 1,500-2,500 words (including the abstract, keywords, short bio).
Invitation to write on the topic of this Call for Papers (unrelated to the symposium paper):
Psychoanalysis has long offered a unique space to explore the interplay between personal history, unconscious meaning, and the shaping of identity. For psychohistorians, clinicians, scholars, and reflective individuals alike, the analytic process often becomes not only a method for understanding others, but a transformative lens through which to reinterpret one’s own life.
This special issue invites contributors to reflect on how psychoanalysis – or psychoanalytic ways of thinking – has illuminated, reframed, or freed aspects of their personal, professional, or intellectual lives. We welcome diverse perspectives: clinical, historical, autobiographical, theoretical, creative, experiential, and interdisciplinary.
Reflection need not be confessional. Rather, we offer a space for thoughtful exploration, grounded in the lived experience of inner change and expanding consciousness.
Importantly, psychoanalysis is not only a place of insight and comfort. As writers like George Atwood and, earlier, Sándor Ferenczi emphasized, genuine analytic work inevitably involves rupture, conflict, and psychic “blood” – moments when the analyst is experienced as repeating old injuries before repair becomes possible. In Ferenczi’s evocative phrasing (1932), the analyst must at times “repeat with his own hands the act of murder previously perpetrated,” yet without denying responsibility. These difficult passages are often where transformation takes root. Neurobiologically, too, growth emerges as the mind encounters and works through challenges; without such hurdles, resilience cannot develop. Contributors may wish to explore how analytic ruptures, disappointments, losses, and repairs shaped the course or meaning of their analysis.
Within recent Psychohistory Forum meetings, contributors have already begun exploring such themes. For example, Paul H. Elovitz’s presentation “My Life in Psychohistory, Part II: How Psychoanalysis Freed Me from the Prison of My Childhood” (May 3, 2025) offered one illustration of how analytic work can transform personal narrative. It is cited simply as an example – not a model – for the openness we hope to foster.
Possible Themes
Submissions may address, but are not limited to:
- How psychoanalysis reshaped your understanding of childhood, memory, trauma, desire, or relational patterns
- Ways analytic insight opened new pathways for research, creativity, teaching, clinical work, or meaning-making
- How analytic work fostered resilience, deeper self-understanding, or the capacity to help others
- The convergence of psychoanalytic insight with identity, culture, gender, history, or social experience
- What you learned from dreams, enactments, transference, or resistance
- How working with patients transformed your thinking and sense of self
- Lessons found in mistakes, blind spots, parapraxes, and breakthroughs
- The loss or threatened loss of one’s analyst – through illness, retirement, boundary rupture, or death – and its psychological impact
- How analytic endings, separations, or re-beginnings shaped your development
- Why psychoanalysis sometimes heals – and sometimes fails
- Creative reflections or analyses of literature, film, or media connected to psychoanalysis
We welcome both personal reflections and case-based or scholarly work, provided the writing remains clear, vivid, and accessible.
Length and Submission Guidelines
Articles: 300–2,500 words
Each submission should include:
- Title
- Author name + affiliation
- 50-word abstract
- 7–10 keywords
- Brief biography (3–4 sentences, ending with your email address)
- Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx)
Deadline: September 1, 2026
Submit via form below:
Symposium Option:
We will consider one outstanding 3,500-word symposium article if received by January 31, 2026, allowing time for commentators to respond.
Editorial Style
Clio’s Psyche publishes thought-provoking, clearly written work that draws on psychoanalytic and psychological insight without technical jargon or unnecessary references. Citations are minimal and used primarily for direct quotations. Submissions deemed suitable undergo double-blind peer review.
Please do not revise your article after submission unless editors request changes.
About the Journal
Clio’s Psyche has completed 31 years of publication and is sponsored by the Psychohistory Forum, a 43-year-old interdisciplinary community of academics, clinicians, scholars, and laypeople engaged in psychohistorical inquiry.
For archives and guidelines:
For membership or inquiries, use the web portal: https://psychohistoryforum.com/membership/ or contact: cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com
Sincerely,
Paul H. Elovitz, PhD, historian, research psychoanalyst, online professor, editor-in-chief of Clio’s Psyche, founder and director of the Psychohistory Forum, and author of The Making of Psychohistory: Origins, Controversies, and Pioneering Contributors (Routledge, 2018)
E-mail: cliospsycheeditor@gmail.com
Inna Rozentsvit, MD, PhD, MBA, MSciEd, associate editor of Clio’s Psyche and associate director of the Psychohistory Forum, neurologist, neurodiversity & neurorehabilitation specialist, psychoanalyst, and psychohistorian
E-mail: innarozentsvit@gmail.com