This new PCCA series explores the psychological, systemic and societal dynamics of othering and the hatred of diversity through three online experiential conferences.

Taken as a whole, the series offers an evolving exploration of how responses to the Other are enacted and internalized — within ourselves, our groups, and our societies — and how these broader patterns take shape through particular historical, political, and emotional contexts.

While thematically related, each conference focuses on a different and specific expression or facet of these dynamics — antisemitism, attitudes toward migration, and Islamophobia — inviting the exploration of distinct aspects of otherness and exclusion as they manifest in today’s world.

You may choose to join one, two, or all three parts of the series. While each conference stands on its own, participating in the full series offers a cumulative opportunity to explore the extent to which different forms of othering — while contextually distinct — reveal shared psychological, systemic and societal patterns.

All three conferences are built on the same experiential learning model, drawn from the Tavistock Group Relations tradition — where insight arises through actively experiencing and reflecting on, the dynamics unfolding in the “here and now.” 

The “here and now” experiential model offers a unique way to explore, learn, and generate insight — not through lectures or theory, but through direct engagement with the dynamics unfolding within the group.

Over several days, a temporary learning organisation or community is created. The thoughts, roles, emotions, and interactions that emerge between participants — in real time — become the raw material for reflection, inquiry and understanding.

This process enables participants to discover how the burdens of the past and the assumptions that govern our behavior, may continue to live within us — and to consider what it might take to move toward a different and more hopeful future.

We believe that individual movement can foster collective movement, and that PCCA’s experiential conferences continue to serve this aim.

The temporary learning organisation is designed and managed by a team of experienced consultants, who support the learning process, while also being partners in learning. A different team will work with each conference.

Participants engage in a variety of structured events — including large groups, small groups, here-and-now events, and review sessions — each offering a different opportunity to reflect, take up roles, and encounter the emotional and systemic dynamics of group and community life around the theme of the conference.

Together, these elements form the framework through which learning becomes possible.

A vital part of the learning process is considering how insights from the conference can be applied in one’s personal, professional, social, and political life.

PCCA has been engaged in this kind of work for many years.

It grew out of the recognition that the legacy of the Holocaust continued to constrain the capacity of a group of German and Israeli psychoanalysts to relate to and work with one another.

In response, the first experiential “Nazareth” Conferences were created — based on the Group Relations model developed at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London, which integrates psychoanalytic and systems approaches.

This model was specially adapted to provide a setting in which ordinarily disowned experiences relating to the Holocaust could be discovered, voiced, and comprehended.

While PCCA’s roots lie in the Holocaust and its transgenerational impact, its work has since expanded to include different groups and other complex societal challenges, traumas and tensions — including the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the changing identity of Europe, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, growing threats to democracy around the world, and the human factor in the self-imposed atrocity of climate change.

Through its experiential “learning from experience” conferences, PCCA offers spaces where individuals and groups can reflect on how collective trauma and societal pressures live within and between us — and how acknowledging these forces may open the possibility of transformation, responsibility, and hope.

The 2025-2026 series of conferences is the next step in this continuing work.

This series of conferences is open to anyone interested in exploring the internal and external dynamics that shape how we relate to difference, diversity, othering and exclusion.

You may be concerned about rising racism, polarization, and violence. You may find that recent events have stirred emotional responses or surfaced unfamiliar memories. Or you may simply be curious to understand more deeply how societal processes affect you, your communities, and the organisations and systems in which you are involved.

No previous experience with PCCA or Group Relations is needed — only curiosity, a willingness to learn from lived experience, and an interest in engaging with the dynamics that unfold between self, other, and the wider community – whether in a group, organisation or society.

Participants in PCCA conferences have included psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, consultants, coaches, educators, executives in the private and public sectors, social and environmental scientists, activists, and others. Some come from professional or academic contexts; others are engaged citizens drawn by the opportunity to reflect, inquire, and engage more deeply with the world around and within them.

Registration implies a commitment to participate throughout the conference.