I am writing as I return from our 41st Annual Conference in Frisco, Texas, which, as usual, was a significant and inspiring event. I had the honor, as part of the Opening of the Conference, to remember those lost to us in the last year: Tally Tripp, Willa Wertheimer, Garrett Deckel and Bennett Braun. Bennett “Buddy” Braun was a founder of ISSTD, and organized the first conference in 1984. There was a wonderful opening Plenary given by Michael Salter and Heather Hall that set the tone of this conference, on dignity affirming and shame sensitive practice and treatment. I was exposed to issues that were unknown to me, such as the scope of reproductive trauma, purity culture, expanded concepts of ego state therapy and EMDR. The problem, as usual, is that I could not be in all the great presentations at once; I had to make the forced choices of the Annual Conference. So many places I wanted to be, so little time. But the need for forced choices speaks to the broad range of great presentations available at the conference and the significance of our conferences. The last two in-person conferences have felt special to me as an antidote to the isolation brought about by COVID. I had the feeling of both calm and energy because of being with everyone in-person, old friends, new acquaintances.
Peter A. Maves, President