2023 is passing away. The New Year is coming. In IOAF already, after the General Assembly and the Elections, we have a new Board of Directors. The review of the three-year term of the outgoing Board of Directors was very positive. The work of IOAF continues creative with rich processes in an external environment affected by increasing difficulties, in which it is involved and tries to be involved. 2023 has had many disasters for all humanity. Natural and human, tragic accidents, fires and floods, wars ongoing and new, diseases. But the Group can always provide a framework for coping. It contributes both to everyday life and as a therapeutic framework, which since antiquity “…long before the human sciences attempted to understand the reasons …has had an influence on the mental life of its members”, as Lena Telchiani presents us in her very interesting presentation “The group as a framework for the treatment of mental illness in antiquity and today”. This framework also includes the theoretical concept of the matrix, which since its conception by the father of Group Analysis S.H Foulkes until today continues to occupy and elaborate. Michael Skaltsas in his excellent paper “The Matrix in Group Analysis . However, new approaches often find the old, the ambivalence to accept them, as an opponent, and Jason Maratos in his paper “Ambivalence about evidence and evidence for ambivalence” does us the honour of sharing his thoughts with us and documenting that open-mindedness is “… not only someone who is ready to change on the basis of new evidence, but someone who is himself actively seeking evidence to substantiate or change his views.” Evil, wars, the extermination of people by people, continues to exist. With his excellent introduction, Nikos Tzavaras “Evil in Psychoanalysis” honors us and succeeds in showing us a valuable path. Not to close ourselves in a personal cocoon as something that happens elsewhere even though Evil is deafeningly exploding right next to us. To keep looking for ways to understand and deal with it. Creation, poetry can always be a balm, but it can also open up paths of understanding, like Tasos Livaditis ‘ wonderful poem All Lost … standing amidst ashes of destruction, marches of war, tears, celebrating the beauty of nature and life, giving hope and continuity to history. Recently in history Belgrade experienced war and division. But it became a meeting point for group analysts at the^18th GASI Conference on “When Divided Worlds Meet”, in which IOAF participated and Alexandra Markovic presents it in a very vivid way. All the actions and work of IOAF continues.

Wishes for Peace on Earth!