Member Communications
July 1, 2022
Dear ACBSers,
I am honored and humbled to be serving as your President for this upcoming year. I have been a part of this community even before ACBS existed and have served on the ACBS Board for a few years now; first as member-at-large and then as secretary/treasurer. From my new post, I promise to continue to strive for the betterment of this Association and all it stands for. A few words about me so you can get to know me: I am an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Cyprus and I spend my days as a mother and a wife, a researcher, a supervisor, a clinician, a teacher, a writer, an artist and so much more. I usually start my trainings asking participants to introduce themselves by stating three things that characterize them that are in line with what they value in life; that give them meaning. Utilizing this technique, I would say that what characterizes me is all the abovementioned roles I serve and being able to serve them all to the best of my abilities with love, engagement and passion.
During this year, I would like to use this newsletter as a means of communicating with all of you. The membership has requested more communication and transparency and I aim to partly achieve this via interacting in this medium. I am writing this first newsletter just after having returned from our annual conference. What an experience! My emotions are still so intense! It was so great to see old friends and colleagues and meet new ones, to feel a part of this community again… I live on an island and professionally, I have often felt alone, a cast away, on a faraway island. This feeling disappears whenever I am around this group of humans, and instead, I feel a web of connection extending around me from all around the globe. I am so grateful for the technology that allows for these connections to flourish year-round and allows us to stay connected even in the midst of a pandemic.
I am so grateful for the incredible Emily Rodrigues and the rest of our staff, for all they do for ACBS. The months leading up to the conference were really stressful for all the amazing individuals involved in making this in-person conference happen while offering the hybrid version in parallel. I am thankful for this year’s conference chairs, Evelyn Gould and Luisa Cañón , who put together a wonderful program that provided us with so many great choices that it was, once again, difficult to choose what to attend. Thankfully we have the option to watch all that we may have missed digitally over the next couple of months (go to https://contextualscience.org/wc2022 if you are interested in catching the digital aspects of the conference). Special thanks to all the speakers and presenters and especially to Steven Hayes who willingly jumped in to deliver an inspiring plenary when our scheduled speaker experienced travel difficulties and was unable to come.
One of the conference highlights for me was the impromptu town hall meeting we held on harm, conversion therapy and the future. Thank you to the individuals who put it together and to Matthew Skinta for leading it. It was such a moving experience to hear the different stories and views of individuals. It personally shook me to the core and energized me to want to do better for our science and the humans inhabiting this planet. And this meeting was followed by Miranda Morris’ presidential plenary highlighting some of how we connect and love and offer within this Association. Needless to say, I ran out of tissues on that day at the conference! Thank you, Miranda, for your service and for spotlighting so many of our amazing members, the service they provide to their communities and beyond, and demonstrating how much can be achieved with love and connection. I am honored to be serving next to you and learning from your leadership. Another conference highlight for me was the ACBS Board meeting. This was my first meeting stepping into the presidency role and though terrifying, I chose to start us off with a prosocial approach exercise of connecting with all we care about as a Board and want to achieve in the upcoming year of our service. Thank you to all the Board members for your openness, vulnerability and passions. It gave me so much hope to hear all of your views and thoughts and what we can achieve together. Our membership will be hearing and seeing more of this in action as time passes (here is a picture of the board during our meeting).
I have so many more reflections related to the conference and the Association and I will continue to communicate them and unfold them with each newsletter this year. I am already excited to welcome you next year to my home country of Cyprus for our annual conference. I hope individuals who were not able to make it this year, will be able to attend next year. I personally promise that it will be as inclusive as possible with tons of opportunities for networking, connecting, learning, experiencing, sharing, eating (we do have some of the best food on the planet) and of course loving- Cyprus is the island of love and beauty after all! Until then, let’s stay safe and connected.
Have a great summer everyone and I look forward to continuing our discussions and communication.
Sincerely,
Maria Karekla, ACBS Board President