ROOM Gala 2025: Encountering Bravery

ROOM’s 5th annual gala held on July 17, 2025 gave special attention to five individuals who have shown unusual courage in the world and who have boldly contributed to ROOM. Speaking of personal experiences, thinking about the way we interface with each other and confronting ongoing challenges we live with have become increasingly harder to do. The risks feel greater, the stakes higher. And yet, for some, remaining silent is even harder. Since its inception, ROOM has been a home for those voices: a space for people who must speak, who dare to think and feel out loud, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s costly. ROOM’s 2025 Gala celebrates that spirit.

The gala also included a moving and in depth conversation between Lord Alderdice, this year’s Coline Covington award recipient, and Aneta Stojnic, cohost of the podcast Voices from ROOM; Tasala Habibyar’s  bravely personal account of living in a world that punishes female ambition, female education, and female presence; Jyoti Rao’s thoughts about the  psychic and ethical implications of what it means to live in a democratic society today; a tribute to Kara Walker’s art that speaks uncomfortable truths through image, gesture, and form; and Mary Buchinger’s poem, The Ever Restless Voice. 

We were delighted to present Lord John Alderdice with ROOM’s 2025 Coline Covington Award honoring his courage facing divisions, connecting communities and forging peace through analytic thought.

Honoree Video

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2025 Honoree: Lord John Alderdice

John Alderdice trained in medicine, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, applying his skills in teaching, research, and clinical work in the Faculty of Medicine at Queen’s University Belfast, and at the National Health Service Centre for Psychotherapy that he established in Belfast, but he also took these understandings into politics to address the long-standing political violence in Northern Ireland.

From 1987 to 1998, he was the Leader of Northern Ireland’s Alliance Party and one of the negotiators of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement that ended the centuries-long violent political conflict in Ireland. He then became the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly, serving until 2004 when he was appointed one of the four members of the Independent Monitoring Commission, charged by the British and Irish Governments with overseeing security normalization in Ireland. The IMC completed its work in 2011, but in 2015 – after the ‘Fresh Start Agreement’ – he was appointed by the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland to a three-person panel charged with reporting on a strategy for disbanding paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. This report was completed and published in June 2016.

Since 1996 Lord Alderdice has been an active Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British Parliament, and was Convenor/Chair of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2010 to 2014 during the Conservative/Liberal Coalition. In 2020-2021 he was a Deputy to the Lord Speaker, and also a member of the COVID-19 Select Committee of the House. He is currently a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations and Defence and in 2025 he was appointed the UK Trade Envoy to Azerbaijan and five countries in Central Asia.

Always a committed liberal internationalist, he was from 2005 to 2009 the President of Liberal International, the global family of some 100 liberal political parties.  In 2015 he was awarded the Liberal International Prize for Freedom – the only former President of LI to have received this prestigious award – and in the same year he was elected Presidente d’Honneur of Liberal International – a life-time honorific position reserved for some former Presidents. In 2025 he was elected President of the National Liberal Club in London.

Having retired from clinical psychiatry some years ago he has continued to work on conflict issues with various academic positions at the University of Oxford where he is now an Honorary Fellow at Pembroke College, and a Professor of Practice both at the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Peace Security and Justice at Queen’s University, Belfast and at the Global Humanity for Peace Institute of the University of Wales Trinity St David. He has been recognized with many international prizes, honorary doctorates, and fellowships for his academic and practical contributions including the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and in 2024 Honorary Fellowship of the British Psychoanalytical Society.  Lord Alderdice is the Founding Chairman of The Concord Foundation.

Presenters

Mary Buchinger is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her most recent books are “Navigating the Reach” (honors, 2024 Massachusetts Book Award, Salmon Poetry); “The Book of Shores” (2024); and “Virology” (2022), both from Lily Poetry Review Books. Her work appears in AGNI, Plume, Salt Hill, Seneca Review, and elsewhere. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Tasala Habibyar was born in 2002 in Kabul, Afghanistan, and raised in a family that valued education and encouraged a strong commitment to learning. She graduated from high school in 2018 and was admitted to the Faculty of Psychology at Kabul University through the national entrance exam. Alongside her university studies, she developed skills in English and computer literacy, graduating from several English language institutions. She later became an English teacher at one of these institutes, teaching for a short period before the return of the Taliban disrupted educational access for women.

Tasala completed six semesters of her psychology degree before the Taliban banned women from attending universities. Refusing to give up, she applied for and received a scholarship to the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, where she is now in her third year, majoring in public health. In addition to her studies, she volunteers as an English teacher for Afghan girls through an online platform and actively supports Afghan students coping with trauma and displacement. Tasala is passionate about education, mental health, and women’s empowerment. She also enjoys creative writing and finds joy and comfort in playing the piano.

Jyoti M. Rao is a psychoanalyst and faculty member at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. She also holds faculty appointments at the Asian American Center for Psychoanalysis, the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and other institutions. Her publications, which explore the intersection of unconscious processes and social phenomena, have appeared in the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Parapraxis, ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, and elsewhere. Excited about the prospects of a psychoanalysis whose dimensions are still unfolding, Roa is dedicated to furthering a 21st century psychoanalysis. She is in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Francesca Schwartz is a clinical psychologist and practicing psychoanalyst at IPTAR and in private practice. She also has an art practice that focuses on multimedia and collage. The coherence between art and psychoanalysis brings Dr. Schwartz to a natural involvement with ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action, a place of political community and artistic voice. She serves as ROOM‘s art editor.

Participating Hosts

Hattie Myers, PhD, is a Training and Supervising psychoanalyst at IPTAR. She is the editor in chief at ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action.

Isaac Slone is a psychoanalytic candidate at the Contemporary Freudian Society in New York City. He serves on ROOM’s board of directors and is the co-host of the “Voices from Room” podcast.

Aneta Stojnić, PhD, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and co-director of the Child and Adolescent Program at IPTAR. She is an editor at ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action, co-host of the “Voices from ROOM” podcast, and serves on ROOM’s board of directors.

About the Award

The Coline Covington Award honors individuals who have had profound social impact by making visible what has remained in the shadows. Their courage inspires us to see ourselves and experience others in new ways that transcend obstacles and ignite change.  Their work embodies the essence of ROOM’s recognition of the power of relationships to heal and transform our worlds following in the footsteps of Coline Covington. Dr. Covington’s trans-disciplinary work as a psychoanalyst, prolific author, and political activist captures her extraordinary devotion to the possibility of occupying our humanity more fully. The inaugural award was presented to 2024 honoree, Dr. Bandy X. Lee, for her bravery in confronting authoritarianism and social violence.

Who was Coline Covington 

Dr. Coline Covington was a highly accomplished psychoanalyst, former chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council and author of numerous books and articles on political/social psychology. From 2011 to 2013 she was a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and a visiting research fellow in international politics and development at the Open University. In conjunction with the London Metropolitan Police, Dr. Covington set up the first victim-offender mediation project in the country. Dr. Covington was a fellow of the International Dialogue Initiative, a think tank founded for politicians and psychoanalysts to work together to understand the effect of past trauma and large group anxieties on intransigent political conflict.  Her last book, “Whose to Blame: Collective Guilt on Trial” was published shortly before her death. Dr Covington joined ROOM during its first year, contributed several essays, and was a passionate proponent of ROOM’s mission until her untimely death.  

Special thanks to our award sponsors:

 

* If you purchased gala tickets but can’t attend on July 17, don’t worry—you’ll have access to the event recording for two weeks afterward.

*All proceeds support ROOM‘s ongoing work as a free, accessible global forum for analytic action. All donations are tax deductible.