The Not-Me Speaker Series Opening Event April 17th

Hosted by The Harry Stack Sullivan Society and the Antiracism Action Working Group

Sexuality as Bedrock to Decolonial Psychoanalysis: Reading Freud through Fanon amidst Inequality and Genocide (and why sex is on your patient’s mind too)

Presented by DANIEL JOSÉ GAZTAMBIDE, PsyD, assistant professor of psychology at Queens College and a faculty member in the Department of Critical Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center.

FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2026, 7:00-9:00pm/Eastern

Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York, NY 10023 and via live stream online

ABOUT THE PRESENTATION

Freud’s conceptualization of sexuality has become outdated and irrelevant in contemporary psychoanalysis — or so they say. Despite reports of Freud’s “death,” the relevance of his ideas return again and again not only in the clinic but in how we understand our contemporary malaise, from the complexity of our interpersonal relationships to the inequality, war, and genocide we witness in our news feeds and in our streets. Drawing on a decolonial lens informed by the work of Frantz Fanon, this presentation re-reads Freud to better understand the centrality of sexuality in systems of oppression, from the militarized violence faced by people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ people domestically, to the war and genocide visited upon racialized peoples globally. Given Fanon’s work not just as a revolutionary but a practicing psychoanalytic clinician, this theory of sexuality will be brought back to the intimacy of the consulting room to reveal the relevance of thinking about sexuality in routine clinical practice. Drawing on contemporary thinkers like Avgi Saketopoulou and Dominique Scarfone, decolonial feminists like Maria Lugones and Ochy Curiel, it will be shown that although interpersonal dynamics and societal oppression are “not all about sex,” they all have a “sexual lining.” Central to this sexual lining is the way constructions of threat and vulnerability are intimately bound up with pleasure and pain, both fearing and desiring the other—and the other’s gratuitous suffering and death. Clinical illustrations will be used to make the theoretical come alive in the realities of day-to-day practice.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Daniel José Gaztambide, PsyD, is assistant professor of psychology at Queens College, where he is the director of the Frantz Fanon Lab for Decolonial Psychology, and a faculty member in the Department of Critical Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of the books, A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology, and the recent Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon’s Couch, which received a 2024 Gradiva Award for Best Book. He is in analytic training at the NYU Post-Doctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and is the recipient of multiple fellowships and awards including a Mellon Foundation Fellowship, a Miranda Family Fellowship, and the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education’s Outstanding Psychoanalytic Educator Award. Lastly, he is the recipient of a presidential citation for his service as part of the American Psychological Association’s Taskforce on Strategies for the Elimination of Racism, Discrimination, and Hate.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Not-Me Speaker Series is a new offering from the Institute’s psychoanalytic training program candidates who make up the Harry Stack Sullivan Society, who hope to foster constructive dialogues around difficult and potentially polarizing topics relevant to the contemporary practice of psychoanalysis. The series was conceived as a direct response to the bevy of candidates, past and present, who have been eagerly searching for an arena in which to address the challenges and diverse community needs of their patients.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Harry Stack Sullivan Society.