William Alanson White Institute

Understanding the Embodiment of Narrative in the Therapeutic Exchange
2025-09-27 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
THE EMBODIMENT SERIES of 2025-2026
First Embodiment event of the New Season

Understanding the Embodiment of Narrative in the Therapeutic Exchange
Jack Foehl, PhD, Mark Freeman, PhD, Daniel Goldin, MFT, PsyD and Lynn Preston, MA, MS, LP
with
Moderators Doris Brothers, PhD and Jon Sletvold, PsyD
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27th
Online from 12 Noon – 2:00PM/Eastern
This series is presented in collaboration with The Wilhelm Reich Center for the Study of Embodiment

ABOUT THIS EVENT
Can the narratives that organize psychoanalytic exchanges be conducted without words? The answer according to the presenters in this conversation is a resounding “yes!” They offer different perspectives on how both verbal and nonverbal communication in psychoanalysis takes narrative form.
Together they demonstrate the crucial importance of understanding the embodiment of narratives in therapeutic relationships.

COSTS
Professionals $50
Candidates and Students $30

CE CREDIT INFORMATON
2 CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS ARE AVAILABLE. Instructions about how to obtain available CEs are sent out to registrants in the entry link email, prior to the event. If you miss that letter (for late sign-ups), please request CE instructions after the event.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ENTRY LINKS FOR ONLINE EVENTS
NOTE TO ALL REGISTRANTS FOR ONLINE EVENTS: Entry links for Zoom events are sent in two ways: (1) the entry link is sent on the Registration payment receipt delivered to your email INBOX; and (2) links are sent out to Registrants 1-3 days prior to the scheduled event date. If you register just prior to the event’s start, you will only receive the link on the payment receipt.
For those who do not see a link letter in their Inbox, check Trash and Spam files. If you do not find your link-letter by the business day prior to the event, you may email: e.rodman@wawhite.org
We will do whatever we can to get your link to you, however the Institute is not responsible for your email provider’s security settings. There are no refunds for paid events if a link was sent to you.
For general CE Credit information, click here

THE SPEAKERS
Jack Foehl, PhD
is Past President of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society & Institute, where he is Training and Supervising Analyst and is Supervisor and faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is Clinical Associate Professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and is Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Foehl is Joint Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and is a past editorial board member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. His recent publications include, Playing with Winnicott: Squiggling Through Therapeutic Consultations and The Slap: Playing with Reality in Discussing Trauma in 2022, and Lived Depth: A Phenomenology of Psychoanalytic Process and Identity in 2020. He integrates Merleau-Ponty’s work on the lived body into a framework for teaching and experiencing psychoanalytic process.

Mark Freeman, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross, is currently Research Professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development as well as Senior Fellow at the Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics at Boston College. Author of numerous works, including Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative; Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward; The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self; Do I Look at You with Love? Reimagining the Story of Dementia, and most recently, Toward the Psychological Humanities: A Modest Manifesto for the Future of Psychology. He also serves as Editor for the Oxford University Press series, Explorations in Narrative Psychology.
Dr. Freeman says about his presentation for this event: For many of us, recent history has brought in tow a barrage of disturbing, mystifying, and at times positively horrifying events and experiences. All of these are “metabolized” in some way. But how? More specifically, how might we begin to tell the story of the ways in which the state of the world has entered into our own embodied being? In addressing these questions, I will discuss the movement from past to present as well as from present to past. How can we begin to understand how a given event–the morning after the election of Donald Trump, say, is carried into the future? And how can we begin to understand how a given experience in the present–for instance a bout of despairing malaise–may have originated? In short: How does one determine what sorts of stories are to be told, and what sorts of clues can the body provide?

Daniel Goldin, MFT, PsyD
serves as editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. He has written numerous articles for Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Psychoanalysis: Self and context and Psychoanalytic Inquiry. His book Toward a Pragmatic Psychoanalysis: Bringing Nature, Nurture and Culture Together again will be published by Routledge this year. He and Daniel Posner create and host the popular podcast “The Conversation,” which confronts important issues of the day in a psychoanalytic vein.
For Dr. Goldin’s presentation, he says: I will be describing two kinds of empathy, one which is immediate and obviously embodied, which I call perception empathy, and another which expands from the first to wrap an intimate story around a patient’s situation, which I am calling extended empathy. Empathy so conceived provides a long tether. The stories we put together with our patients sometimes reach into infancy, sometimes into contemporary culture and politics, but they inevitably return to the body, to the feelings that started the excursion. Stories describe how we feel and change how we feel at the same time. It will be a pleasure to think together about this ordinary (but also extraordinary) aspect of our work.

Lynn Preston, MA, MS, LP
is a New York City-based relational psychoanalyst and supervisor. She is the founding director of the Community Empowerment Project and Help for Helpers, an online covid-inspired international support group for therapists. She has written on the subjects of implicit experience and the use of the analyst’s subjectivity. She has a special interest in applying self-psychological principles to groups and communities.

ABOUT THE MODERATORS/CO-DIRECTORS OF THE WILHELM REICH CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EMBODIMENT
Doris Brothers, PhD, is a co-founder and faculty member of the Training and Research in Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation (TRISP). She was co-editor with Roger Frie of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context from 2015-2019 and is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. She serves on the council of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IAPSP). Doris has published many journal articles and book chapters as well as four books. Her latest book, written with Jon Sletvold is entitled A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: TALKING BODIES. Her earlier books are: Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis (2008), Falling Backwards: An Exploration of Trust and Self-Experience (1995), and with Richard Ulman, The Shattered Self: A Psychoanalytic Study of Trauma (1988). She has presented her work internationally and leads supervision/study groups with Jon Sletvold. She sees patients in private practice in New York and Oslo.

Jon Sletvold, PsyD, is founding board director and faculty member of the Norwegian Character Analytic Institute.He has written articles and book chapters on embodiment in psychoanalytic theory, practice, and training. He is the editor of four books and the author of The Embodied Analyst: From Freud and Reich to Relationality, which won the Gradiva Award in 2015. In 2019 he wrote From Muscular Armor to Bodies in Dialogue with Per Harbitz. His latest book, written with Doris Brothers is A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: TALKING BODIES. Dr. Sletvold has presented his work internationally and co-leads online supervision/study groups on embodiment in Europe, North America and China with Doris Brothers. He practices in Oslo and New York.

ABOUT THE WILHELM REICH CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EMBODIMENT
Inspired by the pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich and encouraged by the recent surge of interest in embodiment among clinicians, co-Directors Drs. Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold have founded the Center. With it, they are introducing an online forum for dialogues about the ways in which embodiment affects the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
A wide range of approaches to embodiment have emerged in the last two decades that have led them to believe that a “turn toward embodiment” is underway. In the interest of furthering this turn they are offering a format that differs from the usual at psychoanalytic meetings. Rather than featuring a paper presenting a specific theorist or clinician followed by discussions, they intend that each event will center around a specific topic. Speakers from around the world, each of whom employs a different perspective on embodiment, will be invited to participate in a roundtable conversation of the topic. Afterward, online participants will be encouraged to join the conversation.
Learn more about The Wilhelm Reich Center for the Study of Embodiment

LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR THIS EVENT:
1. By the end of this presentation attendees will be able to evaluate the
advantages of using body-based language rather than concept-based
language for psychoanalysis.
2. By the end of this presentation attendees will be able to discuss
communication that takes place in the silences between the words.

LGBTQ Study Group - NICOLAS EVZONAS, PhD
2025-10-01 20:30 - 22:00
NICOLAS EVZONAS, PhD
Refracted Time, Gender, and the Analyst’s Trans Becomings
Wednesday, October 1 2025
8:30 – 10:00 PM (EST)
Description: This presentation articulates the psychoanalytic concept of shattered temporality with gender. According to Freud, the process of subject formation is the outcome of multiple post-hoc elucidations of one’s own experience in the framework of an intrapsychic logic. By contrast, Jean Laplanche emphasizes the intersubjective dimension of afterwardsness, which finds its ultimate raison d’être in the transference, where the analysand discovers new meanings of his or her experience at different and deferred times thanks to the analyst’s meaningful interpretations, thus promoting a novel subjectivizing process. Based on the Laplanchian framework and interdisciplinary thinking, the author moves away from the traditional psychoanalytic conception of gender as a solipsistic construction and fixed identity. He instead argues that gender constitutes an intersubjective process and a “narrative identity” (Ricoeur) that is endlessly rewritten under the sway of afterwardsness and in constant relation to the other(s) (i.e., family, peers, society, culture). Accordingly, he proposes to establish transness as the epistemological paradigm of psychoanalytic temporality and becomingness. The speaker further understands the violent reactions of certain analysts towards trans analysands as a revival of the analyst’s own traumatic narrative of gender, infantile sexuality, and primary terrors of formlessness. Finally, he illustrates how the working-through of the analyst’s countertransference agitations is likely to transform not only the analysand but also the analyst, who undergoes multiple transitions, detransitions, and retransitions within the inter-psychic, inter-temporal, and inter-processual space of the analytic treatment.

Nicolas Evzonas (PhD in Literature and PhD in Psychopathology and Psychoanalysis) is a Greek Cypriot Paris-based therapist in private practice. He is a candidate to the French Psychoanalytical Association (APF, IPA) and Associate Professor with tenure in Clinical Psychology at the University of Paris. Nicolas has written numerous papers on clinical and applied psychoanalysis published in Greek, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan peer-reviewed journals, as well as essays on films, theatre, and literature. He is the author of the French book Devenirs trans de l’analyste [Trans Becomings of the Analyst], which is currently being translated in four European languages. He is also co-editor of the Psychoanalytic Inquiry issue on “Sexualities, Gender, Class, and Race: A Psychoanalytic View from France” (2020) and editor of a double special issue of The Psychoanalytic Review on “Trans* Becomings and Countertransference” (2021 & 2022). His latest projects are a guest-edited French-based issue for Studies in Gender and Sexuality (2023) on perversion and a forthcoming edited volume on Trauma and Sexuality (2026), which gathers together psychoanalytic clinicians and scholars from all over the world.

on Zoom only, RSVP below
https://wawi.wufoo.com/forms/s1v361i7149pvzz/

For inquiries regarding The LGBTQ Study Group please contact
Esin Egit, PhD LP at e.egit@wawhite.org

EBONI BOOTH, Theatre, Writing and Lived Experience
2025-10-03 19:30 - 21:30
IN DIALOGUE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE HUMANITIES
The 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
OPENING EVENING: a Special Presentation
THEATRE, WRITING AND LIVED EXPERIENCE
EBONI BOOTH, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and actor
with Hosts & Moderators, Roger Frie, PhD, PsyD, and Nancy Freeman-Carroll, PsyD, Co-Presidents of the Psychoanalytic Society
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3rd, 2025, 7:30-9:30pm/Eastern
Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online
1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit for attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Eboni Booth is a Pulitzer-prize winning playwright and actor in New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). As an actor, she has appeared in theatre and film productions. Booth is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program, resident playwright at New Dramatists, and the recipient of a Steinberg Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, and a John Gassner award.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has existed at the intersection of science and the humanities. In the face of increasing pressures from evidence-based practice and medicalization, what can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities? Collectively, our speakers represent the leading edge in humanities and the arts and bring a diverse array of perspectives to bear. These talks promise to illustrate the manifest and often overlooked links between psychoanalysis and the humanities and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue.
All speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone who can, to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting together at the Institute. For those who are unable to join in person, we offer a real-time stream, to reach beyond New York to a broader audience.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to the Psychoanalytic Society when registering.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Overall objectives of this colloquium series:

Describe the many interactions between the humanities and psychoanalysis.

Explain how psychoanalytic practice can benefit from the insights of the humanities.

Objectives for this presentation:

Describe how theater understands the experience of individuals and their interaction.

Explain how theatre explores the internal life of the lonely person and the implications for psychoanalytic practice.

Halloween: Liminal Visions
2025-10-09 01:30 - 15:00
The Artist Study Group of The Psychotherapy Service for People in the Arts
with The Sexual Abuse Study Group

presents
Halloween: Liminal Visions
with Julie Marcuse, PhD
Thursday, October 9, 2025
1:30-3:00pm/Eastern

Attend in person or online as follows:
In person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, between CPW & Columbus Avenues
Online via Zoom at:

https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/8180152948?pwd=[REDACTED]

Please be sure to RSVP to attend: fvdillon@gmail.com

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
The book, Halloween: Liminal Visions is about a personal journey. Dr. Julie Marcuse records what she sees in “objective” reality through a lens of “radical subjectivity.”
Marcuse has used the documentation and interpretation of the manifest content of Halloween, with its emphasis on chaos, ambiguity, dread and death to master her feelings in response to living through the decline and death of her husband Donald.
Some of the photographs are surprising, fun and beautiful, while many are extremely disturbing. They attempt to link different domains of experience through color photographs with minimal manipulation. This book, her 3rd, is a testament to love, loss and her own capacity for survival, and it was intended to be a final gift to her husband. He died shortly before its completion.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Julie Marcuse, PhD, is a psychologist, trauma specialist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. She is a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute where she continues to teach and supervise. She headed the Sexual Abuse Service there for 11 years, learning about witnessing, dissociation, vicarious traumatization and multi-disciplinary approaches to healing. She is passionate about the arts, from poetry to painting to music. She uses a platform called Blurb to self-publish her work.

Please join us for this presentation aligned with the commitment of the Artist Study Group to showcase the power of creating art to mitigate and master trauma.

Frances V. Dillon, MSW and Eric Dammann, PhD, are Co-Directors, Artist Study Group

ELIZABETH LUNBECK, Artificial Intelligence and its Implications: The ChatGPT Therapist and the Inner Analyst
2025-10-24 19:30 - 21:00
IN DIALOGUE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE HUMANITIES
The 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS: The ChatGPT Therapist and the Inner Analyst
ELIZABETH LUNBECK, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University
with Hosts & Moderators, Roger Frie, PhD, PsyD, and Nancy Freeman-Carroll, PsyD, Co-Presidents of the Psychoanalytic Society
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24th, 2025
7:30-9:00pm/Eastern
Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online
1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit for attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.

ABOUT THIS EVENT
The AI therapist is rapidly becoming a dominant figure in the psychotherapeutic landscape, embraced by the public and even more intriguingly by some clinicians—if not as a licensed therapist, then as a companion, a tool with which to better understand patients, or a therapeutic ally. Professor Lunbeck suggests that the appeal of ChatGPT “therapists” is to be found, in part, in their resolution of a longstanding problem for the field: the analyst’s personality, which has long prompted attempts to standardize and mechanize practitioners in the interest of reliability, replicability, and the demands of science. She suggests that Generative AI is the latest in a long series of innovations that not only achieves these goals but also does so in an improvisational and idiosyncratic register. Although observers routinely situate these new clinicians in therapy world’s CBT wing, they come just as much from the heart of the psychoanalytic enterprise.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Elizabeth Lunbeck is a historian of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and psychology, and is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University where she teaches popular courses on psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. She is the author of The Psychiatric Persuasion: Knowledge, Gender, and Power in Modern America; with Bennett Simon; Family Romance, Family Secrets; The Americanization of Narcissism; and four additional co-edited volumes. Lunbeck is an academic program graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, a co-chair of APsA’s University Forum, and board member of PsiAN. She is currently writing a book on the analyst’s self from Freud to AI.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has existed at the intersection of science and the humanities. In the face of increasing pressures from evidence-based practice and medicalization, what can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities? Collectively, our speakers represent the leading edge in humanities and the arts and bring a diverse array of perspectives to bear. These talks promise to illustrate the manifest and often overlooked links between psychoanalysis and the humanities and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue.
All speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone who can, to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting together at the Institute. For those who are unable to join in person, we offer a real-time stream, to reach beyond New York to a broader audience.
This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.

Learning Objectives
Overall objectives of this colloquium series:

Describe the many interactions between the humanities and psychoanalysis.

Explain how psychoanalytic practice can benefit from the insights of the humanities.

Objectives this presentation:

Discuss the implications of AI for psychoanalysis.

Explain how AI works and how it may be used.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.

Dr. Benjamin Bernstein presents "What the Hell was That" - On Non-Directive Play Therapy with Adolescents
2025-10-30 11:45 - 13:00
The Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program
Presents a Colloquium
Benjamin Bernstein, PhD
“What the Hell Was That?”: On Non-Directive Play Therapy with Adolescents
Thursday, October 30, 2025
11:45 am to 1:00 pm
Offered in person at the Institute and online at
https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/99698610096?pwd=[REDACTED]

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
Dr. Bernstein explores the therapeutic power and complexity of non-directive play therapy with adolescents. Drawing from vivid clinical vignettes and psychoanalytic theory, he examines how activities that may appear unproductive — such as games, humor, or even sleep — can become profound vehicles for emotional regulation and relational growth when held within a responsive therapeutic frame. Through concepts such as Winnicott’s holding environment, Bion’s containment, and contemporary relational ideas about enactment and therapist subjectivity, his talk highlights how play helps both adolescent and therapist to tolerate uncertainty, engage symbolically, and rediscover spontaneity in the therapeutic process.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Benjamin Bernstein, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Fairfield County, Connecticut, as well as the adolescent psychologist at Silver Hill Hospital and founder of Redwood Psychology Group, which specializes in depth-oriented therapy for adolescents, families, and parents. His work integrates psychoanalytic and relational approaches with a focus on play, mentalization, and the therapist’s use of self. Dr. Bernstein writes and teaches on adolescent development, therapeutic play, family therapy and the psychology of sports fandom. His work has been published by the American Psychological Association and his writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, Axios and Psychology Today.

LGBTQ Study Group w/ Sam Guzzardi, LCSW
2025-11-05 20:30 - 22:00
Toward a Horizon of Potential:
Longing, Phobia, and Queerness in Psychoanalysis and Beyond
with Sam Guzzardi, LCSW

Wednesday, November 5 2025
8:30 – 10:00 PM (EST)
Description: In this presentation Sam Guzzardi will share an abridged version of his paper “Toward a Horizon of Potential: Longing, Phobia, and Queerness in Psychoanalysis and Beyond,” which was awarded the Tiresias Prize of the International Psychoanalytical Association. The paper takes a close look at a brief encounter with a prospective patient who insists on knowing whether the prospective analyst is a “biological gay man” despite being told the analyst identifies as a “queer person.” It wonders about how the notion of queerness may elicit forms of regulatory anxiety and regulatory violence. Borrowing from the work of Jill Gentile, the feminine and the vaginal are taken up as organizing/disorganizing paradigms in both methodology and content; the paper also interrogates the rhetorical move of deploying the logics of biology in the prospective patient’s inquiry. Ultimately, the author leans on the notion of queer potentiality developed by José Esteban Muñoz to dream forward another, more generative version of the interaction.

Sam Guzzardi, LCSW is a New York City-based psychoanalyst trained at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, IPSS. His written work on gender and sexuality in psychoanalysis has won numerous awards, including the Ralph Roughton Award of the American Psychoanalytic Association and, most recently, the 2025 Tiresias Award of the International Psychoanalytic Association. He is on the faculty of the National Institute of the Psychotherapies (NIP) and IPSS, and is an Associate Editor at Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context and at Psychoanalytic Inquiry. His clinical work focuses on questions of gender, trauma, development, sexuality, and loss.

Please note:
*Attendance is free, but registration is required.
**LGBTQ Study Group meetings are held on Zoom and they are not recorded.

For inquiries regarding The LGBTQ Study Group please contact
Esin Egit, PhD, LP at e.egit@wawhite.org

Alice Jones, MD, Cadence of Vanishing
2025-11-06 13:30 - 15:00
The Artist Study Group of The Psychotherapy Service for People in the Arts
PRESENTS
Cadence of Vanishing
with ALICE JONES, MD
Thursday, November 6, 2025
1:30-3pm/Eastern

Attend in person or online as follows:
In person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, between CPW & Columbus Avenues
Online via Zoom at:

https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/8180152948?pwd=[REDACTED]

Please be sure to RSVP to attend: fvdillon@gmail.com

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
Psychoanalyst and poet, Dr. Alice Jones will read from her memoir, Cadence of Vanishing, weaving together love, loss, and the profound work of witnessing human trauma. With clinical precision and a poet’s heart, Jones explores the delicate choreography between presence and absence that defines human connection.
The memoir follows Jones through four transformative years as she accompanies patients through their deepest wounds while navigating her own encounters with mortality. Jones captures the cadence of vanishing that marks every life — how we arrive, love, and leave. She reveals how deep listening becomes its own form of love, and how even in loss, we discover what endures.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Alice Jones is a physician, psychoanalyst, open water swimmer, and the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Verse, and Best American Poetry. She has been awarded fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the NEA, as well as other literary prizes.
Thomas Ogden, author of What Alive Means: Psychoanalytic Explorations, says about her:
“Alice Jones’s Cadence of Vanishing is a meditative memoir in the form of diary entries in which many of the passages have the delicate feel of poetry. This is a penetrating exploration of the inner life of a poet through perceptive observations of the ordinary, reminiscent of Lydia Davis. It is an experience to be savored”.

Please join us for this engaging presentation!
Frances V. Dillon, MSW and Eric Dammann, PhD, are Co-Directors, Artist Study Group

ELLIOT JURIST, Learning From Memoir
2025-11-14 19:30 - 21:00
IN DIALOGUE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE HUMANITIES
The 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
LEARNING FROM MEMOIR
ELLIOT JURIST, Professor of Psychology and Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center and City College of New York
with Hosts & Moderators, Roger Frie, PhD, PsyD, and Nancy Freeman-Carroll, PsyD, Co-Presidents of the Psychoanalytic Society
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14th, 2025, 7:30-9:00pm/Eastern
Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online
1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit for attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
Memoirs are an unexplored and fruitful way to understand how patients experience therapy, and in particular, psychoanalysis. Drawing from diverse sources, Dr. Jurist argues that some memoirists see therapy as transformative; others regard it equivocally or even negatively. He also reflects on how beliefs about therapy have changed from the post-war era to the present. The memoirists whom he addresses are Lucy Freeman, Rachel Reiland, Alison Bechdel, Melissa Febos, Hua Hsu, Stephanie Foo, and Joan Peters.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Elliot Jurist, PhD, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the Graduate Center and The City College of New York, CUNY. From 2004-2013, he served as the Director of the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at CUNY. From 2008-2018, he was the Editor of Psychoanalytic Psychology, the journal of Division 39 of the APA. He is also the editor of a book series, Psychoanalysis and Psychological Science, from Guilford Publications, and author of a book in the series, Minding Emotions: Cultivating Mentalization in Psychotherapy, from the same publisher (the book has been translated into Italian, Chinese and Spanish, and was named best theoretical book in 2019 by the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis). He is the author of Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency (MIT Press, 2000) and co-author with Peter Fonagy, George Gergely and Mary Target of Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the Self (Other Press, 2002), the latter of which has been translated into five languages and won two book prizes. He is also the co-editor of Mind to Mind: Infant Research, Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis (Other Press, 2008). His research interests concern mentalization and the role of emotions and emotion regulation in psychotherapy. In 2014, he received the Scholarship Award from Division 39 of the APA, and in 2024, he was given the Leadership award from the same organization. Recently, he is co-author with Norka Malberg, Jordan Bate and Mark Dangerfield of Working with Parents Across the Lifespan: A Mentalization-Informed Approach (APA Publications, 2023). Along with his wife and two children, he lives with two ancient, insubordinate dachshunds, one of whom smiles.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has existed at the intersection of science and the humanities. In the face of increasing pressures from evidence-based practice and medicalization, what can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities? Collectively, our speakers represent the leading edge in humanities and the arts and bring a diverse array of perspectives to bear. These talks promise to illustrate the manifest and often overlooked links between psychoanalysis and the humanities and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue.
All speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone who can, to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting together at the Institute. For those who are unable to join in person, we offer a real-time stream, to reach beyond New York to a broader audience.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Overall objectives of this colloquium series:

Describe the many interactions between the humanities and psychoanalysis.
Explain how psychoanalytic practice can benefit from the insights of the humanities.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES THIS PRESENTATION:

Describe the role of memoir for understanding human experience.
Explain how memoir relates to self-reflection and psychoanalytic learning.

American Photographer Steve Giovinco presents Capturing Unguarded Moments
2025-12-04 13:30 - 15:00
The Artist Study Group of the Psychotherapy Service for People in the Arts
PRESENTS
CAPTURING UNGUARDED MOMENTS
with STEVE GIOVINCO, MFA
and TOM HENNES, Discussant

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4th 2025
1:30-3pm/Eastern

Attend in person or online as follows:
In person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, between CPW & Columbus Avenues
Online via Zoom at:

https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/8180152948?pwd=[REDACTED]

Please be sure to RSVP to attend: fvdillon@gmail.com

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
American photographer Steve Giovinco will present images from two photographic projects: the endlessly mysterious nature of couples’ interactions from his series, On the Edge of Somewhere; and evidence of epic but subtle changes in extremely remote areas around arctic Greenland captured in his long-exposure nighttime photographs. His use of long exposure photography in near-total darkness makes it impossible to see through the camera’s viewfinder, and instead Giovinco “feels” the image, in tuitively framing it in the dark. His experience of the process can be meditative, revelatory and… terrifying.
Informed by his unconscious as well as a sense of history, culture, and the environment, Giovinco’s work captures the immensity of human and natural spaces, and feelings of loss and transition. Curious about interpersonal and environmental change, his visual representations allow the viewer a deep, unfolding, and emotional experience.
Giovinco’s inspirations are far reaching: the paintings of Frederick Church and the Hudson River School; the photographs of Eugène Atget, Brassai; the films of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, the Scandinavian and German cinema, movies his father would bring home as a child; Roman ruins and large, abandoned industrial structures.
Indeed, in 1992 his need and vision led him to create an additional tool: a hand-held, large-format (8×8″) camera. Steve Giovinco’s works are exhibited in fine arts museums around the world, and are included in numerous private and public collections.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Steve Giovinco is a New York based photographer. His work is in numerous public and private collections around the world including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the California Museum of Photography. Exhibitions of his work include the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag; Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Winnipeg Art Gallery; White Columns, New York; Sadler’s Wells, London; Gyeongnam Art Museum, Korea. He was commissioned by one of the first blockchain art platforms, Monegraph. Giovinco earned his MFA in photography from Yale University. As a Fulbright Fellow Alternate, he received a Yaddo artist residency and numerous grants.
ABOUT OUR DISCUSSANT
Tom Hennes is founder of Thinc Design and is a member of the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Believing in the implicit power of exhibition as a medium to engage society in important ways, he has pursued an ever-deepening involvement with projects embedded in social and environmental justice. Hennes has written extensively on the multi-faceted role of museums and has taught at leading academic and design institutions including the Rhode Island School of Design, the Pratt Institute in Boisbuchet, France, New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, and the University of Pretoria, among many others.

Join us for what promises to be an evocative presentation and discussion, with this very special guest.
RSVP to: fvdillon@gmail.com
Frances V. Dillon, MSW and Eric Dammann, PhD, Co-Directors of the Artist Study Group

How Does the Embodiment of Memory Affect Therapeutic Relationships?
2025-12-06 12:00 - 14:00
THE EMBODIMENT SERIES of 2025-2026
How Does the Embodiment of Memory Affect Therapeutic Relationships?
Françoise Davoine, PhD, Heather Ferguson, LCSW, Vincent Stephen, PsyD, Nancy Winters, MD,FIPA
with
Moderators Doris Brothers, PhD and Jon Sletvold, PsyD
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6th, 2025
Online from 12Noon – 2:00PM/Eastern
This series is presented in collaboration with The Wilhelm Reich Center for the Study of Embodiment

ABOUT THIS EVENT
“Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences.”
Since Freud and Breuer pronounced this in 1895, memory is still believed to play a crucial role in the bodily as well as psychological suffering of our patients. We now understand that memory is not only verbal (declarative) but is also nonverbal (implicit). Our speakers will share how they use body-based memory in every therapeutic encounter.
Comments by the speakers about their planned talks:
Françoise Davoine, PhD:

Two sentences that I will use in my conversation:
“My delusion happens at the crossroad of my little story and the Great History.” — told by a patient.
“The Body keeps the Score,” Bessel Van der Kolk’s title, as it embodies the premature knowledge of a catastrophic stoppage of time.

Heather Ferguson, LCSW:

As Pierre Janet discovered, traumatic memories are split off from conscious awareness and stored as sensory perceptions, behavioral reenactments, and symptoms. In my work with one patient, the nonverbal iterations of traumatic memory and their sensorimotor traces infiltrated our therapeutic space, guiding our attention to her body’s long-thwarted impulses.

Vincent Stephen, PsyD:

I will focus on dissociated memories that express themselves as movements and sensations in the therapeutic context, and on embodied identification in the therapeutic relationship.

Nancy Winters, MD, FIPA:

In 1926 Freud observed: “There is much more continuity between intrauterine life and earliest infancy than the impressive caesura of the act of birth allows us to believe.” I extend this notion to the emergence of the primitive or infantile in later bodily phenomena. In several brief vignettes I discuss how embodied experience — in both patient and therapist (via somatic reverie) — can be recognized as registrations of early “remembered,” yet unsymbolized and unmetabolized, experience.

COSTS
Professionals $50
Candidates and Students $30

CE CREDIT INFORMATON
2 CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS ARE AVAILABLE. Instructions about how to obtain available CEs are sent out to registrants in the entry link email, prior to the event. If you miss that letter (for late sign-ups), please request CE instructions after the event.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ENTRY LINKS FOR ONLINE EVENTS:
Zoom entry links for this series are sent in two ways: (1) on the Registration payment receipt delivered directly to your email INBOX; and (2) manually sent out to Registrants 1-3 days prior to the scheduled event date. If you register immediately before the event’s start, you will receive the link only on the automatic payment receipt.
If you do not see a link letter in your Inbox, you should check Trash and Spam files. The Institute is not responsible for your email provider’s security settings. There are no refunds for paid events if a link was sent to you.
For general CE Credit information, click here

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
Françoise Davoine, PhD, has completed studies in classical literature. She has a PhD in sociology and is a professor a Sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, where, for 40 years, she has lead a weekly seminar with Jean Max Gaudillière entitled “Madness and the Social Link.” She has been a psychoanalyst in a public psychiatric hospital and outdoor consultation, as well as in private practice in Paris for 30 years. Dr. Davoine was a member of Lacan’s “Ecole Freudienne” until Lacan’s death in 1981. She is a member of ISPS founded in 1954 by Gaetano Benedetti, and is an Erikson Scholar in the Erikson Institute at Austen Riggs Center. Her books include History beyond Trauma (Other Press with Max Gaudillière); and, several published by Routledge: Mother Folly, Fighting Melancholy: Don Quixote’s teaching: A Word to the Wise (on Don Quixote’s second book); Jean Max Gaudillière’s Seminars (2 volumes); Pandemics, Wars, Traumas and Literature; Shandean Psychoanalysis: Madness and traumas in Tristram Shandy and Wittgenstein’s Folly.
Heather Ferguson, LCSW, is a faculty member and supervisor at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. As a certified hypnotherapist and practitioner of EMDR, she incorporates embodied techniques into her psychoanalytic practice. She writes and lectures about eating disorder treatment, the role of intergenerational transmission of trauma, and the use of embodied techniques to deepen psychotherapeutic engagement. She has chapters in“Ghosts in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Trauma in Psychoanalysis” (edited by Harris, Kalb, and Klebanoff) and “Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists” (edited by Hagman). She maintains a private practice in New York City.
Vincent Stephen, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist working as a therapist and supervisor at the University Hospital in Tromsø, North Norway. He specializes in psychotherapy for people struggling with complex trauma, dissociation, and serious relational difficulties. He is a candidate at the Norwegian Character Analytical Institute in Olso, a training institution for embodied psychoanalysis. Dr. Stephen is interested in the therapeutic use of countertransference and has written on language, embodiment, suicide and authenticity. He is also a multi-disciplinary artist and musician and has written and performed in various works, including several collaborations with dancer Mirte Bogaert.
Nancy C. Winters, MD, FIPA, is a training and supervising analyst of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute, the Northwestern Psychoanalysis Society and Institute, and is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University. She serves on editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP) and the Psychoanalytic Quarterly. She is also co-editor and chapter author of the 2022 Gradiva award-winning Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (2021); Autoimmunity and its Expression in the Analytic Situation: Contemporary Reflections on Our Inherent Self-Destructiveness (IJP, 2022), and A Home to the Lie: The Contemporary Perversion of Truth (in press, American Journal of Psychoanalysis). Dr. Winters has a full-time psychoanalytic practice in Portland, OR.

ABOUT THE MODERATORS/CO-DIRECTORS OF THE WILHELM REICH CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EMBODIMENT
Doris Brothers, PhD, is a co-founder and faculty member of the Training and Research in Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation (TRISP). She was co-editor with Roger Frie of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context from 2015-2019 and is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. She serves on the council of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IAPSP). Doris has published many journal articles and book chapters as well as four books. Her latest book, written with Jon Sletvold is entitled A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: TALKING BODIES. Her earlier books are: Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis (2008), Falling Backwards: An Exploration of Trust and Self-Experience (1995), and with Richard Ulman, The Shattered Self: A Psychoanalytic Study of Trauma (1988). She has presented her work internationally and leads supervision/study groups with Jon Sletvold. She sees patients in private practice in New York and Oslo.

Jon Sletvold, PsyD, is founding board director and faculty member of the Norwegian Character Analytic Institute.He has written articles and book chapters on embodiment in psychoanalytic theory, practice, and training. He is the editor of four books and the author of The Embodied Analyst: From Freud and Reich to Relationality, which won the Gradiva Award in 2015. In 2019 he wrote From Muscular Armor to Bodies in Dialogue with Per Harbitz. His latest book, written with Doris Brothers is A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: TALKING BODIES. Dr. Sletvold has presented his work internationally and co-leads online supervision/study groups on embodiment in Europe, North America and China with Doris Brothers. He practices in Oslo and New York.

ABOUT THE WILHELM REICH CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EMBODIMENT
Inspired by the pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich and encouraged by the recent surge of interest in embodiment among clinicians, co-Directors Drs. Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold have founded the Center. With it, they are introducing an online forum for dialogues about the ways in which embodiment affects the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
A wide range of approaches to embodiment have emerged in the last two decades that have led them to believe that a “turn toward embodiment” is underway. In the interest of furthering this turn they are offering a format that differs from the usual at psychoanalytic meetings. Rather than featuring a paper presenting a specific theorist or clinician followed by discussions, they intend that each event will center around a specific topic. Speakers from around the world, each of whom employs a different perspective on embodiment, will be invited to participate in a roundtable conversation of the topic. Afterward, online participants will be encouraged to join the conversation.
Learn more about The Wilhelm Reich Center for the Study of Embodiment

LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR THIS EVENT:
1. By the end of this presentation attendees will be able to evaluate the
advantages of using body-based language rather than concept-based
language for psychoanalysis.
2. By the end of this presentation attendees will be able to discuss
communication that takes place in the silences between the words.

Trauma and Healing through Symbolization with Betsy Hegeman
2026-01-08 13:30 - 15:00
The Artist Study Group of the Psychotherapy Service for People in the Arts
PRESENTS
Trauma and Healing through Symbolization
with Betsy Hegeman, PhD
THURSDAY, JANUARY 8th 2026
1:30-3pm/Eastern
Attend in person or online as follows:
In person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, between CPW & Columbus Avenues
Online via Zoom at:
https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/8180152948?pwd=[REDACTED]
Please be sure to RSVP to attend: fvdillon@gmail.com

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
Does art help us move from dissociated pain, shock, horror or numbness to more grounded, connected states? Can it help us get to a part of the conscious self where traumatic experience can be processed differently than just dissociation?
Betsy Hegeman will describe clinical examples exploring these questions, where the experience of making art helps patients move from their dissociated state to one of connection. As a group, we will then consider how cultural traumatic or existential events, like global warming, are denied, and how we might work to instead incorporate cultural experiences of connection.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Betsy Hegeman, PhD, is a faculty member and a Training and Supervising Analyst at WAWI, where she co-taught a class on trauma with Richard Gartner and Sharon Kofman. She is also a faculty member at NYU Postdoc and is professor emerita of anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice where she has taught for over fifty years. Dr. Hegeman has done field work in Puerto Rico and Colombia, focusing on migration, class structure, gender and poverty. She lives in Massachusetts with her daughter and grandson.

Please join us for this moving presentation and discussion.

Frances V. Dillon, MSW and Eric Dammann, PhD, Co-Directors of the Artist Study Group

From Room to Zoom and Beyond: Navigating Screen Relations-Based Psychoanalytic Care and Emerging Clinical Contexts
2026-01-10 10:00 - 13:00
From Room to Zoom and Beyond: Navigating Screen Relations-Based Psychoanalytic Care and Emerging Clinical Contexts
with Todd Essig, PhD
An Online Workshop for WAWI Graduates, Faculty and Candidates
presented by the WAWI Curriculum Committee
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10th, 2026
10:00am-1:00pm/Eastern

3 CE credits are available for attending this workshop

ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP
The recent IPA Code revisions affirm what many discovered through pandemic necessity: deep analytic work can happen on screens and speakers. But “can happen” is not the same as “happens in the same way.” Many now see that screen relations are similar enough to in-person work to sustain analysis, yet different enough to require us to rethink aspects of our clinical stance and theoretical framework.
This workshop will explore those similarities and differences, both psychologically and clinically: How do screen relations affect presence, attention, and the analytic frame? What happens to transference, countertransference, and reverie when we meet on screen? And, most centrally, how do we make the most of what’s unique about this context rather than in attending differences?
Throughout, we’ll strive to think together. Your questions, concerns, and clinical experiences are essential to this exploration. As broader context for our discussion, we’ll also consider how the rapid emergence of AI relationships is already reshaping the technological landscape in which screen-based care now takes place.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Todd Essig, PhD, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst known for pioneering in the creative uses of mental health technologies. In addition to his full time NYC-based clinical practice, he publishes, lectures, and consults internationally on forming best practices in the use of technology to serve human purposes. His primary academic affiliations are Faculty and Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute in New York City and Adjunct Clinical Professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis.
Dr. Essig is a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) where he served on the Task Force on Distance Training and on the Task Force on Training in Contemporary Times where he co-authored task force reports. As a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), he co-chaired the COVID-19 Response team. Recently, in the current center of his non-clinical professional life, he founded and is Co-Chair of APsA’s Council on Artificial Intelligence. He teaches and lectures at institutes and societies in the US and in Japan, Canada and England.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE INFORMATION
By completing this class:
1. Attendees will be able to name the process by which online sessions operate similarly to in-person sessions
2. Attendees will be able to list 2 of the 3 ways online sessions afford different experiences than in-person sessions
3. Attendees will be able to name the three interactive contexts operating in the AI Age

References:
Essig, T., & Russell, G. I. (2021). A report from the field: Providing psychoanalytic care during the pandemic. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 18(2), 157-177.
Lemma, A. (2025). What we don’t talk about enough when we talk about teleanalysis: A response to “The phenomenology of teleanalysis” by Dr N. Zapien. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 106(2), 363-374.
Zapien, N. (2025). The phenomenology of teleanalysis: A research study of the experiences of analysts and candidates in training analyses in the US during 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 106(2), 340-36

The Untold Stories of Itsy Bitsy: An Artistic Expression of Understanding Attachment Theory and How I Apply it to Clinical Work by Jill Leibowitz
2026-01-22 11:45 - 13:00
The Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program
Presents a Colloquium
JILL LEIBOWITZ, PSYD,
“THE UNTOLD STORIES OF ITSY BITSY: AN ARTISTIC EXPRESSION OF UNDERSTANDING ATTACHMENT THEORY AND HOW I APPLY IT TO CLINICAL WORK”
Thursday, January 22nd, 2026
11:45 am to 1:00 pm
Offered in person at the Institute and online at:
https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/99698610096?pwd=[REDACTED]

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
In describing this presentation, Dr. Leibowitz says, “I believe that open and playful communication between children and their grown-ups is a key component to fostering healthy development. Feeling a need to share this understanding with more of the adults in kids’ lives than I could reach in my private practice, I wrote and published two children’s books that model reflection, mentalization, and open emotion communication. My goal was to help children and their grown-ups talk and reflect together about tough emotional moments and to normalize the full range of emotions we all experience — ideas that reflect, from my perspective, the important takeaways from Attachment Theory.
Thus, through these books, I am attempting to communicate my understanding of Attachment Theory and how I apply it to the everyday clinical and parent-guidance work I do. In this presentation, I will read one of the books, share my process of engaging playfully to create the books, and talk about the Attachment Theory-related concepts that I hope the books illustrate.”

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jill Leibowitz, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience working with children, adolescents, adults, and families in her New York City private practice. She specializes in play therapy, psychotherapy, parenting support, and parent-child work, and she is a member of the Anni Bergman Parent-Infant Home Visiting Program. In addition to her clinical practice, Dr. Leibowitz teaches and supervises graduate and post-graduate students at several New York universities and institutes. She is the author of The Untold Stories of Itsy Bitsy, a children’s book series, and has contributed to blogs, podcasts, and academic journals on topics related to children’s emotional development, play and emotional literacy.

Learning Objectives:

To gain an appreciation for the central role of playful engagement in our clinical work and in development more generally.

To apply reflective, open communication practices to everyday, real-life scenarios that occur between children and their grown-ups.

To learn about one individual’s process of children’s book publishing and marketing.

BILL T. JONES, On the Continuity of Falling Apart and Rebuilding
2026-01-30 19:30 - 21:00
IN DIALOGUE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE HUMANITIES
The 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
A Special In-Person and Live-Streamed Event at New York Live Arts*
On the Continuity of Falling Apart and Rebuilding
BILL T. JONES, Award-winning Artistic Director, Choreographer, Dancer, Author, and Co-Founder of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and of New York Live Arts
with Hosts & Moderators, Roger Frie, PhD, PsyD, and Nancy Freeman-Carroll, PsyD, Co-Presidents of the Psychoanalytic Society
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30th, 2026 from 7:30-9:00pm/Eastern
* This event will be held in person at New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th Street, New York City. The venue will provide the link to its live stream.
You must register to attend. Please note that registration and charges for this event are being handled through the venue.

ABOUT OUR PRESENTER
Bill T. Jones is an artistic director and leading dancer, choreographer, director, and writer. He is co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in Manhattan and Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, an organization that strives to create a robust framework in support of the nation’s dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting and educating. Jones has choreographed for major performing arts ensembles and on Broadway and for other theatrical venues. The recipient of numerous awards including two Tony Awards, an Obie, a MacArthur “Genius” Award and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, as well as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, and of the National Medal of Arts, among a long list of others.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has existed at the intersection of science and the humanities. In the face of increasing pressures from evidence-based practice and medicalization, what can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities? Collectively, our speakers represent the leading edge in humanities and the arts and bring a diverse array of perspectives to bear. These talks promise to illustrate the manifest and often overlooked links between psychoanalysis and the humanities and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue.
All speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone who can, to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting together at the Institute. For those who are unable to join in person, we offer a real-time stream for most of the dates, to reach beyond New York to a broader audience.

Note that CEs are not available for this event.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Overall objectives of this colloquium series:

Describe the many interactions between the humanities and psychoanalysis.

Explain how psychoanalytic practice can benefit from the insights of the humanities.

Objectives for this presentation:

Describe how choreography of movements conveys meaning and autobiography.

Explain how mind and body inform dance and psychoanalytic treatment.

Passing Through with Visual Artist Naomi Friedman and Discussant Stephen Friedman
2026-02-05 13:30 - 15:00
The Artist Study Group of the Psychotherapy Service for People in the Arts
PRESENTS
PASSING THROUGH
WITH NAOMI FRIEDMAN, VISUAL ARTIST
and Stephen Friedman, PhD, Discussant
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5th 2026
1:30-3:00pm/Eastern

Attend in person or online as follows:
In person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, between CPW & Columbus Avenues
Online via Zoom at:
https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/8180152948?pwd=[REDACTED]

Please be sure to RSVP to attend: fvdillon@gmail.com

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
Passing Through challenges one of the most persistent binaries of our time: the divide between public and private space. Visual Artist Naomi Friedman interrogates how trans bodies, experiences, and rhythms disrupt these categories, revealing their fragility and the violence required to maintain them. With collage and paintings, Friedman insists on the permeability of cultural categories and the instability of the narratives that sustain them.
We will discuss figure and setting in the works, and what components might complicate/disrupt those boundaries, as well as other questions.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Naomi Friedman, non-binary, is a Brooklyn-based visual artist who graduated Cum Laude from Vassar College in 2022 andl co-founded the Boyz With Apple Artist Collective LLC, https://www.boyzwithapple.com/about-the-boyz Recent exhibitions include the Cannes Contemporary Art Biennale, Art Basel Switzerland and a solo exhibition in Madrid. Friedman teaches early-childhood art classes in Brooklyn.

ABOUT THE DISCUSSANT
Stephen Friedman, PhD, is a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute where he is a Supervisor of Psychotherapy and teaches a seminar on the clinical implications of the Interpersonal perspective, race, diversity and otherness in clinical work. He has a private practice in New York City.
Join us!
Frances V. Dillon, MSW, and Eric Dammann, PhD, Co-Directors, Artist Study Group

The Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program Open House
2026-02-11 19:30 - 21:00
The Child & Adolescent​ Psychotherapy Training Program

IN PERSON OPEN HOUSE

Wednesday, February 11, 2026 from 7:30-9:00pm
Envy, Greed, and the Search for a Holding Environment: Working with Stealing and Lying in a Latency-Age Girl
A Clinical Case Presentation by Dan Liu, LCSW
with discussion led by Mara Heiman, LCSW
Held at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street (between Columbus Avenue & Central Park West)

ABOUT THIS EVENT
According to Melanie Klein, envy is a primitive and fundamentally destructive affect, whereas greed refers to the impulse toward excessive taking and possessing that is often driven by envy. Clinically, behaviors such as lying and stealing can be understood as manifestations of both envy and greed – expressions of destructiveness, anger, and aggression that involve taking from others and depriving them of what they have. Yet these behaviors may also be seen as communications that seek a holding environment in which such intense feelings can be contained and transformed, allowing movement toward the true self.
Ms. Liu will discuss a long-term treatment with a nine-year-old girl, illustrating how envy and greed emerged in the clinical work and how the holding environment made it possible to recognize, contain, and work through these dynamics.
Join us for a rich presentation by a current candidate, demonstrating the culmination of a sophisticated learning process and the integration of clinical theory and technique. It will be an opportunity for those interested in child and adolescent psychotherapy training to learn more about our program, participate in a discussion, and take part in a Q&A. Light refreshments will be available.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Dan Liu is a candidate in the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program (CAPTP) at the William Alanson White Institute. She completed her psychoanalytic training at the Institute, where she now serves as faculty in the Intensive Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program. Ms. Liu earned her Master’s degree in Social Work from New York University and has lived in New York City for the past 14 years, where she maintains a private practice in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Originally from Shenzhen, a coastal city in southeastern China, she brings a multicultural perspective to her clinical work. She speaks English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese, and works with individuals from diverse racial, ethnic, and social backgrounds.
FOR QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CHILD & ADOLESCENT PROGRAM, CONTACT MARA HEIMAN AT maraheiman18@gmail.com

SUNIL BHATIA, Why DeColonization?
2026-02-20 19:30 - 21:00
IN DIALOGUE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE HUMANITIES
The 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
WHY DECOLONIZATION?
SUNIL BHATIA, Professor of Human Development and Cultural Psychology, Connecticut College
Please note: This event has been cancelled.

with Hosts & Moderators, Roger Frie, PhD, PsyD, and Nancy Freeman-Carroll, PsyD, Co-Presidents of the Psychoanalytic Society
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20th from 7:30-9:00pm/Eastern
Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online
1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit for attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Sunil Bhatia, is an internationally recognized authority on culture and psychology and Professor of Human Development at Connecticut College. He is at the forefront of studies on decolonization and author of such books as American Karma; Race, Culture, and Identity in the Indian Diaspora; Decolonizing Psychology: Globalization, Social Justice, and Indian Youth Identities; and Globalization and Culture: Narratives of Indian Youth from Call Centers to Chail Stalls (forthcoming Oxford U. Press) among others. Additionally, he is a frequent lecturer and commentator on current events.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has existed at the intersection of science and the humanities. In the face of increasing pressures from evidence-based practice and medicalization, what can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities? Collectively, our speakers represent the leading edge in humanities and the arts and bring a diverse array of perspectives to bear. These talks promise to illustrate the manifest and often overlooked links between psychoanalysis and the humanities and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue.
All speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone who can, to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting together at the Institute. For those who are unable to join in person, we offer a real-time stream, to reach beyond New York to a broader audience.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Overall objectives of this colloquium series:

Describe the many interactions between the humanities and psychoanalysis.

Explain how psychoanalytic practice can benefit from the insights of the humanities.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES THIS PRESENTATION:

Explore how decolonization matters for psychoanalytic practice.

Explain what decolonization is and what its implications are.

The Psychoanalytic Training Program Special Open House
2026-03-04 19:30 - 21:30
The Psychoanalytic Training Program
A SPECIAL OPEN HOUSE
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 4th
7:30-9:30pm
THE CASE FOR PSYCHOANALYSIS:
A cohort of graduates reflects upon the influence of psychoanalytic training on personal and professional evolutions.
With David C. Banthin, PhD, Tomás Casado-Frankel, LMFT-D, LP, John Eastman, LCSW, Dan Liu, LCSW, Mary Olsen, LCSW, Josh Yoselovsky, LCSW
Held In Person at the Institute: 20 West 74th Street between Central Park West & Columbus Avenue

ABOUT THE EVENING
A clinical case will be presented, followed by discussion with our panel of graduates – who together went through the training program and have gone on to build their practices.
Attendees will be invited to join the discussion for the experience of a cohort peer supervision, and will be encouraged to ask questions about the case, the program, and our Institute. Light refreshments will be available.
Join us!

ABOUT OUR PANELISTS
David C. Banthin, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Faculty at the William Alanson White Institute. He earned his doctoral degree from the New School for Social Research and completed fellowships and postdoctoral certificates at Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, Mount Sinai/Mental Illness Research and Clinical Center at the Department of Veteran Affairs, Behavioral Tech for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and psychoanalytic training at WAWI. He has engaged in psychotherapy research in psychodynamic and behavioral treatment modalities for 15+ years with a focus on the therapeutic relationship and personality disorders.
Tomás Casado-Frankel, MA, LMFT-D, LP, is the Director of Outreach and Recruitment, a Supervisor of Psychotherapy, and a graduate of both the WAWI Psychoanalytic Training Program and the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program. He is co-author of Early Relational Trauma and the Development of Self, published by Routledge in 2022. He is in private practice in NYC.
Dan Liu, LCSW, is a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. Originally from Shenzhen, China, Dan brings a multicultural perspective to her work and provides therapy in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Mary Olsen, LCSW, worked at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in the Employee Assistance Program before completing her training at the William Alanson White Institute. Mary is a Supervisor of Psychotherapy at WAWI and credits her psychoanalytic training for her seamless transition into full time private practice. Prior to earning her MSW, she founded and ran a technology consulting practice.

Josh Yoselovsky, LCSW, completed his psychoanalytic training at the William Alanson White Institute in 2021, and is on its faculty, as well as that of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. Josh is also an adjunct instructor at Fordham University’s Graduate School for Social Service. His academic and clinical interests focus on early Interpersonal thinking and literature, as well as on the intersection of theater, performance, and psychoanalysis.

Aesthetics of the Encounter: Psychoanalysis in Chaotic Times
2026-03-05 13:30 - 15:00
The Artist Study Group of the Psychotherapy Service for People in the Arts
PRESENTS
Aesthetics of the Encounter: Psychoanalysis in Chaotic Times
with Gabriela Goldstein, PhD
THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2026, 1:30-3pm/Eastern time
Attend in person or online as follows:
In person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, between CPW & Columbus Avenues
Online via Zoom at: https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/8180152948?pwd=[REDACTED]

Please be sure to RSVP to attend: fvdillon@gmail.com

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
In response to this time of radical political polarization, Gabriela Goldstein offers us an exploration of aesthetic experience as a transformative event; an unexpected encounter with works of art that may lead to a state of poetic estrangement, promoting a possible reorganization of its subject’s psychic economy. In this presentation, she will share slides and vignettes that demonstrate the experience of this state of estrangement, reflecting upon the encounter between the subject and the other or Other;between analyst and patient and in the framework provided by the analytical situation. In her new book, Art and Psychoanalysis: Between the Dialectics of the Other and Poetic Estrangement (Routledge, 2026), she considers how the metapsychology of aesthetic experience and its research contribute to a clinical understanding of processes of deficient symbolization.

ABOUT OUR PRESENTER
Gabriela Goldstein, PhD, is a training analyst of the International Psychoanalytical Association and FEPAL. She is also the former president of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association and currently serves as a Latin American member of the IPA Board (2025-2027). Dr. Goldstein has authored several books and has received distinctions in psychoanalytic literature and the Arts. She is also an architect and visual artist, with exhibitions in Argentina, Europe, and the United States. She lives and works in Buenos Aires. For further information about her work, visit her website: gabrielagoldstein.com.ar

Join us for a fascinating and timely presentation!
RSVP to fvdillon@gmail.com

Frances V. Dillon, MSW and Eric Dammann, PhD, Co-Directors, Artist Study Group

The Child & Adolescent​ Psychotherapy Training Program Open House
2026-03-11 19:30 - 21:00
The Child & Adolescent​ Psychotherapy Training Program

IN PERSON OPEN HOUSE

Wednesday, March 11th, 2026 from 7:30-9:00pm
Adolescence in the Manosphere: the Psychodynamic Treatment of an Isolated 16 Year Old Boy
A CLINICAL CASE PRESENTATION by Stephanie Vanden Bos, LCSW
Held at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street (between Columbus Avenue & Central Park West)

ABOUT THIS EVENT
The presentation will follow the treatment of an isolated adolescent boy struggling with intense affect and unmet relational needs as he works to consolidate a stable sense of identity. Struggling at the crossroads of a chaotic childhood and uncertain adulthood, he is wrecked with anxiety and rage about his pervasive sense of invisibility and helplessness. He seeks advice in online communities that offer simplified, prescriptive narratives about gender and power, and which promise clarity, status and a sense of dignity. The work we do together aims to support development of a more cohesive and enlivened sense of self — one that can tolerate ambivalence, integrate anger, and enhance his capacity for connection within the therapeutic relationship.
Join us for an insightful presentation given by a candidate in the Institute’s Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program. There will be opportunity to ask questions and join in discussion, as well as to learn about our unique program and about the Institute. Light refreshments will be available.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Stephanie Vanden Bos, LCSW, is a candidate in the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program (CAPTP) at the William Alanson White Institute. She completed psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy (ICP) in 2007, where she is now a training analyst and supervisor. She has also trained in several different trauma treatments including EMDR, AEDP, Sensorimotor Training and Somatic Experiencing. She has been in private practice in New York City for the past 25 years.

FOR QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CHILD & ADOLESCENT PROGRAM, CONTACT MARA HEIMAN AT maraheiman18@gmail.com

Micro-Traumatic Experience: Therapeutic Approaches to Healing Cumulative Toxic Effects
2026-03-13 12:00 - 13:30
Micro-Traumatic Experience: Therapeutic Approaches to Healing Cumulative Toxic Effects
with Margaret Crastnopol, PhD
A 3-part mini-course for clinicians at all levels, to explore and recognize micro-traumatic functioning, while learning how to work with patients in resolving these patterns.
Held online on three Fridays, starting March 13th
4.5 CE credits are available

ABOUT THE SERIES
Subtle types of psychic injury, called “micro-trauma” can mount up over time, eroding a person’s sense of well-being while distorting character development and interpersonal functioning. In her book,  Micro-trauma: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Cumulative Psychic Injury (Routledge, 2015), Dr. Crastnopol draws upon the theoretical framework for these events, and shares her recent thinking about them. For this three-session, online course, she focuses on and helps clinicians identify specific patterns of micro-traumatic functioning and their impacts, as they play out in everyday life and in the analytic engagement itself.
Participants will explore their own clinical experiences with micro-trauma and gain an understanding of how to identify and work to resolve such problematic patterns for patients.
A list of required and optional reading will be sent to registrants.

ABOUT MARGARET CRASTNOPOL, PhD
Margaret Crastnopol, PhD, is an Analyst of Candidates (“Training Analyst”), Consulting Analyst, and Faculty Member of the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She is also a Supervisor of Psychotherapy and Faculty at the William Alanson White Institute. Dr. Crastnopol is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and she also serves on the editorial board of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Having recently finished her tenure, she is a long-term former member of the executive committee and the board of directors of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She is the author of Micro-trauma: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Cumulative Psychic Injury, (Routledge, 2015), and of numerous other published works. Dr. Crastnopol is in private practice for the treatment of individuals and couples in Seattle, New York, Idaho, and elsewhere, working remotely and in person. She offers individual and group supervision or consultation for those in the United States and various locations abroad.

CLASS SCHEDULE
Held online on Fridays, from 12Noon-1:30PM/Eastern, on March 13, 20, 27

COURSE COSTS:
Professionals: $400
Candidates and students: $250

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the completion of this course, students will be able to:

Enumerate and describe certain specific mechanisms of toxic functioning, including “unkind cutting back,” “connoisseurship gone awry,” “little murders,” etc.

Identify signs within the psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic relationship that such patterns are being replayed.

Articulate and implement various effective strategies for repairing micro-traumatic damage to the patient’s sense of well-being and self-worth.

MARK FREEMAN on Self as Story: Narrative Knowing, Narrative Unknowing, and the Mystery of Selfhood
2026-03-13 19:30 - 21:00
IN DIALOGUE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE HUMANITIES
The 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
Self as Story: Narrative Knowing, Narrative Unknowing, and the Mystery of Selfhood
MARK FREEMAN, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Ethics, Society and Psychology, College of the Holy Cross
with Hosts & Moderators, Roger Frie, PhD, PsyD, and Nancy Freeman-Carroll, PsyD, Co-Presidents of the Psychoanalytic Society
FRIDAY, MARCH 13th from 7:30-9:00pm/Eastern
Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online
1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit for attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
A core premise of this presentation is that narrative is central to the process of both self-understanding and self-formation: through looking backward over the past, one may discern patterns, connections, and themes and craft a story — and a self, accordingly.
But how does one tell such a story, and what sort of story might it be? The challenge is large. Although there is much about the self that can be known, there is also much that remains unknown, and perhaps, unknowable. Not the least is that our existence is permeated by what is other — first and foremost, by other people, but also by the larger social, cultural, and political world, within which our lives take shape, often in ways unbeknownst to us. This doesn’t mean that seeking self-understanding is futile. Rather, it means that narrative knowing must be supplemented by narrative unknowing, and in turn that science must be supplemented by art when engaging in the process. By proceeding in this way, we may be better poised to both fathom and narrate the deepest sources of selfhood in all of their radiant obscurity.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Mark Freeman, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross as well as Senior Fellow at the Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics at Boston College. Award-winning author of numerous works, including Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative (1993), Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward (2010), The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self (2014), Do I Look at You with Love? Reimagining the Story of Dementia (2021), and, most recently, Toward the Psychological Humanities: A Modest Manifesto for the Future of Psychology (2024), he also serves as Editor for the Oxford University Press series, Explorations in Narrative Psychology.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has existed at the intersection of science and the humanities. In the face of increasing pressures from evidence-based practice and medicalization, what can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities? Collectively, our speakers represent the leading edge in humanities and the arts and bring a diverse array of perspectives to bear. These talks promise to illustrate the manifest and often overlooked links between psychoanalysis and the humanities and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue.
All speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone who can, to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting together at the Institute. For those who are unable to join in person, we offer a real-time stream, to reach beyond New York to a broader audience.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Overall objectives of this colloquium series:

Describe the many interactions between the humanities and psychoanalysis.
Explain how psychoanalytic practice can benefit from the insights of the humanities.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES THIS PRESENTATION:

Describe the implications of narrative for psychoanalytic practice.
Describe the role of narrative in developing self-awareness.

Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck with MET Curator Dita Amory
2026-04-02 13:30 - 15:00
The Artist Study Group of The Psychotherapy Service for People in the Arts

presents
MET Curator Dita Amory, MA
Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck
with Discussant Ernesto Mujica, PhD
THURSDAY, April 2, 2026, 1:30-3pm Eastern time/In-person and Online
Join us in-person at the Institute Library at 20 West 74th Street
or online at: at: https://wawhite.zoom.us/j/8180152948?pwd=[REDACTED]

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck’s first solo show which has been a featured exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is suffused with a melancholic quietude, while possessing an unexpected spirit of strength. MET Curator Dita Amory will introduce the artist to us, showing her modernist language of the brush and pivotal passages of her life. Ms. Amory’s slide presentation glimpses Schjerfbeck’s isolation and interiority through the artist’s intimate use of light, space, and volume.
Discussant Ernesto Mujica will examine how Schjerfbeck’s vision became increasingly subjective over time, revealing a more intimate experience of the subject, a process that he finds evocative of the therapist’s initial perception of the patient and what is gradually revealed during their work together.
For those who can visit the exhibit in advance, it is at the MET through April 5, 2026.

ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS
Dita Amory, MA, is the Robert Lehman Curator in Charge of the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her numerous exhibitions include Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors (2009); Madame Cezanne (2014-15); Leonardo to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection (2017-18); Felix Vollotton (2019-20); Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism (2023). She is a trustee of the Robert Lehman Foundation and serves on several non-profit Boards.
Ernesto Mujica, PhD, is Director of the Sexual Abuse Study Group and Service at WAWI, where he also serves as an Associate Editor of the institute’s journal, Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Dr. Mujica is a supervisor of psychotherapy at the Institute, and also in the doctoral program of Clinical Psychology of Teachers College, Columbia University. He integrates his clinical work in the areas of childhood and adult trauma, as well sociocultural factors in mental health, with his strong interest in the arts. Dr. Mujica has previously spoken at the Artists Study Group including discussions about artists El Anatsui (Ghana & Nigeria), Kent Monkman (First Nations-Cree, Canada), Yayoi Kusama (Japan) and Reversos, El Prado exhibition, (Madrid, Spain).

Join us for this discussion, looking at the nuances of artistic evolution!
RSVP to: fvdillon@gmail.com

Frances V. Dillon, MSW, and Eric Dammann, PhD, Co-Directors, the Artist Study Group

Acting Out: a New Online Mini-Series with Ira Moses
2026-04-08 20:00 - 21:15
ACTING OUT AND THE THERAPIST’S SUPEREGO CONFLICTS
with
IRA MOSES, PhD, ABPsa
A new online mini-series for experienced and new clinicians
4 Wednesday evenings in April
from 8:00-9:15pm/Eastern
5 CEs are available

ABOUT THIS SERIES
Often out of fear of shaming the patient, being perceived as “judgmental,” or worrying that the patient may drop out of treatment, therapists may stumble — or avoid entirely — the opportunity to engage patients in analyzing their provocative or self-defeating behaviors. Therapists may, perhaps unwittingly, selectively ignore these behaviors, thereby risking their inevitable escalation.
Such behaviors can range from extreme acts such as unprotected sex, substance abuse, or compulsive internet use, to subtler forms of acting out, such as habitual lateness to appointments or difficulties with paying bills and spending. Through participants’ case material, Dr. Moses will take us though an exploration of how inquiry and free association can help mobilize reluctant therapists to assist patients in translating action into words.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Ira Moses, PhD, ABPsa, is a Training and Supervising Analyst, former Director of Training, and former Director of Clinical Services at the William Alanson White Institute, where he currently teaches a seminar that functions as the alternative pathway to becoming a Supervising Analyst, as well as teaching in the Institute’s Ukrainian online Intensive Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program (the UKR-IPPP). He is on the faculty of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Institute and is Visiting Faculty of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center; and also is Geographic Rule Supervising Analyst of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Moses was a former Board Member and faculty of the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance. He has published many articles, including the Misuse of Empathy; Anonymity and Self Disclosure, The Analyst’s Resistance to Asking Questions, and recently, Wrestling with Reductionism is Racial and Cultural Discourse.

CLASS SCHEDULE
Held online on Wednesday evenings from 8:00pm-9:15pm/Eastern
on April 8, 15, 22 & 29

COURSE COSTS
Professionals $325
Candidates and students $225

MARIANNE HIRSCH, Epiphanies of Repair: Memory Art and Practice
2026-04-10 19:30 - 21:00
IN DIALOGUE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE HUMANITIES
The 2025-2026 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
EPIPHANIES OF REPAIR: MEMORY ART AND PRACTICE
MARIANNE HIRSCH, William Peterfield Trent Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature and the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender, Columbia University
with Hosts & Moderators, Roger Frie, PhD, PsyD, and Nancy Freeman-Carroll, PsyD, Co-Presidents of the Psychoanalytic Society
FRIDAY, APRIL 10th, from 7:30-9:00pm/Eastern — please note this is a revised date
Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online
1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit for attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
How can we imagine repair at this moment of continuing war and genocide, of violence, political neglect and injustice?
This talk will place psychoanalytic theories of reparation into conversation with works by contemporary memorial artists like Kara Walker and Doris Salcedo. With destruction as a necessary ground of repair, their works dislodge entrenched embodied responses to traumatic remembrance, thus re-imagining the past and remembering its unrealized possibilities. Memory art, Hirsch will suggest, can become a transformative practice of communal repair and a platform of social solidarity.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Marianne Hirsch is William Peterfield Trent Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies at Columbia University. She writes about the transmission of memories of violence across generations, combining feminist theory with memory studies in global perspective. She is a former President of the Modern Language Association of America and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her recent books include The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (2012), the co-edited volumes Women Mobilizing Memory (2019) and Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography (2020), and, co-authored with Leo Spitzer, Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory (2010) and School Photos in Liquid Time: Reframing Difference(2020). Currently a fellow at the Getty Research Institute she is working on a book about the reparative potentials of memory from which this talk is drawn.

ABOUT THIS SERIES
From its very beginnings, psychoanalysis has existed at the intersection of science and the humanities. In the face of increasing pressures from evidence-based practice and medicalization, what can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities? Collectively, our speakers represent the leading edge in humanities and the arts and bring a diverse array of perspectives to bear. These talks promise to illustrate the manifest and often overlooked links between psychoanalysis and the humanities and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue.
All speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone who can, to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting together at the Institute. For those who are unable to join in person, we offer a real-time stream, to reach beyond New York to a broader audience.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Overall objectives of this colloquium series:

Describe the many interactions between the humanities and psychoanalysis.

Explain how psychoanalytic practice can benefit from the insights of the humanities.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES THIS PRESENTATION:

Describe the ways in which memory can have a reparative effect.

Explain the relationship of reparative memory to trauma and psychoanalytic practice.

A Memorial and Tribute to Edgar Levenson
2026-04-12 13:00 - 15:00
Remembering Ed: A Memorial and Tribute to Edgar Levenson
Sunday, April 12th, 2026
1:00-3:30pm
at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City (between Central Park West & Columbus Avenue)
and offered online (entry links will be sent out prior to the date)

Join family, friends and colleagues including
Corey Levenson along with
Miri Abramis, Seth Aronson, Judith Brisman,
Sandra Buechler, Ann D’Ercole, Jack Drescher,
Jack Foehl, Jay Greenberg, Anton Hart, Irwin Hirsch,
Harriette Kaley, Sue Kolod, Spyros D. Orfanos,
Sue Shapiro, Alan Slomowitz, Donnel Stern
and Jean Petrucelli, host
RSVP required: please let us know if you are coming and how you will attend
Refreshments to follow the program.

The Not-Me Speaker Series Opening Event April 17th
2026-04-17 19:00 - 21:00
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.

How do Analysts Understand the Embodiment of Fascist Experience?
2026-04-25 12:00 - 14:00
THE EMBODIMENT SERIES of 2025-2026
WITH MODERATOR-HOSTS
DORIS BROTHERS, PhD, and JON SLETVOLD, PsyD
How do Analysts Understand the Embodiment of Fascist Experience?
A panel discussion with
Jessica Benjamin, PhD, Sue Grand, PhD, Daniel Posner, MD, and Doris Brothers, PhD, & Jon Sletvold, PsyD
SATURDAY, APRIL 25th
Online from 12 Noon-2:00pm/Eastern
This series is presented in collaboration with The Wilhelm Reich Center for the Study of Embodiment

ABOUT THIS EVENT
The rise of fascist movements all over the globe has infiltrated our therapeutic relationships.
In the belief that understanding the embodied experience of fascism helps us confront this frightening development, participants in this conversation provide a variety of perspectives.

EVENT COSTS
Professionals $50
Candidates and Students $30

CE CREDIT INFORMATON
2 CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS ARE AVAILABLE. Instructions about how to obtain available CEs are sent out to registrants in the entry link email, prior to the event. If you miss that letter (for late sign-ups), please request CE instructions after the event.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ENTRY LINKS FOR ONLINE EVENTS
NOTE TO ALL REGISTRANTS FOR ONLINE EVENTS: Entry links for Zoom events are sent in two ways: (1) the entry link is sent on the Registration payment receipt delivered to your email INBOX; and (2) links are sent out to Registrants 1-3 days prior to the scheduled event date. If you register just prior to the event’s start, you will only receive the link on the payment receipt.
For those who do not see a link letter in their Inbox, check Trash and Spam files. If you do not find your link-letter by the business day prior to the event, you may email: e.rodman@wawhite.org
We will do whatever we can to get your link to you, however the Institute is not responsible for your email provider’s security settings. There are no refunds for paid events if a link was sent to you.

THE GUEST PANELISTS
Jessica Benjamin, PhD, is best known for her books The Bonds of Love (1988), which brought a feminist intersubjective perspective into the psychoanalytic field, and for Beyond Doer and Done To: An Intersubjective View of Thirdness (2004), which provided the basis for her recent Beyond Doer and done To: Recognition Theory,
Intersubjectivity and the Third (2018). The last emphasizes the importance of acknowledgment in therapeutic interaction and in relation to trauma, including collective historical trauma. Additionally, she is the author of Like Subjects, Love Objects (1995); and Shadow of the Other (1998). Dr. Benjamin has been one of the leaders in the relational movement in psychoanalysis since its inception. She teaches and supervises at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis as well as at the Stephen Mitchell Relational Studies Center which she is a co-founded. She initiated and co-directed a project for acknowledgment between Israeli and Palestinian mental health professionals during the period 2003-2011. Recently she has written on the psychological aspects of domination and destructiveness manifest in the current social world and is currently exploring the interconnections between affect regulation theory and recognition theory.
Sue Grand, PhD, is faculty and supervisor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis; faculty, the Mitchell Center for Relational Psychoanalysis; faculty, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies; visiting scholar at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California and the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is the author of The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical and Cultural Perspective and The Hero in the Mirror: From Fear to Fortitude. She is the co-author of Trans-generational Transmission: A Contemporary Perspective, and has co-edited multiple books on trans-generational transmission and on relational theory. Dr. Grand teaches in Ukraine and in Israel. She is on the boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. Her area of interest is political/social/psychic violence and trauma. She maintains a private practice in New York City and in Teaneck New Jersey.
Daniel Posner, MD, is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a member of the faculty at the Wilhelm Reich Center for the Study of Embodiment. His writing explores a range of topics through the multiple lenses of psychoanalysis, enactive phenomenology, epistemic justice and infancy research. He has published work in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Psychoanalysis, Self and Context and Psychoanalytic Inquiry, where he is an associate editor. He is also the co-host, with Daniel Goldin, of The Conversation, the podcast of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. He is currently writing a book on Daniel N. Stern for Routledge.
ADDITIONAL PANELISTS and SERIES MODERATORS, THE CO-DIRECTORS OF THE WILHELM REICH CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EMBODIMENT
Doris Brothers, PhD, is a co-founder and faculty member of the Training and Research in Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation (TRISP). She was co-editor with Roger Frie of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context from 2015-2019 and is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry. She has served on the executive and advisory boards and council of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IAPSP). Dr. Brothers has published many journal articles and book chapters as well as five books. Her forthcoming book, written with Jon Sletvold is entitled, Psychoanalytic Explorations of Embodied Relational Knowing. Earlier books include, A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: TALKING BODIES written with Jon Sletvold, Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis (2008), Falling Backwards: An Exploration of Trust and Self-Experience (1995), and with Richard Ulman, The Shattered Self: A Psychoanalytic Study of Trauma (1988). She has presented her work internationally and leads supervision/study groups with Jon Sletvold. She sees patients in private practice in New York and Oslo.

Jon Sletvold, PsyD, is founding board director and faculty member of the Norwegian Character Analytic Institute. He has written articles and book chapters on embodiment in psychoanalytic theory, practice, and training. He is the editor of four books and the authorof The Embodied Analyst: From Freud and Reich to Relationality, which won the Gradiva Award in 2015. In 2019 he wrote, From Muscular Armor to Bodies in Dialogue with Per Harbitz. His forthcoming book, written with Doris Brothers, is Psychoanalytic Explorations of Embodied Relational Knowing. His last book, also written with Doris Brothers, is A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: TALKING BODIES. Dr. Sletvold has presented his work internationally and he co-leads online supervision/study groups on embodiment in Europe, North America and China with Doris Brothers. He practices in Oslo and New York.

ABOUT THE WILHELM REICH CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EMBODIMENT
Inspired by the pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich and encouraged by the recent surge of interest in embodiment among clinicians, co-Directors Drs. Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold have founded the Center. With it, they are introducing an online forum for dialogues about the ways in which embodiment affects the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
A wide range of approaches to embodiment have emerged in the last two decades that have led them to believe that a “turn toward embodiment” is underway. In the interest of furthering this turn they are offering a format that differs from the usual at psychoanalytic meetings. Rather than featuring a paper presenting a specific theorist or clinician followed by discussions, they intend that each event will center around a specific topic. Speakers from around the world, each of whom employs a different perspective on embodiment, will be invited to participate in a roundtable conversation of the topic. Afterward, online participants will be encouraged to join the conversation.
Learn more about The Wilhelm Reich Center for the Study of Embodiment

The Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program Open House
2026-04-29 19:30 - 21:00
The Child & Adolescent​ Psychotherapy Training Program

IN PERSON OPEN HOUSE

Wednesday, April 29th, 2026 from 7:30-9:00pm
Not Fully Formed: Using Modeling Clay and Slime-making in Psychoanalytic Play Therapy with a 7-year-old Girl
A CLINICAL CAST PRESENTATION by Erin Cantor, LCSW
Held at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street (between Columbus Avenue & Central Park West)

ABOUT THIS EVENT
A fascinating and insightful case presentation describing the play therapy with a seven-year-old girl, that took place over a two-year period. Ms. Cantor describes her patient’s tenacious use of utilitarian molding clay and slime in creating evocative sculptures, allowing a greater psychological containment during a devastating, high-conflict custody battle between her parents.
Attendees will be encouraged to participate with questions, take part in discussion, and learn about our unique program.
Join us!

ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Erin Cantor, LCSW, is a graduate of the Institute’s three-year Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program (CAPTP). She is a social worker, symbolic play therapist for children, an adolescent talk therapist, and a clinical writer. She lives and works in New York City.

For questions about the program, contact Lisa Dubinsky, CAPTP Director: ldubinskypsy@gmail.com
