Through panel presentations and large and small group discussions, this program will address the nature of generational anxieties (parricidal, filicidal, and siblicidal) as these emerge in the varying aspects of psychoanalytic institutions.
Presenters Brian Ngo-Smith and Teresa Méndez will share reflections from their clinical work as well as from supervisory and other collegial relationships, to address the impact of these anxieties as they lead to resistances to progression, succession, and diversification of learning opportunities.
Attendees will be invited to engage with the presenters and with one another to grapple with the vicissitudes of psychoanalytic training as these also parallel other sites of systemic breakdown when confronted with diverse identities that come to represent a threat to the status quo. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which erotic dimensions of cross-generational dynamics may get obscured by more conflictual and destructive enactments.
By interrogating and exploring the complex sociocultural and generational dynamics that are enacted in psychoanalytic training and in psychoanalytic treatment, these presentations will invite learners to reflect on their own training experiences – both as student and teacher, supervisee and supervisor – in order to think more critically about how this impacts the clinical care they provide to their patients, including with respect to therapeutic interventions that may be overlooked due to unconscious allegiances to figures on whom learners depend.
Brian Ngo-Smith, LCSW, BCD-P, FABP is a psychoanalyst and clinical social worker in Denver, CO. He received his MSW from the University of Iowa and completed analytic training at the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis, where he is now on faculty. Brian has worked in the mental health field for over 20 years in residential, hospital, community mental health, and private practice settings. He is a Past President of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work and he was the recipient of the 2024 Ernst and Gertrude Ticho Memorial Award from the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Teresa Méndez, LCSW-C, LICSW is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst practicing in Baltimore, MD. She earned her AB in Anthropology from Princeton University and MSW from the Smith College School for Social Work, and completed psychoanalytic training at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis, where she serves on the Diversities, Scholarship, and Ombuds committees. A former journalist, Teresa has presented and published widely on the mixed-race experience and edited a special issue on race and psychoanalysis for Psychoanalytic Social Work, where she is on the editorial board. She is a past President of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, and served as a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Holmes Commission on Racial Equity.
Ethan Grumbach, PhD, FIPA is a member of the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles where he teaches the Infant Observation Course and courses on Gender and Sexuality. He is a training and supervising analyst, in 2014 becoming only the 5th openly LGBT APsaA TA/SA . He presents and teaches nationally and internationally on aspects of psychoanalytic and psychotherapy work with Queer individuals as well as infants and their families. Dr. Grumbach is a member of APsaA’s Committee on Gender and Sexuality which he has previously chaired. At the New Center for Psychoanalysis, he is a member of the Diversities and Sociocultural Issues Committee, the Education Committee and the Strategic Advisory Committee. Dr. Grumbach is a member of the Psychoanalytic Center of Northern California. He has completed training in Tavistock Method Infant Observation. He maintains a private practice in Los Angeles where he does Infant Psychoanalysis in addition to analysis and psychotherapy with individuals, families and couples. Most recently he received the Edith Sabshin Teaching Award in 2025.
