What if the most important perspective in psychoanalysis is the one we rarely hear? Lay patients—those without theoretical training or professional community—constitute the majority of analysands, yet their authentic voice remains largely absent from our field’s discourse.

Unlike analyst-patients who can contextualize their experience through theory and peer discussion, lay patients navigate analysis without a map. They offer raw, unfiltered insights into what truly matters in the therapeutic encounter—insights that could transform how we understand the analytic process.

Drawing from her book Untangling: A Memoir of Psychoanalysis, Joan K. Peters will reveal how the lay patient’s unique vantage point challenges our assumptions and illuminates the mysterious bond between analysand and analyst in ways theory alone cannot capture.