Meet the 2026 Summer Symposium Panelists
On Saturday, June 13, 2026, APsA will host its online Summer Symposium. This year’s program, Reimagining Engagement in Psychoanalytic Institutions, is a roundtable style discussion that examines a question many in our field are grappling with: why engagement with psychoanalytic institutes and organizations is declining — and what might be done about it.
Moderated by Jane G. Tillman, Ph.D., the discussion will bring together panelists from different institutes, career stages, and theoretical orientations to explore how institutional participation shapes clinical development, professional identity, and community, and what gets in the way. Topics will include financial barriers, training experiences, generational differences, institute culture, and issues of diversity and belonging. Two CME/CE credits are available for live attendees. Read on to meet the panelists.
Summer Symposium Moderator Bio
Jane G. Tillman, Ph.D., ABPP is a psychologist and psychoanalyst. She is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA. She has an interest in psychoanalytic education and a research interest in suicide prevention and postvention.
Summer Symposium Panelist Bios
Aisha Abbasi, M.D. is a dedicated psychoanalyst and educator. She is the Founder of an online educational platform “Let’s Talk Psychoanalysis” which focuses on small-group discussions led by psychoanalysts. She practices in person, and remotely, in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of several analytic papers and book chapters, and a sought after presenter. She is a past recipient of the Master Teacher Award by the National Candidates’ Council. Prior to moving to Portland, OR. she was a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and is also a past president of MPI. She is a Geographic Rule Training and Supervising Analyst at the Florida Psychoanalytic Institute, and a Supervisor of Candidates at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She has accepted the invitation to join BPSI’s “Diversifying Supervision” Initiative. Her most recent analytic paper titled Reflections on Three Decades of being a South-Asian American Analyst, was published in JAPA in 2025, and her most recent book chapter, “Homesickness, Nostalgia, and the Development of a Stable Internalized Home,” was published in the book Attics and Basements: The Evocative, Expressive and Embracing Functions of Homes and Other Human Dwellings (Karnac, January 2026).
Emily S. Brewer, M.D. is a Psychiatrist in San Francisco, California. She attended Yale, Cornell Medical School, Case Western Reserve for Residency in Medicine and Psychiatry, and SFCP for Analytic training. She studied at the Hanna Perkins School for Psychoanalytic treatment of children and families (modeled after Anna Freud’s Hampstead Clinic). She has a longstanding interest in the application of Psychoanalytic concepts and techniques in addressing group and systems issues. She is Chair of the Referral Service for San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, which helps people, from all walks of life, access affordable and low fee Psychoanalytic treatment. She has been active in this Service for the past twelve years. Emily is also a fiber and clay Artist. She is interested in passageways and the creation of openings.
Cassie Kaufmann, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is the founder and director of Greene Clinic, a sliding scale training clinic in Brooklyn, where she supervises and teaches psychoanalytic theory and practice to early career therapists. She is a founding board member of the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis, a nonprofit whose mission is making psychoanalysis more accessible to historically marginalized people.
Omar A. Khan, M.D. is an Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine, where he practices at the Weill Cornell Psychiatry Specialty Center. He completed his residency in adult psychiatry and consultation-liaison psychiatry fellowship at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and is currently a third-year candidate in adult psychoanalysis at the Psychoanalytic Association of New York (PANY). Though mostly focused on his clinical practice, he remains deeply passionate about medical education, with an emphasis on helping physicians engage with the emotional dimensions of medicine — both through psychodynamic teaching and the use of group process as a pedagogical and community-building tool. Outside of work, he is an avid fan of world-building fiction and collaborative, improvised storytelling.
Brian Ngo-Smith, LCSW, 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. With his colleague Teresa Méndez, Brian is the co-founder of the Sharing the Future Project, offering facilitation, presentation, and consultation on organizational succession.
Spyros D. Orfanos, Ph.D., ABPP is former Director (2019–2025) and former Clinic Director (2004–2018) of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna. In 2016, he co-edited, with Eliot Jurist, a special supplement of Psychoanalytic Psychology on “Psychoanalysis and the Humanities,” and in 2017 founded the NYU Human Rights Work Group. He received the 2023 SPPP Award for International Activism for Social Justice. He recently curated the video archive series Why Theodorakis Matters, devoted to cultural memory, collective mourning, and resistance. Dr. Orfanos has written and lectured extensively on clinical process, creativity, and human rights, and maintains an independent practice in New York City.
