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Program Highlights
Explore some highlights of the 2027 National meeting, and be sure to check out the full program, coming soon.
Research Training Program
Day 1- Monday, February 1, 2027
9:00 a.m.
Day 2- Tuesday, February 2, 2027
11:00 a.m.
This training program, now in its third year, introduces a rigorous research approach into psychoanalysis and is intended for individuals interested in conducting psychoanalytically orientated treatment research. This two-day program occurs on February 1 and 2, 2027 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, just before the Association’s 2027 National Meeting. Individuals interested in conducting psychoanalytically oriented treatment research are invited to apply for this exciting program.
Plenary- Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D.
Tuesday, February 2, 2027
9:00 a.m.
Saving Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapies are facing devaluation from corporate interests, from mistaken assumptions that there is no evidence supporting psychoanalytic treatments, from the characterization of Sigmund Freud as a cocaine-addled misogynist, and from political and generational stresses within psychoanalytic organizations. As analytic supervisors age out of medical schools and graduate programs, students are losing access to psychoanalytic ways to think about patients. Yet there is a growing interest in psychoanalysis among clinicians trained in other perspectives and among scholars of sociocultural privilege, power, and trauma – areas that neither biological psychiatry nor cognitive psychology illuminate adequately. Dr. McWilliams will focus on factors that have undermined the standing of psychoanalysis and will suggest ways to preserve and expand psychoanalytic thought and practice in the contemporary environment.
Ernst and Gertrude Ticho Memorial Lecture
Tuesday, February 2, 2027
11:00 a.m.
Omnipotence and Omnipotentiality In the Age of AI
This session will build on theoretical ideas of omnipotence, as distinct from narcissism or infantile-phantasy, as a normal part of development, and as a useful force in the creative process, in development of a sense of agency and also as an issue that warrants clinical attention in a new way in the age of ubiquitous AI. Using short vignettes and stories of experiences of a psychoanalyst in the AI-laden San Francisco Bay Area, the presenter will consider the aims and values of psychoanalysis, putting forth omnipotentiality as an important aim for our times in dialogue with the work of Ernst and Gertude Ticho in this memorial lecture. This session is designed for psychoanalysts, psychodynamic psychotherapists, candidates, trainees, researchers and academics, and psychoanalytic/psychodynamic practitioners in all contexts.
Poster Session
Thursday, February 4, 2027
10:30 a.m.
The American Psychoanalytic Association sponsors this annual research poster session designed to promote stimulating conversations and mutual learning among psychoanalytic practitioners, theorists, and researchers. Submissions have relevance to psychoanalytic theory, technique, practice, and effectiveness of psychoanalysis or interdisciplinary scholarship addressing research questions in neighboring fields.
The deadline for submissions: Tuesday, December 1, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. EST.
Click here for Poster Session submission guidelines.
Presidential Symposium
Thursday, February 4, 2027
11:00 a.m.
Information to come. *awaiting information*
University Forum: Social Miracle or Social Curse? Understanding the Appeal of Authoritarianism
Friday, February 5, 2027
11:00 a.m.
This session, designed for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, scholars, candidates and trainees, examines the appeal of authoritarianism. Peter Gordon, Amabel B. James Professor of History at Harvard University, will explore Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno’s argument that the authoritarian leader performs a “social miracle,” appearing at once fragile and powerful, everyman and superman. Gary Gerstle, Paul Mellon Professor of American History, Emeritus, at the University of Cambridge, will discuss how citizens’ loss of confidence in democratic institutions often precedes an authoritarian embrace. Kimberlyn Leary, psychoanalyst/psychotherapist, public policy scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former Executive Vice President of the Urban Institute, will offer psychoanalytic reflections on both presentations and the current moment. It aims to help clinicians understand how political anxieties shape patients/clients and clinical work.
Coffee and Refreshments with a Distinguished Analyst: Mark Solms, Ph.D.
Friday, February 5, 2027
2:00 p.m.
This presentation addresses accessing Freud’s work through a more accurate translation. Dr. Solms will discuss his thirty-year undertaking of the Revised Standard Edition of Freud’s complete writings, explaining his decision to revise rather than completely replace James Strachey’s Standard Edition. He will examine the widespread criticism that Strachey “falsely scientized” Freud’s language and demonstrate how the Revised Standard Edition corrects translation errors and misinterpretations while providing a flexible glossary of technical terms. Dr. Solms will also highlight newly included papers that illuminate the continuity between Freud’s neuroscientific work and his development of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy. This session offers clinicians, analysts, therapists, candidates, trainees, and scholars essential insights into accessing Freud’s revolutionary contributions with greater accuracy and contextual understanding for twenty-first-century practice and research.
Plenary- Dionne R. Powell, M.D.
Friday, February 5, 2027
4:30 p.m.
Ghosts In the Institutions: Psychoanalytic Education In a Raced World
A critical gap exists in psychoanalytic education regarding how systemic racism, institutional structures, and unconscious resistances impede the field’s transmission and evolution. Educators often conflate diverse training standards with a deflation of clinical rigor, reinforcing exclusionary practices illuminated by the Holmes Commission. Furthermore, a lack of non-hierarchical, culturally humble approaches leaves training systems ill-equipped to integrate the diversities of current psychoanalytic/psychotherapy candidates/trainees with the modernity of AI and virtual treatments. Of particular educational and clinical interest is to return to the origin story of psychoanalysis, founded in the biopsychosocial model, as a discursive enterprise that disrupts the frame by confronting internal resistances to exploring our raced selves, securing an immersive, rigorous, and sustainable structure for the future of psychoanalytic education, analytic identity and the profession.
An Evening of Dinner and Dancing
Friday, February 5, 2027
7:00 p.m.
Information to come. *Not yet available*