The Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine (APM) (NY)

This paper takes up the clinical challenges of working with patients for whom the repetitive pursuit of intense, erotic relationships both expresses and conceals yearnings to be and belong. While sexual experiences can elicit core fantasies of transformation, awareness of the very otherness that offers such promise also threatens a fragile self and is thus […]

Psychoanalytic clinicians often encounter the complexities of erotic transference and countertransference, yet struggle with conceptual frameworks and language that adequately capture these intense, often ambiguous experiences. Traditional models can obscure the subtle intersubjective and developmental meanings of erotic material, resulting in impasses or missed therapeutic opportunities. This presentation aims to expand clinicians’ capacity to think […]

In this presentation Dr. Lotterman documents the extensive overlap between the symptoms and psychology of neurotic and psychotic patients. He portrays the way the sense of self falls apart, and its possible recovery in psychological therapy. Areas of convergence between neurosis and psychosis include: the fragmenting of the sense of self, the sense of aloneness […]

This presentation explores how the framework of neuroqueering—a concept rooted in neurodiversity and queer theory—invites a radical reconsideration of foundational psychoanalytic concepts such as identity, subjectivity, normativity, and development. By centering lived experiences of neurodivergent and queer individuals, this talk interrogates the implicit assumptions of the analytic frame and challenges psychoanalysis to reexamine its historical […]

Diana Moga, MD, PhD and Robert Glick, MD This presentation explores how the framework of neuroqueering—a concept rooted in neurodiversity and queer theory—invites a radical reconsideration of foundational psychoanalytic concepts such as identity, subjectivity, normativity, and development. By centering lived experiences of neurodivergent and queer individuals, this talk interrogates the implicit assumptions of the analytic […]

Winnicott brilliantly grasped the child’s nuisance-making as a bid for assurance of the parent’s reliability. Some adult patients continue their patterns of nuisance-making in ways that can be annoying to others, including the analyst. Dr. Cooper explores the work that the analyst must do on behalf of his patient to transform countertransference annoyance into meaningful […]

The APM is honored to present the second Margaret Morgan Lawrence Lecture for Social Justice This Lecture brings to the APM/Columbia community speakers who apply psychoanalytic theory or practice to socially, racially and culturally diverse community contexts and honors the life and work of Dr. Margaret Morgan Lawrence. Whiteness and the Psychoanalytic Frame Kirkland Vaughans, […]

Community health institutions have long resisted psychoanalytic thinking, and the siloed psychoanalytic world similarly makes little room for the experience and knowledge of those institutions and the psychic lives of their workers and clients. A clinician who appreciates psychoanalytic insights and understanding and wants to practice in a community setting would find it nearly impossible […]

Dr. Soni will trace the contemporary psychoanalytic concept of the “field” to its origins in the 1950 - 70s within two distinct traditions: the Interpersonal analysts of the William Alanson White Institute and the analysts of the Rio de la Plata in Argentina and Uruguay. He will argue that both groups drew on the social […]

“What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” Discussant: Clark Johnsen Join us for a screening of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Robert Aldrich’s 1962 psychological thriller starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as two sisters locked in a decaying mansion and in a decades-long struggle over envy, dependency, and humiliation. A gothic study in sibling […]

Disability remains among the least theorized subjects in psychoanalysis. This is notable but not surprising: the relational anxiety that disability provokes in the non-disabled is pervasive, and psychoanalysts are not exempt. This paper introduces the concept of the disabling object — a persecutory internal structure through which social prejudice and structural ableism are psychically internalized […]