Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

"I have always been fascinated by the world of animals. What fascinated me about them is that when you pay attention to animals, this is a world beyond words. Words are not part of their world, so you start paying attention to movement, to breath, to reaction, to the pause, all these things, and I found it fascinating…Certainly, in veterinary medicine, as any type of clinical medical practice, if a patient comes to you, there's always things that you can do. You can take a blood sample, you can do a radiograph, you can give oxygen, you can give certain treatments. There's always a solution that you can give, a fix. Psychoanalysis is very, very different. I haven't successfully overcome the urge to fix, but I have come to realize that solutions that are given too early are oftentimes not usable. So, as a clinical veterinarian, most of my solutions were usable. That's not what happens in psychoanalysis." 
Episode Description: Michele begins with sharing her life-long fascination with animals. As a veterinarian she learned to attend to the nonverbal and to the triadic aspects of veterinary medicine - clinician, animal and owner. She noted that owners often communicate their own distress through their animal's behavior. She learned that "animals don't require you to be brilliant but to pay attention" - certainly relevant to psychoanalysis. In addition to describing her ongoing practice of Zen meditation, she shared with us the challenges of changing mindsets from medical intervening to analytic listening, "This shift - from resolving not knowing to working within it - has been a central aspect of my development." We discuss the role of suffering and mourning, which relates to her Catholic background, and the importance of the body both in her veterinary and psychoanalytic work. She closes with an example of an analysand crying out for help with her acutely ill pet and recognizing that "you can help me."
Our Guest: Michele Gaspar is an advanced candidate at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP). She currently has a private psychoanalytic psychotherapy practice in Chicago, provides feline internal medicine consultations to clinical veterinarians through the Veterinary Information Network (VIN) and works with veterinarians and veterinary students who have professional and personal challenges. Michele lectures at national veterinary conferences on psychological issues impacting veterinarians and also teaches Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory and Introduction to Object Relations in CCP's two-year Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Certificate Program.
Recommended Readings: 
The Other Family Doctor Karen Fine, DVM
A thoughtful exploration of veterinary medicine as relationship-centered work. Fine illustrates how veterinarians routinely encounter attachment, grief, caregiving, guilt, and love through their work with animals and the people who care for them.
 
Animals in Translation Temple Grandin, PhD
Grandin explores how animals perceive and experience the world, challenging readers to understand minds that communicate differently from our own. The book offers insights into observation, empathy, nonverbal communication, and the challenge of understanding another subjective experience.
 
How Animals Grieve Barbara J. King, PhD
Drawing on scientific observations and research, King examines evidence of grief and mourning across species. The book raises important questions about attachment, loss, emotional bonds, and the continuity between human and animal experiences of bereavement.
 
All Creatures Great and Small James Herriot
A beloved memoir of rural veterinary practice that captures the joys, frustrations, humor, and heartbreak of caring for animals and their owners. Herriot's stories reveal veterinary medicine as a deeply human profession grounded in relationships, responsibility, and compassion.
 
The Wisdom of Insecurity Alan Watts
A classic introduction to Zen-influenced thinking about uncertainty, impermanence, and the limits of control. Watts offers a compelling perspective on living with ambiguity and cultivating a deeper comfort with not knowing.
 
When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, PhD and Susan McCarthy
An influential exploration of animal emotional life, including grief, joy, attachment, fear, and affection. The book invites readers to consider the emotional complexity of animals and what their experiences may teach us about our own.
 
The Loss of a Pet Wallace Sife, PhD
A foundational work on companion animal bereavement. Sife examines the profound attachment people form with their animals and the often-underappreciated grief that accompanies their illness and death.

"As analysts, we have our own development - as humans, we have our own development. My view is that the work of analysis, if the developmental piece is present, requires some relatively sophisticated developmental capacity on the part of the analyst. The work is intimate, and the patient is going to know something of our inner lives, despite the fact that we work hard not to let our own selves interfere with the work. I think to truly trust the analyst, the patient has to believe that the analyst can tolerate knowing all of him or her. If you think about it, how many times have you heard patients say that nobody in the world quite knows him the way the analyst does? There's going to be something in that connection that doesn't happen anywhere else."
Episode Description: We begin by outlining the distinctions between serving as a transference vs. a developmental object for a patient. Carla writes about "affective honesty," which concerns the analyst's willingness to have their heart be experienced by a patient as malevolent or compassionate based on the patient's needs. We consider similarities between child and adult work, the differences between the 'corrective emotional experience' and being a developmental object, and her sense that a patient's "intimate experience can bring structural change." She presents a clinical example where her own authentic sadness helpfully enabled the patient to recognize her own - "we take on what the patient can't bear." We close with Carla sharing her personal analytic journey and stating, "I expect I will keep searching, as that is what analysts do."
 
Our Guest: Carla Neely, PhD, adult and child psychoanalyst, guest faculty, Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute.  Past President, Association for Child Psychoanalysis. Past faculty member at the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Washington, Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute. Topics of her publications - sublimation, creativity,  developmental object, working through, and therapeutic action.
Recommended Readings: 
Hurry, Anne, ed., 1998. Psychoanalysis and Developmental Therapy. London: Karnac Books
 
Elliott-Neely, C. 1996. The analytic resolution of a developmental imbalance. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Vol. 51
 
Miller, J. 2013. Developmental psychoanalysis and developmental objects. Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Vol. 33
 
Tahka, V. 1993. Mind and its treatment. Madison, CT: IUP

"Humanism has been the dominant Western belief system of the last century. It's based on the worship of human wisdom, human creation, human experience, human mind, and psychoanalysis has very much emerged from this humanist tradition. We believe in psychoanalysis, that delving into our feelings, our thoughts, and our shared wisdom will allow us to access truth and meaning and find proper direction for navigating life. AI is changing all of that. Instead of trusting our feelings and our thoughts, people are turning to algorithms to make meaning of our experiences and to offer us direction. We're plugging in our data and allowing the algorithms, or Chat GPT or Claude, to do the thinking and the decision making for us."
Episode Description: We begin with Freud in 1930: "Humanity would proceed to create unimaginably great advances in technology so as to increase our likeness to God." Amy outlines the challenge that AI poses to our humanistic tradition and values within which psychoanalysis makes its home. She starts with the 'cult grooming' aspects of smartphones, which introduces our exchanging "human dependence for AI companionship." The question of the subjectivity of AI is a central focus, with some analysts emphasizing its "simulation of human intimacy" and others considering that "is it not also possible for AIs to at the same time be intersubjectively engaged with us?" Regarding using AIs as a therapist, we discuss the clinical implications of "without there being two bodies in a room, the contact is shallow and lacking an essential human component." Amy describes "a desire for transgression" involving AIs as well as the associated search for immortality that they represent. She writes about Bach's prescient 2008 term of "digital consciousness" as contrasted with the "analog watch where one can see the hour from which the hand has come and the hour to which it is going." Amy shares that it was fear that motivated her personal interest in the AI world we are facing, and she closes with, "And how do we address what we are losing from within psychoanalysis?"
 
Our Guest: Amy Levy, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. She chairs the American Psychoanalytic Association President's Commission on Artificial Intelligence, serves on the subcommittee "Artificial Intelligence" for the International Psychoanalytical Association, serves on the editorial board of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, and is Editor of the Substack series, "AI in My Mind," for The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. Along with her fellow CAI chair, Todd Essig, she is producing a documentary film for APsA which examines AI from a psychoanalytic perspective for the general public, entitled: Uncharted Territory: Humans and the Rise of AI. Dr. Levy is in private practice in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is the author of the 2026 book, The New Other: Alien Intelligence and the Innovation Drive.
Recommended Readings: 
Harari, Y. N. (2017). Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. New York: HarperCollins.
 
Knafo, D. (2024). Artificial intelligence on the couch: Staying human post-AI. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 84: 155–180. 
 
Lemma, A. (2024). Mourning, melancholia, and machines: An applied psychoanalytic investigation of mourning in the age of griefbots. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 105(4): 542–563.
 
Shelley, M. (2003). Frankenstein. Penguin Classics.
 
Solms, M. (2021a). The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness. New York: W. W. Norton.
 
Suleyman, M. (2023). The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century's Greatest Dilemma. New York: Crown.

"When I train candidates I always say start with Freud, learn the interpersonalist, learn the object relations folks, know from what you come, even if you want to be a radical interpersonalist, a radical relationalist, because having that stuff in your back pocket is organizing and creates an ideal to which you can aspire or choose not to follow, but at least you'll know what you're not following. My perspective on this stuff really comes from the idea that before we are free to break the rules, we need to know what the rules are and we need to be well grounded in them."
Episode Description: We begin by appreciating the evolution of some fundamental practices in psychoanalysis. We consider the meanings of 'rules' and 'guidelines'. Joyce shares with us her current thinking on answering patients' questions – for some, it's helpful, for others, not. We discuss the use of the word 'fantasy' with patients as contrasted with 'guesses' or 'imaginings'. Joyce considers the many ways that patients terminate their treatments and how frequently it does not accord with traditional models of ending. We consider reluctance to leave the treatment relationship from both sides of the couch – analysts, too, have needs satisfied in this work and can play a part in the nature of the ending. Joyce relates how some former patients remain in contact with their analysts, and that isn't necessarily problematic.  For others, "being able to 'go it alone' represents an extraordinary achievement." She concludes that "termination remains an ideal worth holding onto. But loosely."
 
Our Guests: Joyce Slochower, Ph.D., ABPP, is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Hunter College & the Graduate Center, CUNY.  Joyce is faculty and supervisor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program, the Steven Mitchell Center, the National Training Program of NIP (all in New York), the Philadelphia Center for Relational Studies in Philadelphia, and the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California in San Francisco. She has written Holding and Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective (1996) and Psychoanalytic Collisions (2006). She is co-Editor, with Lew Aron and Sue Grand, De-idealizing relational theory: a Critique from within and Decentering Relational Theory: A Comparative Critique (2018), both of which received the Gradiva award in 2019. Her latest book, Psychoanalysis and the Unspoken, was published in 2024. She is in private practice in Manhattan. 
 
Recommended Readings: 
Grand, S. (2009). Termination as necessary madness. Psychoanal. Dialogues, 19: 723–733.
 
Kantrowitz, J. (2025). A Personal View of Terminations and Endings. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 94:361-379
 
Levine, H. B. & Yanoff, J. A. (2004). Boundaries and postanalytic contacts in institutes. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 52:873–901.
 
Loewald  (1988). Termination analyzable and unanalyzable. Psychoanal. Study Child, 43:155–166.
 
Peddler, J. R. (1988). Termination reconsidered. Int. J. Psychoanal., 69:495–505.
 
Schachter, J. (1992). Concepts of termination and post-termination patient analyst contact. Int. J. Psychoanal., 73:137–154.
 
Slochower, J. (2022). Sequels. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 70:845–873.
 
Slochower, J.  (2024). Psychoanalysis and the Unspoken. NY, London: Routledge.

"I'm not suggesting that repression has lost its place as a fundamental defense mechanism. Repression remains central, coherent, and fundamental to the founding of the unconscious. It is what makes certain contents inaccessible to consciousness, and what we access as psychoanalysts through dreams, play, symptoms, and associations. That remains true. What I was observing, and I'm still observing more now, is something different. When I see children and adolescents that are more capable to work on a task while doing homework, and at the same time listening to music, and at the same time texting with somebody - I don't think that they are real. This is my point. I don't think they are real. This multitasking way of living is part of life today… The clinical question for us becomes this - when does this multiplicity become a symptom? When does it interfere with the capacity for depth, for intimacy, for a sustained emotional contact?  I think that this is what we need to see, to study and to differentiate in our consulting room." 
 
Episode Description: We consider how changes in our culture may impact the individual's intrapsychic space and from that the nature of the psychoanalytic encounter. Virginia comments on the diminishing of the paternal symbolizing function and with that a change in the 'rites of passage' that adolescents traverse - now the rituals are "created by the young people themselves" as contrasted with those passed down by their elders. This, she feels, has resulted in "intimacy becoming spectacle" and for many, the analytic session is where "the construction of intimacy may begin."  She shares clinical material with us from 40 years ago and contrasts the nature of her interventions with her contemporary treatments. Now, "I appreciate the mystery in the process and that we create meaning with the patient." Virginia closes with seeing analytic treatment as "an invitation to a process of thinking that, to remain alive, must be rethought."
 
Our Guests: Virginia Ungar M.D., training analyst at the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association (APdeBA). She specializes in child and adolescent analysis, was the Chair of the IPA's Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis Committee (COCAP) and of the IPA Committee for Integrated Training. She was awarded a Konex of Platinum in 2016. She is the former President of the International Psychoanalytic Association (2017-2021). 
 
Recommended Readings: 
Etchegoyen,  H. (1986) The fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique, chapters 25 and 26, Karnac, 1991.
Meltzer, D. (1968). A note on analytic receptivity. In A. Hahn (Ed.), Sincerity and other works: Collected papers of Donald Meltzer,  Karnac Books, 1994.
Meltzer, D. (1988). The apprehension of Beauty, chapters 1, 2, and 4, Clunie Press, Perthshire, 1988.
Sontag, S. (1966). Against Interpretation, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.
Ungar, V. (2017) Letter from Argentina, Vol 98, 3, IJP, 2017