Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

Available Episodes

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A Memoir of Transformation: a patient examines two analyses at two stages of life with Joan Peters, PhD (Ojai, California)
"With Kristi [second analyst], it was much, much deeper. This whole dependent and infantile part of me was coming out. This is psychoanalytic language - I was moving into a regression that was terrifying, because I had been trained by my mother, and it was my nature, and it was what had worked for me to really approach things as an 'independent person' ie I don't need anybody; I don't need anything; I can function whatever happens. While I explored a little bit of that with Lane [first analyst], it was only very slight, and we never talked about it. With Kristi, she would actually make me aware of it, and I would become aware of my own need for her and withdraw. With Kristi, it was immediate that I knew there was much greater complexity going on, a level of complexity that I couldn't have handled in my 20s. And we locked horns almost immediately." Episode Description: We begin with describing the various psychotherapy journeys that individuals undergo in search of healing. In her memoir, Joan describes two intense yet fundamentally different psychoanalyses at different points in her life. The first analysis was focused on uncovering the unrecognized story of her early family life. The second demonstrated how she was unknowingly replaying that family life in her relationship with her analyst, "I was reliving my whole childhood in our relationship." She came to recognize the "unacknowledged parts of myself" that her analyst "coaxed from its psychic den." She invites us into the frenetic 'regressive' periods where she both desperately craved the affections of her analyst and simultaneously refused to accept the care that was being offered. Multiple episodes of rupture and repair led her to come to terms with the human condition, both her own and her analysts. She closes with "As minutely as I've described these two analyses, I feel as if I've left half unsaid. And yet, as Kristi might say, it's enough." Our Guest: Joan K. Peters, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Literature and Writing at California State University at California. She is the author most recently of Untangling: A Memoir of Psychoanalysis. At last year's meeting of The American Psychoanalytic Association, she gave a talk on memoir and psychoanalysis, and in the upcoming one, her book will be the subject of a panel discussion. In addition to her blog for Psychology Today, she's contributed an essay on dream interpretation for Psychoanalytic Inquiry, and is guest editing a special issue of that same journal on "The Patient Experience." Recommended Readings: Patient Narratives – an annotated list The Classics These few analysands who wrote (later on) about their analyses in the 1930's – 1950's offer brief and impressionistic overviews: H.D.'s Tribute to Freud (New Directions, New York: 1956). Nini Herman, My Kleinian Home: A Journey Through Four Psychotherapies (Free Association Books, London: 1988) Margaret I. Little, Psychotic Anxieties and Containment: A Personal Record of An Analysis with Winnicott, (Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, London: 1985) Contemporary Memoirs: Marie Cardinal, The Words To Say It, in French, 1975; English, (VanVactor & Goodheart, Cambridge, Mass.: 1983), introduction by Bruno Bettelheim. Emma Forrest, Your Voice in My Head: A Memoir (Other Press, New York: 2011) Andrew Solomon's beautiful essay, "Grieving for the Therapist Who Taught Me How to Grieve," The New Yorker, May 10, 2020, is more of a tribute to his therapist than an account of the process. Best-sellers Solomon's The Noonday Sun: An Atlas of Depression Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Vintage Books, New York: 1995) Elyn R. Saks' The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (Hachette Books, New York: 2007) are records of triumph over mental illnesses more than accounts of the therapies the authors underwent. Fuller contemporary accounts of analysis Kim Chernin, A Different Kind of Listening: My Psychoanalysis and its Shadow (HarperCollins, New York City: 1995) Kate Daniels, Slow Fuse of the Possible: A Memoir of Poetry and Psychoanalysis (West Virginia University Press, Morgantown: 2022) offer severe critiques of the authors' analyses.
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Psychotherapeutic Aphorisms: Reflections from a Lifetime of Listening with David Joseph, MD (Washington DC)
"Some time ago, I realized that there was such a thing for me as experiencing my patients as being friends, but they were psychoanalytic friends. It was a psychoanalytic friendship that was quite unique and unlike any other friendship. I think that's what people are talking about when they write about psychoanalytic love. It's not love like any other kind of relationship, because the psychoanalytic relationship is so unique. And I feel the same way about psychoanalytic parenting. It's like it's close to mentoring, but it's different because the structure of the relationship is different than from a mentor or an esteemed and loved teacher. It really is helping somebody with the whole process of development and helping them grow, mature, and become more comfortable with themselves and to know themselves better. That seems to me the essence of parenting, and I don't think we should feel defensive about thinking about it that way. That doesn't seem to me that it's my counter-transference in needing to be a good mother, a good father, a good parent to my patients." Episode Description: We discuss the challenge of transmitting the experiential knowledge of the dynamic therapies to new generations. David's book on therapeutic aphorisms demonstrates a number of key elements of this unique relationship - symbolic meanings in symptoms, 'psychotherapeutic parenting', the simultaneous use of medications and working with the unlikable patient to name but a few of the topics he brings forward. He describes the challenges of the negative therapeutic reaction, how "transference reactions are the creative soul of the patient's story" and what it was like for him to admit to a patient that he lied to her. We close with his reflecting on the meaning to him of retiring from full time practice, noting "I haven't retired my psychoanalytic mind." Our Guest: David Joseph, MD is a supervising and training analyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis where he served as chair of the board and director of the Institute Council (education committee). For many years he was the Director of Residency Training at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC. He has a long-standing interest in ethics and has written and spoken about a number of ethical issues in the practice of psychoanalysis. He closed his clinical practice several years ago, at the age of 82. In June 2025, his book: Listening for a Lifetime: The Artful Science of Psychotherapy, was published by Mission Point Press. Recommended Readings: Freud's technique papers. Greenson, R. (1952) The Mother Tongue and the Mother. JAPA, 1 Zetzel. E. (1956) Anxiety and the Capacity to Bear It. Schafer, R. (1976) A New Language for Psychoanalysis. Yale University Press. New Haven Wachtel, P. L.(1977) Psychoanalysis and Behavior Therapy. Basic Books, NY. Greenberg, J. and Mitchell, S. A. (1983) Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory. Harvard University Press. Arlow, J. (1995) Stilted Listening: Psychoanalysis as Discourse. PQ, 215-233. Schafer, R. (1999) Disappointment and Disappointedness. IJP, 80: 1093-1104. Pine, F. (2011) Beyond Pluralism: Psychoanalysis and the Working of Mind. PQ: 80, 823-856. Poland, W. (2018) Intimacy and Separateness in Psychoanalysis. Routledge, NY. Holmes, D, (2022). Neutrality is not Neutral. JAPA, 70: 317-322
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An Analyst's Reflections on Her Treatments and Her Life with Beverly Kolsky, MSW (Tupper Lake, New York)
"This really is the full motivation for my having written the memoir. I want people to know what the process is like; not only what the process is like but what the feelings are that don't really make you think of psychoanalysis as a way of changing your life. We're just living and hoping that things will change without really taking account of the fact that we could be living better lives and in a better way. I began to think of the ways of the world and the wickedness in it. There's so many things that we do to keep us going - me and my aphrodisiacs, and I think other people doing other things just to divert them from the misery and unhappiness that they feel. I don't know how often that's looked at or discussed, so I hope the book does open that up a little bit." Episode Description: We begin with Beverly's description of her early years of feeling lost and the consequent self-destructive patterns she replayed. Years of sensation-seeking led her to become "exhausted, limp, tarnished, and each time, more profoundly lost." She "landed on an analyst's couch in Little Venice, a section of London. I was paying for someone to recognize me. She did." Beverly shares her analytic journey with us and how vital her discovery of 'kindness' was, first from the outside and then from within. We discuss the early death of her father, her mother's depression and the devotion of her older brother. She closes with "Like life, psychoanalysis is a continuing process. It doesn't stop...issues crop up, new feelings arise...we better understand what those feelings are telling us, and how to make use of them in an environment we have been able to choose for ourselves. And so it goes…" Our Guest: Beverly Kolsky, MSW has worked as a psychotherapist for more than forty years both in America and in England. She trained as a psychoanalyst with the New York Institute for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology also and received training in London where she worked under the auspices of the Tavistock Clinic and the Institute of Marital Studies. Her work has been published in two journals: Mind Consiliums and Voices: Art and Science of Psychotherapy. She had two psychoanalytic experiences in two countries with analysts of two different orientations. Her motivation for writing the book as a memoir was to let others in the community know the transformative and enduring power of psychoanalysis. She was in private practice in Englewood, N.J. and now lives, mostly retired, in the northern Adirondacks. Recommended Readings: Jung, C.G. 1963. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. London: Collins and Routledge and Kegan Paul. Kohut, H. 1984. How Does Analysis Cure? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kolsky, B. 2015 Mind Consiliums 15(10), (1-10). Empathy and Secrecy: Discovering Suicide as a Form of Addiction." Kolsky, B. 2019 "The Ghost in You: Psychotherapy and Grief" (Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy.) Paperback The American Academy of Psychotherapists. Kolsky, B. 2019 Voices: Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists. Vol 55 No 2 "To Be or Not To Be: A Patient's Search for the Lost Mother." Kuchuck, S. 2021. London: Confer Books. The Relational Revolution in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Confer Books. Malan, D, 1979. England. Butterworth & Co Ltd. Individual Psychotherapy and the Science of Psychodynamics. Taylor, K. 2002. U.S. Kevin Taylor M.D. Seduction of Suicide: Understanding and Recovering From Addiction to Suicide.
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When We Feel Provoked by the Politics of Our Patients with Heribert Blass, Dr. Med. (MD) (Dusseldorf, Germany)
"I think that the comparison [between political and erotic passions] is related to the danger of transgressing boundaries from the side of the analyst. It's not totally the same, but it's because of the emotions and the danger of being too much involved as an analyst, if you don't pay attention to what is happening in ourselves with our own emotions, then it can be similar. I think both are important for the psychoanalytic process, to see it as a real relationship - there is this setting where two people in the room meet. They are real persons, but at the same time, a kind of dramatic play fantasy creation coming up from fantasies of the patient, and our own reactions as analysts come into play and gradually just build up the story that is mainly related to the patient's biography, the patient's relationships, and what's going on in her or his life at the moment, but now in relation with us." Episode Description: We recognize the passionate political world we are living in and the challenges it introduces into the psychoanalytic relationship. Such moments of intense personal conviction challenge the clinician's capacity to hold those convictions, allow the same for the analysand and still locate an analytic surface with which to find additional meanings. Heribert feels that this creates opportunities for intensity akin to "erotic-sexual impulses." He discusses clinical encounters that include his "revealing my assessment of reality" as an aspect of his authentic self living in relation to the patient. He presents the case of a young man whose effort to locate his analyst's "soft spot" entailed provoking him with his idealization of Hitler. Unlike the patient's father who turned away from him at such times, his analyst tolerated "my required countertransference" which enabled the patient to recognize and tolerate his tender longings that had lived disguised in his sado-masochistic preoccupations. We close with Heribert, the new IPA president, sharing his vision of psychoanalysis having a presence beyond the couch in universities and the community at large. Our Guest: Heribert Blass, Dr. Med. (MD), Psychoanalyst and training analyst for adults, children and adolescents, member of the German Psychoanalytic Association and IPA (DPV/IPA), also specialist of psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy, psychiatry, working in private practice in Düsseldorf, Germany. Since August 2025 President of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). From 2020 to 20204 President of the European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF). He has published on the image of the father, male identity and sexuality, gender dysphoria and transidentities, aspects of thought function in the psychoanalytic process and in the institution, psychoanalytic supervision, psychoanalysis in society and as editor of a book on Time and the Experience of Time (first in German, the English publication will follow soon) about the exchange of psychoanalysis with other sciences. Recommended Readings: Blass, H. (2023). La actitud analítica en un contexto de creencias polarizadas en la consulta. In: La Cultura del Odio. El Odio a La Diferencia. Revista de Psicoanálisis de La Asociación Psicoanalítica de Madrid, Vol 38, Nr. 98, p.439-458 (ISSN: 1135-3171) Blos, P. (1962). On Adolescence. A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. New York: The Free Press Blos, P. (1985). Son and Father. Before and Beyond the Oedipus Complex. New York: The Free Press Freud, S. (1915). Observations on Transference-Love (Further Recommendations on the Technique of Psycho-Analysis III). S.E. 12:157–171. Gabbard, G. O. (1995). Countertransference: The Emerging Common Ground. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 76:475-485 Greenson, R.R. (1974). Loving, Hating and Indifference Towards the Patient. International Review of Psychoanalysis 1:259-266 Heimann, P. (1950). On Counter-Transference. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 31:81-84 Loewald, H. W. (1975). Psychoanalysis as an Art and the Fantasy Character of the Psychoanalytic Situation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 23:277–299. Tuckett, D. et al. (2024). Knowing What Psychoanalysts Do and Doing What Psychoanalysts Know. London: Rowman & Littlefield
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Analysts' Reflections on Their Parenting with Andy Cohen (Johannesburg)
"I was quite protective of the parent reader while I was editing this. I feel that so many of the books out there on the shelf have a real kind of finger wagging quality to parents. They kind of tell parents what to do, what not to do, mostly what they're doing wrong. I felt like I wanted to create a resource that empathized with the parents' position, and that protected them, because this is literally the hardest thing in the world. So the protectiveness felt important to me, and it was one of the things that was really quite important that we always held the parent in mind, which is why every letter starts with 'Dear Parent'." Episode Description: We begin with acknowledging the 'profound ordinariness' of the parenting experiences that these thirty-nine psychoanalysts share with the reader. They openly reveal their vulnerabilities, childishness, ambivalences and sorrows. They also share their delights, pleasures and feelings of accomplishment. The letters that we read include those on parental protectionism, feelings of being excluded, rivalries and erotic feelings. All the contributors acknowledge the presence of their pasts in their parenting present. Andy speaks of her journey as a mother and how vital her finding psychoanalysis was for both her and her family. She concludes the book "I hope that you close this book with a deep sense of respect for yourself, a healthy curiosity and a few more questions than answers." Our Guest: Andy Cohen is a psychoanalyst with the South African Psychoanalytical Association (SAPA). Her TEDx Talk, "A Mom Can't Always Act Like a Grown-Up – Here's Why", explores the unconscious forces between mother and child. She holds an MA Fine Art and has worked as an Art Counsellor using psychodynamic art-based interventions in at-risk communities. She currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. Recommended Readings: TED Talk by Andy Cohen: "A mom can't always act like a grown up - here's why" When Mothers Talk - Magical Moments and Everyday Challenges from Birth to Three Years by Ilene S. Lefcourt Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran by Gohar Homayounpour Psychoanalysis from the Inside Out by Lena Ehrlich Intimacy and Separateness by Warren Poland Dear Candidate: Analysts from around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession by Fred Busch
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