Dr. Gila Ashtor joins Austin McCann for a wide-ranging conversation on Jean Laplanche, the future of psychoanalysis, and why the field must be willing to question its own foundations. Beginning with their shared path into psychoanalysis through the humanities, they discuss the relationship between theory and clinical practice, the limits of contemporary analytic training, and the importance of cultivating a culture of critique rather than preserving tradition for its own sake.

The conversation explores Laplanche's theories of seduction, enlarged sexuality, and the fundamental anthropological situation, offering an accessible introduction to one of psychoanalysis's most original contemporary thinkers. Along the way, they examine why concepts like the Oedipus complex may need to be rethought, what it means to practice "faithful infidelity" toward Freud, and how psychoanalysis can remain open to transformation without abandoning its past.

The episode concludes by turning to contemporary clinical questions—including dissociation, pseudo-selfhood, AI therapy, and the role of risk and asymmetry in treatment—arguing that psychoanalysis offers something increasingly rare: a space where genuine intimacy, uncertainty, and transformation remain possible.

*image: "Incipit Vita Nova (Here begins a new life)" (Aubrey Beardsley, 1893, c/o The Public Domain Review)

In this episode of Little Hysterics, Austin McCann speaks with psychoanalyst Carlos Padrón and clinical social worker Darragh Sheehan about the “social turn” in psychoanalysis, the gentrification of social work, and how neoliberalism is reshaping clinical practice.

***

show notes:

Center for Critical and Clinical Analysis
https://www.cccacommunity.com/

Carlos Padrón
“Spiritual Misery and the Absence of Experience: Towards a Political and Poetic Psychoanalysis.”
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ba68d8ba9ab951e0bf4bea6/t/69401441504b450203eed036/1765807169403/Spiritual+Misery+and+the+Absence+of+Experience+-+Padron.pdf

“The Political Potentiality of the Psychoanalytic Process.”
 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/650efcc37d0d663a4a766651/t/686eb3897503de640d6eb03b/1752085398223/The+Political+Potentialy+of+the+Psychoanalytic+Process%2C+Carlos+Padr%C3%B3n.pdf

Darragh Sheehan
 “From Public Service to Private Practice: The Collapse of the Social Work Profession.” (March 2025)
 https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/03/collapse-social-work/

“The Gentrification of Social Work: Why a ‘Political Mental Health’ Must Be Public.” (December 2025)
 https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/12/the-gentrification-of-social-work-why-a-political-mental-health-must-be-public/

“The Quiet Crisis in Mental Health: The Medicalization and Deskilling of Psychotherapy.” (April 2025)
 https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/04/quiet-crisis-mental-health/
"Glittering Generalities & Pop-leftist 'Psychotherapy Speak." (September 2024)
https://www.sublationmag.com/post/glittering-generalities-pop-leftist-psychotherapy-speak

Basia Winograd, dir. Psychoanalysis in El Barrio (2016), featuring Carlos Padrón
https://pep-web.org/browse/document/pepgrantvs.001.0010a

Works Referenced

Cushman, Philip. Constructing the Self, Constructing America: A Cultural History of Psychotherapy. 1995.
Danto, Elizabeth Ann. Freud’s Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918–1938. 2005.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. 1952.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. 1961.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970.
Freud, Sigmund. Studies on Hysteria. 1895.
Lear, Jonathan. Freud. 2005.
Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare. 1971.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_psychotherapy 

In this episode of Little Hysterics, Austin sits down with psychoanalytic scholar and clinician Derek Hook to discuss his new book about Frantz Fanon, the difference between psychoanalysis and conventional psychotherapy, psychoanalysis’s relationship with political action, and the Derek's attempt at making difficult theory accessible.

Derek's book Fanon, Psychoanalysis, and Critical Decolonial Psychology is available here: https://www.routledge.com/Fanon-Psychoanalysis-and-Critical-Decolonial-Psychology-The-Mind-of-Apartheid/Hook/p/book/9781032308012