Abby and Patrick welcome psychoanalyst and clinical social worker Brian Ngo-Smith for a conversation about one of the most difficult but powerful concepts in psychoanalytic theory: projective identification. A notion that demands simultaneously thinking about infantile development and adult behaviors, normal defenses and pathological patterns, the idea of projective identification captures an essential dimension of all kinds of interpersonal relationships – but it also throws some of our most basic assumptions about the distinction between self and other into question. In the first of a two-part series, Brian, Abby, and Patrick unpack the concept of projective identification, setting it in historical context, and considering it from a variety of perspectives. They explore topics including classical Freudian versus object relations approaches to development; the works of Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion; the defense mechanisms in general and ideas of projection and introjection specifically; projective identification in therapy, romantic partnerships, and professional life; and more. In part II, which comes out next Saturday, Brian, Abby, and Patrick put the idea of projective identification to work in considering group behavior, institutional cultures, and politics.

Texts cited:

Melanie Klein, “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms” 

Wilfred Bion, Experiences in Groups

Teresa Brennan, The Transmission of Affect 

Nancy McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process

JL Mitrani, “'Taking the transference': Some technical implications in three papers by Bion”

Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense

Jerome Blackman, 101 Defenses: How the Mind Shields Itself

More about Brian at https://ngosmiththerapy.com/ and https://ngosmithconsulting.com

Our previous episode with Brian, “Hate, Help, and Housing: Psychoanalysis and Social Work”: https://ordinaryunhappiness.buzzsprout.com/2131830/episodes/14213981-36-hate-help-and-housing-psychoanalysis-and-social-work-feat-brian-ngo-smith

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
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Provided by Fruits Music

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It’s part two of our mailbag episode – which means Abby, Patrick, and Dan get to field yet more amazing listener questions! Topics include the many relationships, and problems of translation, between psychoanalysis and Buddhism; the figure of Melanie Klein and American resistances to her thought; how the right uses language and the question of whether the American left needs a new "master signifier"; the virality of buzzwords like "limerence" and "person addiction" and what they reveal about contemporary conditions of intimacy; and more! The three also reflect on themes of precarity, vulnerability, education, and more.

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Abby and Patrick are joined by writer Grace Byron, author of the fantastic new novel Herculine. Alternately hilarious and terrifying, Herculine is the story of a young trans woman who leaves a frustrating life in New York City to join an erstwhile high school lover in a trans separatist commune in rural Indiana. But the community proves far from perfect, and the narrator soon finds herself enmeshed in a pressure-cooker milieu of personal jealousies and erotic rivalries, all with occult overtones – and there are literal demons, too. Abby, Patrick, and Grace reflect on the themes of the book, and probe the broader questions it addresses. How might trauma shape our ideas about healing and our pursuit of transformative experiences – in psychotherapy and beyond? How does identity relate to desire, how does theory relate to practice, and how might hegemonic structures reassert themselves in power dynamics within marginalized communities? What are the uses of utopian fantasies, and how do we square them with the real-world challenges of building solidarity? The three explore all these questions, as well as the power of religious symbolism, the practice of “conversion therapy,” media representations of the demonic, and more!  

Texts cited:

Grace Byron, Herculine: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Herculine/Grace-Byron/9781668087862 

Grace Byron, “Idle Worship: Fairy Tales of Conversion,” in Parapraxis: https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/idle-worship

Grace Byron, “Repossessed,” in The Baffler: https://thebaffler.com/latest/repossessed-byron

McKenzie Wark, “Dear Cis Analysts: A Call for Reparations,” in Parapraxis: https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/dear-cis-analysts

Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini, Gender Without Identity: https://www.uitbooks.com/shop/gender-without-identity

Imogen Binnie, Nevada: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374606619/nevada/

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

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It’s another mailbag episode (part one of two)! Abby, Patrick, and Dan respond to listener questions about everything from the utility of psychoanalytic concepts in everyday life to the complexities of Melanie Klein to the allure of AI “wisdom” and beyond. Plus, they tackle Abraham Maslow’s famous “Hierarchy of Needs” and get into the weeds of why, exactly, Hallmark movies exist, who they’re for, and what libidinal work they do.

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Abby and Patrick are joined by therapist and sexuality educator Lucie Fielding. First, the three talk about Lucie’s path to clinical work and the significance of her book, Trans Sex, just out in a revised Second Edition. They then turn to Freud’s classic, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), putting that text, and the broader legacy of Freud’s views on sexuality, in dialogue with contemporary questions of trans embodiment and sexual identity. This means reckoning with the ways that Freud’s account of sexual development is alternately retrograde and radical, both of his time and far ahead of it. The three focus in particular on Freud’s idea of “polymorphous perversity,” and the ambiguities of his distinction between “sexual object” and “sexual aim,” exploring how Freud’s vision of human sexuality as radically contingent and plastic may offer possibilities for thinking constructively and more inclusively about pleasure and the diverse range of human sexual expression.

Lucie’s website is here: https://luciefielding.com/

The new edition of Trans Sex is here: https://www.routledge.com/Trans-Sex-Nurturing-Trans-Erotic-Embodiment-and-Gender-Pleasure/Fielding/p/book/9781032737218

Lucie’s recommended reading includes:

Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini, Gender Without Identity

José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity

Tourmaline, Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson

Oliver Davis and Tim Dean, Hatred of Sex

Audre Lorde, “Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power”

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Last year we unlocked part 1 of our Thanksgiving Special so that everyone could hear the good/bad news about the "Holiday Syndrome." This year we're unlocking part 2, on settler colonialism, history, fantasy, ritual, and more. Whether you're celebrating, traveling, or staying home, we promise there's a lot to chew on here!

Unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

In the second – overstuffed – installment of our two-part Thanksgiving Special, we discuss the social demand to perform “thankfulness”; the parable of primal murder and subsequent myth-making at the heart of Freud’s first foray into armchair anthropology, Totem and Taboo (1913); Christianity, civic religion and the “totems” and sacrifices of ritual meals as obligatory touchstones for enforcing social cohesion; the history of the Thanksgiving holiday as a project of ideological integration and national-mythmaking; the history behind the supposed “first Thanskgiving”; the psychic tolls of repression at the level of the individual, the family, and the nation; settler colonialism as a term of political and libidinal economy; primal scenes and screen memories; indigenous activism, counter-memories, and the National Day of Mourning; compulsory identification, difficult recognitions, disidentifications, and the creation of new possibilities.

Citations available on Patreon here.

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
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Abby and Patrick resume Freud’s case history of Elisabeth von R. They walk through Freud’s developing technique before unpacking what will prove to be one of his lifelong favorite and most evocative metaphors for psychic life: a city. Abby and Patrick then begin close-reading Elisabeth von R’s life story as she first relates it to Freud. What emerges is both a picture of Elisabeth’s family system, its patterns, and the distinctly gendered roles assigned to its members as well as the story of her personal fantasies and frustrations as the family goes through turmoil and loss. The episode builds to the articulation of a fundamental Freudian preoccupation: how do psychic injuries arise in relation to real-world misfortunes, and how do life experiences and contingent events determine the form of an individual’s bodily symptoms? 

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Abby and Patrick are joined by one of their favorite writers, Sarah Miller, to talk about her new essay in n+1. Entitled “Pirates of the Ayahuasca,” it’s a first-person narrative, at once understated and devastating, hilarious and cutting, that sees Sarah, struggling with depression and grief, travel from wildfire-ravaged Northern California to the Peruvian Amazon for two weeks of psychedelic treatment under a prominent indigenous shaman. Sarah relates and reflects on her experience, her relationship with the shaman and his other clients, the business model of the “ayahuasca center,” and much more. Along the way, Sarah, Abby, and Patrick unpack broader narratives about therapy, ritual, and healing; the ways we metabolize feelings of guilt, sadness, and desires for change; the unavoidable context of capitalism, global inequality, and climate catastrophe; our expectations for psychedelics, our fantasies of transformative experiences, and what we can learn from plants. 

Sarah Miller's writing classes are ongoing, here is a description and contact information.

Sarah Miller, “Pirates of the Ayahuasca”: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-50/essays/pirates-of-the-ayahuasca/

Sarah Miller, “Heaven or High Water”: https://popula.com/2019/04/02/heaven-or-high-water/

Sarah’s Substack, The Real Sarah Miller: https://therealsarahmiller.substack.com/

Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/357842/the-doors-of-perception-by-aldous-huxley/9780099458203

Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin and Anna Shulgin, PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved): A Chemical Love Story: https://psychedelics.berkeley.edu/resources/pihkal/

Brian Pace and Neşe Devenot, “Right-Wing Psychedelia: Case Studies in Cultural Plasticity and Political Pluripotency”: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34975622/

Neil Whitehead and Robin Wright, editors, In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia: https://www.dukeupress.edu/in-darkness-and-secrecy

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Abby and Patrick continue their series on psychedelics via an in-depth interview with Dr. Dan Karlin. Karlin is a psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer at MindMed, where he oversees clinical trials using LSD to treat major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Karlin first fills Abby and Patrick in about those disorders, MindMed’s ongoing clinical trials, and both the history of LSD research and potential near-future therapeutic applications. In the wide-ranging conversation that follows, they explore provocative questions about the relationship between quantitative research and qualitative description, the challenges of thinking simultaneously about neurobiology and phenomenology, and how various models fall short in different ways when it comes to describing ineffable experiences. They also probe what Karlin’s work suggests about the ways bodily perceptions, metaphors, and narrative shape our subjective sense of self, how the symptoms of MDD and GAD can be seen in that light, and how certain psychedelics may work to rapidly reorganize those underlying patterns and configurations in ways that mirror the work of long-term therapy.

Note: All opinions are Karlin's own and not attributable to MindMed

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Abby and Dan process Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024), starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. From uncanny doubles to unsparing mirrors to the punishing reality principle of getting older, it’s a film that offers plenty of grist for the psychoanalytic mill. It’s also an occasion for Abby and Dan to reflect on sexual difference, gendered expectations, the male gaze, femininity as self-surveillance, the pleasures (and disgusts) of body horror, and more!

Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! (646) 450-0847
 
 A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
 
 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness

Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music