Gun violence is a common occurrence in America, and that makes us an outlier among developed nations.

There were 39 mass shootings in January 2023 alone, and firearms are the #1 cause of death for children in our country.

How can we use our training as psychoanalysts to recognize who might be at risk for committing mass gun violence and intervene long before they’re inclined to take action?

Dr. Jeffrey Taxman, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with a private practice Mequon, Wisconsin, and serves on the clinical faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin Department of Psychiatry. He is also an internationally recognized expert in massive community trauma with a focus on first responders.

Dr. Taxman has supported police officers, soldiers, firefighters, medical personnel and mental health workers during crisis situations, and his work to develop a psychoanalytic framework for understanding and preventing mass gun violence in the US is presented and discussed nationally.

On this inaugural episode of Psychoanalysis and You, Dr. Taxman joins host Dr. Gail Saltz to explore the tremendous need for mental health care among first responders and explain how he uses psychoanalytic principles to help them do their jobs better in crisis situations.

Dr. Taxman walks us through the risk factors for committing a mass shooting and discusses the politicization of gun violence in America.

Listen in to understand why gun control alone won’t eliminate mass shootings and learn what we can do as mental health professionals to limit the pool of future shooters in our communities.

Topics Covered 

·      Why Dr. Taxman is driven to use his skills as a psychoanalyst during massive disasters

·      How Dr. Taxman uses psychoanalytic principles to help first responders do their jobs better

·      The tremendous need for mental health care among members of the military, first responders and police officers

·      Using a psychoanalytic framework to understand and prevent mass gun violence

·      The risk factors for committing a mass shooting and what we might do to limit the pool of future shooters

·      Who is best qualified to screen children around their capacity for empathy

·      How Dr. Taxman thinks about adolescents having access to guns during the high-risk period when they’re highly impulsive

·      Why gun control alone won’t solve the problem of mass shootings in America

·      The politicization of gun violence and Dr. Taxman’s challenge to Congress to consider the perspective of mental health professionals in addressing the issue

Connect with Dr. Taxman 

Dr. Taxman at Mequon Clinical Associates

‘Gun Violence in America—A Tri-Vector Model’ in the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies

Connect with APsA

 The American Psychoanalytic Association

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Does understanding an artist’s mind enhance our appreciation of their work?

Traditional art history stressed the importance of looking at works of art in isolation and discouraged ‘contaminating’ art with biographical data. But if you ask Dr. Adele Tutter, MD, PhD, it’s that biographical data that uncovers the significance of the art to its creator. 

So, how can we use our training as psychoanalysts to better understand the creative process? And how might we use art as a tool to support our patients, whether or not they happen to be artists themselves?

Dr. Tutter is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Vagelos School of Medicine and Director of the Psychoanalytic Studies Program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In her award-winning scholarship, Dr. Tutter explores the underpinnings of creativity and the relationship between the artist and their art, including the short stories of Raymond Carver, the photography of Francesca Woodman, and the fashion of Alexander McQueen.

On this episode of Psychoanalysis and You, Dr. Tutter joins host Dr. Gail Saltz to explain how understanding an artist’s mind helps us better understand their work.

Dr. Tutter discusses the therapeutic nature of making art, describing how artists use their work to process trauma and transform it into something beautiful.

Listen in for Dr. Tutter’s insight on treating creative people and learn how to use art as a vehicle to help patients talk about themselves.

Topics Covered

·      How Dr. Tutter’s curiosity leads her to the artists she chooses to write about

·      Dr. Tutter’s psychoanalytic approach to art history and how it differs from traditional methodology

·      Understanding an artist’s mind in order to understand their work (i.e.: Josef Sudek’s photographs of trees)

·      How our mind impacts the way we view a work of art

·      How their work can help an artist process their trauma and transform it into something beautiful

·      Surprising things Dr. Tutter has uncovered in analyzing artists and their work

·      How the themes or objects in an artist’s work have multiple meanings that change over time

·      The therapeutic nature of making art and why we should encourage it

·      Using a patient’s art or works they’ve seen as a vehicle to talk about themselves

·      Why creative people seek out Dr. Tutter and how that affects their treatment

·      How writing about artists and their grief helped Dr. Tutter process her own

·      Why Dr. Tutter shares more of her own experiences than most psychoanalysts

Connect with Dr. Tutter

Dr. Tutter at Columbia University

Dr. Tutter on LinkedIn

Books by Dr. Tutter

Research by Dr. Tutter

Connect with APsA 

The American

The future of psychotherapy as a profession depends, in large part, on how young people understand the discipline.

So, what is the best way to introduce the concepts of psychoanalysis to the next generation?

Elizabeth Lunbeck, MA, is a historian of psychoanalysis, psychiatry and psychology currently serving as Professor and Chair of the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. She teaches courses in the history of psychoanalysis, including a general education lecture course, Psychotherapy and the Modern Self. 

Lunbeck is also the author of The Psychiatric Persuasion: Knowledge, Gender, and Power in Modern America and The Americanization of Narcissism and coauthor of Family Romance, Family Secrets: Case Notes from an American Psychoanalysis. She is currently writing a book on the talking cure—from Freud to TikTok.

On this episode of Psychoanalysis and You, Elizabeth Lunbeck joins host Dr. Gail Saltz to explain how she demystifies psychoanalysis for her students without dumbing it down. 

Lunbeck discusses the benefit of teaching concepts like transference and reenactment by tying them to our everyday experiences and describes her approach to addressing student curiosity around the efficacy of psychoanalytic treatment. 

Listen in for Lunbeck’s insight on how the pandemic has changed public understanding of psychoanalysis and learn what we can do as mental health professionals to ‘defend the brand’ in a time when anyone can call themselves a therapist.

Topics Covered

·      Lunbeck’s approach to teaching undergraduates about psychotherapy

·      The benefit of teaching concepts like transference and reenactment by tying them to our everyday experiences

·      Lunbeck’s students’ openness to learning about psychoanalysis

·      How talk is the technology of all 250 branded therapies

·      What Lunbeck does to demystify concepts of psychoanalysis without dumbing them down

·      How Lunbeck teaches counterintuitive ideas like Fairbairn’s allure of the bad object

·      Lunbeck’s approach to addressing the efficacy of psychoanalytic treatment with her students

·      How the pandemic has changed public understanding of psychoanalysis

·      How the pandemic highlighted the magnitude of the mismatch between mental health providers and need

·      Lunbeck’s concerns around distance treatment for mental health conditions

·      What psychoanalysts can do to ‘defend the brand’

Connect with Elizabeth Lunbeck

Elizabeth Lunbeck at Harvard University

Connect with APsA

The American Psychoanalytic Association

APsA on Facebook

APsA on Twitter

APsA on LinkedIn

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We live in a time of great political polarization in America. A polarization fueled by the narrative that promoting equity for marginalized communities means taking something away from everyone else.

How might we use the principles of psychoanalysis to understand the resistance to diversity and inclusion initiatives and innovate for meaningful change?

Can we leverage our experience as analysts to promote equity in public policy as well as the organizations we serve?

Dr. Kimberlyn Leary, PhD, is Senior Vice President at the Urban Institute, a DC-based research and policy think tank, Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Leary previously worked as Senior Policy Advisor to the White House Domestic Policy Council, where she implemented President Biden's Executive Order on Equity, and served as Advisor to the Obama White House Council on Women and Girls, where she spearheaded the Advancing Equity Initiative to improve life outcomes for women and girls of color.

On this episode of Psychoanalysis and You, Dr. Leary joins host Dr. Gail Saltz to discuss the principles of psychoanalysis she brings to policy work, explaining why the best public policy is a collaboration between policymakers and the communities they serve.

Dr. Leary describes her work with the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in the APsA and explores the generational differences in how we think about equity and belonging.

Listen in for Dr. Leary’s insight on the implications of overturning Affirmative Action in the US and learn the value in understanding the story behind a political perspective that differs from your own.

Topics Covered

• Leary’s role as an advisor to both the Obama and Biden administrations
• The principles of psychoanalysis that Dr. Leary uses to innovate for change
• Why the best public policy is a collaboration between policymakers and the communities they represent
• How Dr. Leary approaches the issue of diversity and inclusion
• Using bias to rethink the architecture of how our organizations work
• Leary’s work with the Holmes Commission and what problems they identified within the APsA
• The generational differences in how we think about equity and belonging
• Why it’s challenging for senior leaders to tolerate feeling unskilled during a period of learning
• Leary’s insight on the implications of overturning Affirmative Action
• How Dr. Leary thinks about the scarcity mindset that fuels political polarization in the US
• Understanding the story behind a political view that differs from your own

Connect with Dr. Leary 

Dr. Leary at the Urban Institute

Dr. Leary on LinkedIn

Dr. Leary on Twitter

Connect with APsA

The American Psychoanalytic Association

APsA on Facebook

APsA on Twitter

There is a growing opposition to treating children and adolescents with the DSM-5 diagnosis of gender dysphoria or the ICD-11 diagnosis of gender incongruence.

But as psychoanalysts, we have an obligation to remove politics and ideology from the treatment room and do what’s best for the people we serve.

So, how do we learn to recognize our own fears and leverage our training to best treat young people navigating gender dysphoria? 

Dr. Jack Drescher, MD, is Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute, Adjunct Professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and Senior Psychoanalytic Consultant at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.

Dr. Drescher is also a 2022 recipient of the Sigourney Award in recognition for his work around gender and sexuality, and he served on the APA’s DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders and the World Health Organization’s Working Group to revise sex and gender diagnoses in the ICD-11.

On this episode of Psychoanalysis and You, Dr. Drescher joins host Dr. Gail Saltz to discuss public anxiety around gender dysphoria and the legislation that forbids transgender people from getting treatment.

Dr. Drescher discusses the ethical problem with ‘talking to children until they change their mind’ as the only treatment for gender dysphoria and addresses the concerns of policymakers and parents around detransitioners.

Listen in for Dr. Drescher’s insight on understanding and allowing for the nuances of gender and learn how our training as psychoanalysts can be of particular benefit to families dealing with gender dysphoria.

Topics Covered

·      What’s behind the growing opposition to treating children and adolescents with gender dysphoria or gender incongruence

·      How what’s happening now with the transgender community compares to past reactions to homosexuality

·      How Dr. Drescher thinks about educating a public that is afraid and wants to create laws forbidding transgender people from getting treatment

·      Why Dr. Drescher recommends finding a practitioner with expertise in treating transgender children before you make any decisions re: hormones or puberty blockers

·      Dr. Drescher’s response to conservative psychoanalytic voices who suggest talking to children until they change their mind as the only treatment for gender dysphoria

·      What Dr. Drescher says to parents and policymakers concerned about the ramifications of interventions for transgender young people who change their minds (known as detransitioners)

·      Why there’s resistance among some psychanalysts to recognize the existence of biologically-based gender dysphoria

·      The mental health concerns surrounding young people who suffer from gender dysphoria

·      How our training as psychoanalysts can be of benefit to families dealing with gender dysphoria

·      The exaltation of gender stereotypes in our culture and how young people benefit from parents who are comfortable with atypical behaviors

Connect with Dr. Drescher

Dr. Drescher’s Website

Dr. Drescher on LinkedIn

Connect with APsA

This is the trailer for a new podcast from the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA), hosted by Dr. Gail Saltz: Psychoanalysis & You.

You can learn more and browse episodes here.