Talks On Psychoanalysis

What if God had created Eve not at Adam’s service, but acknowledging his human condition of helplessness and absolute dependence on another human being? What may be the influence of this Western myth of the creation of civilization upon our subjectivity, especially regarding gender differences? These and other interesting questions are posed by Susana Muszkat in this paper about male violence and its naturalization in society.

According to her, gender-biased behaviors associated with masculinity (and femininity) are sustained by fixed cultural codes and repeated unconsciously across generations, in the absence of interventions aimed at deconstructing them. Is it God’s fault, or is it the way we read the myth?

Susana Muszkat is a psychologist and psychoanalyst, a full member and faculty member of the Brazilian Psychoanalytical Society of São Paulo. She sees adults, couples, and families in private practice and in institutions. Susana has a master’s degree in Social Psychology, which led her to studies on masculinity, violence, and gender, and to coordinating talk groups for men convicted of domestic violence for 15 years, where she had the opportunity to reflect on the “social construction of masculinity.”

She noted that men get trapped in static roles and cultural demands—as they are always expected to be strong, have courage, and engage in risky behaviors—differently from what is expected of women. According to her, this ends up affecting their mental health, generating violence as a product of having to maintain this Ideal Ego. In an attempt to get rid of feelings of insecurity, they react with violence. Susana coined the term “violence from identity distress” for this emotional condition.

Susana is a former IPSO President and has served on several IPA committees. She currently chairs the Institutional Issues Committee and was recently awarded first prize by the Community and the World Committee on Health and Psychoanalysis at the 2025 Lisbon Congress for her joint paper on the SOS Brazil project. She has published articles, book chapters, and books in several languages on this and other subjects.

This episode is presented in English and Portuguese.

You can download a copy of the paper here.

Why does the analyst write? And further why might the analyst write different kinds of pieces such as clinical writing, scientific papers, narratives, or poetry? There are always the considerations of the impact on our patients, their confidentiality and privacy (theirs and ours) but the desire to write and the writing process as well as its products are interesting to explore analytically. In this episode, Jennifer Davids discusses how she relates to her writing process which she links to the process of thinking, gestated as ideas and words and delivered through a process she calls writing through, a form of working through. For her, the process is not without struggle, searching to express herself in a second language that fits the images and sensory-rich world of her mind. And there are anxieties associated with the process of gestating an idea, “Do I have something to say?”, “Can I produce something worthwhile?”, of publishing her work including the anxieties associated with clinical writing and related themes of confidentiality and privacy. Her process is thoughtful, creative, courageous and inservice of the larger group of analyst readers who might be in dialogue with her.

Jennifer Davids, Fellow British Psychoanalytical Society (BPaS), FIPA, born in South Africa, is a chartered clinical psychologist and a Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychoanalyst, who trained full time in child and adolescent psychoanalysis during the mid to late 1980’s at the Anna Freud Centre, and then in adult psychoanalysis at the British Psychoanalytical Society. She is a supervising analyst for child and adolescent psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. After qualifying in 1989 in child and adolescent analysis, Jennifer Davids worked, as a clinical and teaching staff member, at the AFC (Anna Freud Centre, formerly the Hampstead clinic) for 20 years, as well as working in the National Health service as a Consultant Psychotherapist leading a mental health team. She has taught on the faculty of the BPaS, the Tavistock Clinic, IPCAPA, University College and Birkbeck College London, as well as at the Maudsley hospital.

She is on the Harlem Family Institute faculty. She teaches internationally, including facilitating an IPA Thinking Lab, and has published and presented widely, including IPA webinars on the body image, abuse and money. Her written publications include pieces on topics as wide ranging as: inter alia, sexual transference and countertransference, adoption, race, publishing in the digital era, and changes in human relating in the AI- and cyber-universe. Davids was an editorial board member of the British Journal of Psychotherapy. She continues to be a consultant to the IPA in Health committee of which she was a member from 2018 to 2025 and she is a board trustee of the International Play Association (England). She lives, draws, writes, and works in full-time private practice in London, UK.

You can download a copy of the paper here.

Are the limits of what can be said – the field of the non-verbal, the texture of affects, everything that resists symbolic capture – the true challenge facing psychoanalysis today?

This episode is presented in English and Spanish.

You can download a copy of the paper here.

"Psychic Change and Enactment: Some Reflections" is the work that Ariel Liberman offers us, to examine psychic change from a relational perspective, placing enactment as a central moment in the analytic process. Far from understanding it as a mere technical error, he presents it as a shared repetition (by patient and analyst) that, through insight and the analyst's disidentification with the embodied object, can become a transformative experience. In dialogue with the logic of the “deferred action”, how are these scenes resignified “après-coup”? How can the unthought in the analytic field open new possibilities for symbolization and change?

Ariel Liberman holds a PhD in Psychology and is a member of the Madrid Psychoanalytic Association with training functions. He is currently the editor of the APM's Journal of Psychoanalysis and participates in the committee that organizes the biennial Spanish Language Meetings held by the APM. Over the years, he has held various positions of responsibility within the association, notably as Scientific Secretary of the APM Board. He is the author of several articles and has published two books: “An Introduction to the Work of D.W. Winnicott” (2011) and “Conversations on Psychoanalysis with Stephen A. Mitchell” (2022). He works in private practice in Madrid, Spain.

This episode is presented in English and Spanish.

You can download a copy of the paper here.

Cover Image: Photo by Ana M. Martín Solar, "Reflections", Laredo, Cantabria, Spain.

"How does the psyche navigate the interplay of impermanence and resilience? In 'Vicissitudes of Transience', Jhuma Basak explores the concept of transience through psychoanalytic, cultural, and philosophical lenses, drawing connections between Japanese and Indian contexts. Through myths like Ajase and cultural forms like Bhatiyali songs, Jhuma Basak illuminates how transience shapes our relationship with loss, desire, and creativity. Bridging Eastern and Western perspectives, this reflection invites us to consider the feminine principle of fluidity as a path to embracing impermanence." This article is part of the book “Psychoanalytic Explorations into the Primal Relationship in Japan and India” (Routledge, 2025), a collaboration between Osamu Kitayama and Jhuma Basak exploring primal relationships in Japan and India through a cross-cultural psychoanalytic lens."

Jhuma Basak is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Indian Psychoanalytical Society. She has published on culture and gender. Over the past 20 years, she has presented at IPA Congresses along with the first Keynote from Asia-Pacific, 4th IPA-region at the 53rd IPA Congress (International Journal of Psychoanalysis). A past Co-chair of COWAP Asia-Pacific, she co-edited Psychoanalytic and Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Women in India: Violence, Safety and Survival (2021).

You can download a copy of the paper here.

Cover Image: Mukhtar Shuaib Mukhtar, Photo, Pexels (free to use).

"What happens when we accept that impermanence is not a loss, but the very essence of life? In psychoanalysis, transience is often associated with mourning and the capacity to renew oneself. Inspired by Freud's 1916 essay and Japanese culture, Dr. Osamu Kitayama explores how impermanence can be a source of psychic vitality and creativity. Through myths like Izanaki-Izanami and traditional Japanese art, Kitayama invites us to reflect on the relationship between transience, mourning, and resilience. How can we find beauty in the ephemeral? Establishing transience as a key concept in Japanese psychoanalysis, Kitayama's work bridges Eastern and Western perspectives. This article is part of the book “Psychoanalytic Explorations into the Primal Relationship in Japan and India” (Routledge, 2025), a collaboration between Osamu Kitayama and Jhuma Basak exploring primal relationships in Japan and India through a cross-cultural psychoanalytic lens."

Osamu Kitayama is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Japan Psychoanalytic Society, Professor Emeritus at Kyushu University and President of Hakuoh University. He served as President of the Japan Psychoanalytic Society from 2016-2019 and continues to work with patients in private practice. He has authored numerous articles on culturally oriented psychoanalysis and books such as Prohibition of Don’t Look (2011)”.

You can download a copy of the paper here.

Cover Image: Jin Yamamoto, Ehon Kojiki – Yomigaeri – Izanagi to Izanami (Picture Book Kojiki: Resurrection – Izanagi and Izanami), 2015. Story by Michiko Ryo. Tokyo: Kokushokankoukai, Inc.

In this article, Christine Anzieu-Premmereur explores the relationship between compulsion and the body in childhood and adolescence. Using psychoanalytic theory, she analyzes how the compulsive repetition of self-destructive behaviors can represent an attempt to process and make sense of early traumatic experiences. The article highlights the importance of early therapeutic intervention in childhood to prevent emotional and addictive problems later in life. In a world where addiction and emotional difficulties affect many people, understanding the roots of these behaviors is crucial. Through psychoanalytic theory, the author guides us in exploring the underlying mechanisms of compulsive repetition and its role in shaping subjectivity.

Christine Anzieu-Premmereur is an adult and child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and a member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. She directed the Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Training at Columbia University and served as chair of the IPA Committee for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis. She has published extensively on motherhood, child psychoanalysis, psychosomatics, addiction, and the intersection of the body and compulsion.

You can download a copy of the paper here.

Cover Image: Simon Vouet, Madonna and Child, 1633.

https://www.nga.gov/artworks/206070-madonna-and-child

"X". Calle Alcalá, Madrid. Photograph by Ana M. Martín Solar.

With the evocative title “Once Again, the Mystery”, the Argentine psychoanalyst Mariano Horenstein poses the equally enigmatic question: How do we listen to the language of sexuality today?

Through an exploration of the relationship between language and psychoanalysis and the historical transformation of the clinical paradigms that have shaped psychoanalytic listening to date: hysteria, in its origins, with its enigmatic language surrounded by silences, which inaugurated the analytical device; psychosis, which after the Second World War led to the expansion of the field, forcing us to give voice and testimony where the absence of repression predominated; the author shows us the trans clinic as a new paradigm that is currently emerging, not only because it requires the analyst to be heard, but also because it bursts onto the scene with its own voice and avatars of inclusive language, directly challenging psychoanalytic theory and practice, and thus bringing sexuality back to the centre of the psychoanalytic stage and debate.

In 2022, “Once Again, the Mystery” won the biennial Carolina Zamora Prize awarded by the Asociación Psicoanalítica de Madrid, which recognised the author by inviting him to participate as one of the main speakers at the seventh Meeting of Spanish-speaking Psychoanalysts in 2024.

Mariano Horenstein is a psychoanalyst with a teaching role at the Córdoba Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association.

He is a former representative for Latin America on the IPA Board. 

He is the former editor-in-chief of Calibán-Revista Latinoamericana de Psicoanálisis. He is also the author of the books: 

‘Psicoanálisis en lengua menor’ (Psychoanalysis in a Minor Language); ‘Brújula y diván. El psicoanálisis y su necesaria extranjería’ (Compass and Couch: Psychoanalysis and its Necessary Foreignness); ‘Funambulistas. Travesía adolescente y riesgo’ (Tightrope Walkers: Adolescent Journey and Risk); and ‘Conversaciones de diván’ (Couch Conversations).

www.marianohorenstein.com

This episode is presented in English and Spanish.

You can download a copy of the paper here.

In the wake of profound cultural change, the traditional image of the father has been destabilized, prompting renewed psychoanalytic reflection. No longer confined to authority alone, the paternal figure is now expected to embody both care and limit. What psychic space does the father occupy in the life of the child? In this episode, Heribert Blass explores fatherhood through a contemporary psychoanalytic lens.

Drawing on clinical experience, interdisciplinary research, and cultural observation, he outlines a model of committed paternity that integrates emotional presence with symbolic function. From early play to Oedipal conflict, the father's task is to protect, to differentiate, and to support the child's path toward autonomy. Rather than fading, he emerges as a complex figure situated at the intersection of intimacy, separation, and symbolic function—and essential to the child's inner world.

Heribert Blass, medical doctor, is a psychoanalyst for adults, children, and adolescents; a training and supervising analyst of the German Psychoanalytic Association and the IPA; also a specialist in psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy, and psychiatry, working in private practice in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is the president-elect of the IPA and served as president of the European Psychoanalytic Federation from 2020 to 2024. His publications cover a wide range of topics, including male identity and sexuality, the image of the father, supervision, generativity both in clinical work and within psychoanalytic institutions, boundary violations, the relationship between internal and external reality, psychoanalysis and society (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic), as well as time and the experience of time.

You can download a copy of the paper here

This Podcast Series, published by the International Psychoanalytical Association, is part of the activities of the IPA Communication Committee and is produced by the IPA Podcast Editorial Team.

Co-Editors: Gaetano Pellegrini and Nicolle Zapien.

Editing and Post-Production: Massimiliano Guerrieri.

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The current social, political and historical context offers many difficult challenges. We have experienced up close and from a distance awareness of a remarkable number of challenges including the wars, political unrest, growing socioeconomic inequities, climate catastrophe, and human and animal suffering.  These times are also marked by polarized thinking, including among analysts, candidates and in our communities.  An application of a psychoanalytically-informed method that rests on psychoanalytic clinical theory but focuses on group experiences of psycho-historical conflict as it continues in the present is offered as a means to facilitate deep and moving change when there is toxic polarization. 

In this episode, Dr. Harriet Wolfe presents a unique application of psychoanalytic thinking.  She describes an interdisciplinary group that is international, intergenerational and diverse that meets periodically to apply analytic thinking to intractable large scale historical group traumas.  This method, called the International Dialogue Initiative includes psychoanalysts but also others (e.g. economists, lawyers, diplomats, historians) who share stories and deeply listen with the purpose of gaining perspective on unmanageable feelings through exploring cases of traumatic residues. While others, including Freud have theorized application of psychoanalysis to groups, this particular use is novel and important in today’s times and speaks to how psychoanalysis can be truly psychoanalytic and at the same time be applied to political and social issues.

Harriet Wolfe, M.D., is President of the International Psychoanalytical Association, Past President of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California San Francisco, and Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. Her scholarly interests include clinical applications of psychoanalytic research, organizational processes, female development, and therapeutic action. She has co-authored a number of psychoanalytically informed guided activity workbooks for children, parents and teachers to help children cope with natural and manmade disasters. She has a private practice of psychoanalysis, and individual and couple’s psychoanalytic psychotherapy in San Francisco.

Co-Editors: Gaetano Pellegrini and Nicolle Zapien.

Editing and Post-Production: Massimiliano Guerrieri.

A subtitled version of this podcast is available on our YouTube channel:

You can download a copy of the paper here.