How can neuropsychoanalysis help us to understand Artifical Intelligence? We encounter Artificial Intelligence everyday, which is modeled to a certain extent on human consciousness, and so AI gives us a view into what we know and what we may not know about ourselves.  In addition, we now develop our sense of self and others both within the virtual and material worlds – AI could be said therefore to not only be modeled on human consciousness, but it is also impacting our development. In this...

How does a psychoanalyst grapple with the sudden impact of a traumatic loss in their personal life, and how does it reverberate in their professional capacities? How do analysts navigate the challenges associated with illness or the inevitable effects of aging?Moving beyond the various losses in real life, analysts face the challenge of dealing with the loss and mourning of their illusions—illusions of immortality and invulnerability. Analysts are tasked with confronting their own finitude...

What does a psychoanalyst do in his practice with his patients? How can we define the act of the psychoanalyst at work? It is this vast question that Bernard Penot addresses in this podcast, talking about the act of the psychoanalyst in the service of subjectivation. Referring to Freud's work on transference and then to Lacan's work on the psychoanalytical act during the years of student revolts in France in may 1968, he manages to show us the active involvement of the psychoanalyst in the...

The place of sexuality in psychoanalytic treatment and training today: Can we observe a disappearance of sexuality in case reports and supervisions?      How does the evolving discourse on sexuality influence psychoanalytic practice and training? In an era where sexual dysphoria is seemingly on the rise, particularly among younger generations, questions arise about the current positioning of Freud's drive theory and the status of sexual issues in psychoanalytic education. Are we witnessing a...

Still Life with Fruit and Wineglasses on a Silver Plate, c. 1659-1660, Willem Kalf. Courtesy Mauritshuis, The Hague.   Why do some people seem unable to achieve full satisfaction in things? What keeps them dissatisfied even after achieving their goals? And why does the Ego persist in avoiding mourning and sticking to the same solutions? In this episode of the IPA Talks On Psychoanalysis podcast series, Salman Akhtar presents his theory that redefines the classical Kleinian conception of the...

A plea for a third topicality.An intrapsychic representation of the intersubjective bond,even before the discovery of the object.   Can psychoanalysis be useful with infants? How can we think through concepts of metapsychology with infants? The two Freudian topics are in reference to the instances which are fruit of the completed intrapsychic differentiation process. How can they be useful with infants, who by nature are still undifferentiated and unfinished? In this episode Bernard Golse...

How can we think about the Oedipus complex today in a contemporary society beset by a crisis of ideals and the emergence of new forms of sexuality? Neurosis has not disappeared, but borderline states have become a prevalent adaptive mode in a world lacking solid authority figures and sinking into symbolic misery. In this episode, François Richard is proposing his concept of the distorted Oedipus complex. Beginning with theoretical conceptions of Freud and then of his successors, he is...

Our self is always there and present throughout our whole life. Despite the many social, environmental and ecological changes as well as the major bodily changes, our self remains one and the same throughout the changes of our life. Where and how is the temporal continuity of our self coming from?   Georg Northoff is a philosopher, neuroscientist and psychiatrist, holding degrees in all three disciplines. He works in Ottawa/Canada holding a Canada Research Chair for Mind, Brain Imaging, and...

What is the relationship between the mind and the body, and how does it shape our understanding of the self? In this episode, Rosa Spagnolo presents her reflections on the topic, published in her recent book, written with Georg Northoff. In the book, she delves into how out-of-body experiences can shed light on the complex dynamics between the self and the world.  She examines  the relationship between the body and the brain, the role of time and space in shaping our experience of the self,...

Happiness is humans' undeniable desire, but why does it seem so within reach for some, and so rare and difficult for others? What makes it possible from the psychic perspective? In this episode, Dr. Marion Minerbo shares with us, in a clear and concise voice, her studies on the aptitude for happiness. The author describes brief moments of happiness and from them highlights the psychic elements engaged in making this experience possible. Firmly based on psychoanalytic theory and illustrated...

This paper was published in The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual issue 16, in 2022. The full text can be found on the publisher Raffaello Cortina's website: https://riviste.raffaellocortina.it/scheda-articolo_digital/stefano-bolognini/hidden-unconscious-buried-unconscious-implicit-unconscious-Annual_2022_7-3814.html   The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual 2022/16...

For those interested in the extensive written version on which this short talk is based, please contact the author at [email protected] .   From the Freudian conception of psychic bisexuality to the current approaches of transgenderism, the question of gender has knocked at the door of psychoanalysis to account for its articulation in the social context of its time. The different ways that people position themselves in life, confronts us with the challenge of thinking psychoanalytically...

How do recent external and internal changes emerge in the theoretical-technical and clinical understanding of psychoanalysis today? How to think psychoanalytically about the topic of war today more than ever? In this episode entitled External and internal changes in recent times, Mercedes Puchol reflects, among other things, on the impact of these changes in relation to remote analysis, and considers the notion of analysability, originally postulated by Carlos Paz in 1971, to be fundamental...

In this episode, Mary Adams delve into issues related to the trauma of being a replacement child. She illustrates this with the example of James Joyce, as "he seemed to overcome the debilitating effects of this early trauma and survivor guilt by using his writing".  Mary Adams is a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytic Association, having completed her training in 1996.  She was a training analyst with the Association of Child Psychotherapists, has a particular interest in the work of...

The paternal function is one of the most embedded concepts both in the singular dimension of clinical thinking and in the extended of social functioning. It underlies, for example, one of the foundational elements of the psychoanalytic method: the very idea of “Analytic Setting” could not exist without a paternal function.  In today's episode, thanks to the work of Michael J Diamond, we will explore its many aspects, including the construction of a triangular space, the role of the Third in...

Veterans come home from war with shifted personalities, survival guilt after having lost comrades in battle, denial of feelings and shattered selves. A holding environment of safety if they ever had one is lost. How can a clinician gain the veteran’s trust and create the transitional space necessary for therapy that heals? In this podcast we will listen to Andrew Berry’s paper “The Interpersonal Psychoanalytic Approach to Working with Veterans where he takes a view of war veterans from an...

The impact of reality on the psychoanalytical treatment and on the work of renunciation of the patient and the analyst. Which realities are involved in the cure? In this episode Bernard Chervet talks about the impact of reality on psychoanalytic treatment. In light of recent contexts of the global pandemic and upheavals it has caused, Bernard Chervet offers us a theoretical exploration of different notions of reality which confront the analyst. By redefining the terms intrusion, irruption...

In this episode dr. Marion Minerbo brings us an original hypothesis about the constitution of the cruel superego – the one that, according to Freud, plants its roots in the id and is pure culture of the death drive. In her hypothesis, the hatred with which the superego attacks the ego comes from the identification with unconscious micro-vows of death that originate in the paranoid core of the parental figure. She proposes a formula that helps us to recognize that these attacks have the...

This podcast discusses the political nature of psychoanalytic audacity in our era of fake news and disinformation. Today, gullible populations accustom themselves to the lies and misrepresentations of anti-thinking, often through the rumor-mills of social media, where any and every thought, no matter how bizarre, is leveled to an equality of consideration (Frankfurt, 2005; Hayden, 2018; Lipton, 2018; Miller, 2018). Opposed to this flattening of critical meaning, is the psychoanalytic model of...

A few musical passages serve as examples of how music is a basic component of psychic life and unconscious functioning since the earliest sensorial experiences in utero.  Both music and the psyche work through similar mechanisms such as repetition, imitation, variation (transformation), intimacy and the work of mourning, of the negative and of nostalgia. Silence and absence, as well as time and temporality, are key elements both in music and in symbolization and subjectivation...

In this episode "Sublimation between suffering and pleasure at work", Christophe Dejours develops his theses on the psychodynamics of work, which he has particularly deepened. He examines the work clinic from the angle of sublimation, which he breaks down into «bodypropriation», relationship to the other and relationship to civilisation; sublimation operates in all work, even the most ordinary; it has a powerful effect on identity and mental health. Christophe Dejours shows how certain work...

"Guernica" by Picasso at MOMA, NYC. Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer. Courtesy Library of Congress. What happens when our basic trust in the world is challenged, and the social dimension of reality is disrupted as a consequence of collective trauma? In this episode, Werner Bohleber addresses the theme of traumatic experiences and does so starting from the two main models around which psychoanalytic thought has sought to understand trauma: the freudian psycho-economic model and the...

Thoreau's cove, Lake Walden, Concord, Mass., Detroit Publishing Co., publisher, between 1900 and 1910. Courtesy Library of Congress. Nancy Chodorow is Training and Supervising Analyst Emerita, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Lecturer Part-time in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance, and Professor of Sociology Emerita, University of California, Berkeley.  At UC Berkeley, she helped to create Women's Studies and was a co-founder of the University of...

Flowers and Fruit in a Chinese Bowl, c. 1645, Juan de Zurbarán. Courtesy Art Institute Chicago. What role does Pleasure occupy in human development? What influence did this theme have on the development of Freud's Psychoanalytic theory? What do we think in contemporaneity about the function of pleasure in the psyche? In this episode we have the pleasure of listening to Dr. Rui Aragão Oliveira with his article “Why pleasure?”. Dr. Rui provides an overview of the relevance of the topic for...