Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

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1. From Historian to Analytic Candidate: The Search for 'Truth' with Agnes Sobolewska Alsberg, PhD (Chicago)

   1 november 2026 · 49 min

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   "It is not enough to find interpretative frames in analysis - there must be a space for analyst and analysand to really regress and live through the traumatic past again. It may sound obvious today, but it definitely was not obvious at that time. In the early 1930s, Severn and Ferenczi and Bonaparte and Freud, in both of these dyads, the problem was how to offer the analysand a space to relive and also create a safe space that this can be what can really help, and Freud was not able to do that." Lees meer

   Episode Description: We begin by appreciating the influence of Agnes's childhood in Warsaw as contributing to her interest in culture, history, and trauma. Her parents and grandparents rarely spoke of the traumas of war, which they barely survived. This all contributed to her interest in and dissertation on psychoanalysis in Central Europe. She encountered Sandor Ferenczi's work on trauma and immersed herself in studying and writing about his novel approaches to clinical work. This led her to pursue analytic training, enabling us to compare the historian's and analyst's perspectives. We discuss her paper comparing Marie Bonaparte's treatment with Freud and Elizabeth Severn's treatment with Ferenczi, which took place in 1932. Both had their considerable limitations, though led to important reconsiderations in analytic technique. We consider the importance of recognizing the experiential foundation of the analytic encounter and how challenging that was in 1932, as it is today. We close with Agnes linking the fragmentation of an individual's mind with the political fragmentations that were in the zeitgeist at that time. This will be the focus of her ongoing research.

   Linked Episode:

   https://ipaoffthecouch.org/2022/10/30/episode-121-polish-psychoanalysis-ukraine-and-intergenerational-trauma-with-edyta-biernacka-krakow/

   Our Guest: Agnes Sobolewska Alsberg, PhD, is a historian of psychoanalysis, literary scholar, and translator. She is a Research Assistant Professor at the Un…

2. The Power and Meaning in Free Association with Barnaby Barratt, PhD, DHS (Johannesburg)

   18 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 7 min

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   "You have to understand the revolution of psychoanalysis as the idea that everything we represent both conceals something about our being-and-becoming as much as it reveals it. Once you are open to that, you, in a way, have entered the world in which free association is necessary, because free association, in my frame of reference, is not just uncensored talking. It's not just that. It's something that very specifically unsettles the rationality and the realism of discourse, such that it allows dimensions that were occluded or more accurately repressed than suppressed to come to the surface to a greater degree. In other words, we practice free association because it's freeing, and it's freeing of something that is essential to our being." Lees meer

   Episode Description: Barnaby begins by describing how free association is a process that is not limited to speaking with increasingly less censorship. It is a process that is foundationally disruptive to the "repetitiously-compulsive way in which 'knowledge' has impeded the movement of being-becoming." He sees psychoanalysis less as a process of learning about oneself, an epistemological enterprise, and more as an opportunity of expanding one's sense of self, an ontological experience. As such, Barnaby sees free association as "inherently anti-technical, anti-theoretical and anti-authoritarian." We consider the use of the word resistance as opposed to hesitancy. He, like Pythagoras, emphasizes the role of the analyst as "a friend who accompanies you on a journey, facilitating your perseverance on the road to a happier life." Barnaby elaborates the experience of 'listening to listen', the importance of introductory psychotherapy and where 'reverie' fits into his thinking. He closes with "The psychoanalyst's enjoyment of their patients...is a spiritual praxis of 'finding the joy in' - that is, being steadfastly aware of an exultancy in the liveliness of life that girds even the most tragic of circumstances."

   Our Guest: Barnaby B B…

3. An Analyst's Reflections on Mourning and What Makes Suffering Tolerable with Sandra Buechler, PhD (New York)

   4 oktober 2026 · 59 min

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   "I believe that to be inspiring, we have to have conviction. Conviction is the central thing to me. Conviction about treatment itself, and conviction about the way that we do treatment. I saw two analysts at two different times of my life, and they were very different. They had very different theoretical backgrounds, but one thing they had in common was their conviction - the conviction in the idea that this treatment was going to help me have a richer life, and I found that inspiring. I found them inspiring. I think that sometimes, in the effort not to be indoctrinating, not to engage in logical positivism, not to be seen as authoritative, I think we can err in the direction of a relativism that doesn't allow us to have the full-bodied conviction that I think we need in order to inspire people to stay the course of treatment and candidates to stay the course of training." Lees meer

   Episode Description: We begin by considering how clinicians can be inspiring to their patients - in actuality, not just as transference figures. She emphasizes that at times one must be 'palpably steadfast' when taking a stance against patient's abusive inner objects. Sandra makes the point that the themes the analyst attends to are also born from their own psychologies, not just from the patients. She considers the position of 'passionate neutrality' and how that is always unreachable. She quotes at length from Rilke in his sense of being 'enriched by loss'. We discuss mourning and the importance of the emotions that surround it. Balancing suffering entails an abundance of curiosity, hope, purpose, and especially joy. Sandra finds that "joy can counter feelings of life being limited by our sorrows."

   Our Guest: Sandra Buechler, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. She is the author of Clinical Values: Emotions that Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment, Making a Difference in Patients' Lives which won the Gradiva award, Still Practicing: The Heartaches an…

4. A Cure by Love and Science with Mark Solms, PhD (Cape Town)

   20 september 2026 · 1 uur 18 min

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   Although I believe that transference interpretation is the core mechanism of change in psychoanalysis, I don't believe it's the only mechanism. I think there are other things that go on too. I also think that alongside the transference relationship, there's a real relationship. The final chapter of the book is titled "A Cure by Love", and I do think that in the real relationship between patient and analyst, something happens. People speak of corrective emotional experiences. I believe that they occur, but I also believe that for them to really bring about change, you need to analyze them. You need to understand what has happened between you. This comes back to the question of countertransference enactment. Countertransference enactments are inevitable. They're not a bad thing, they're an inevitability. What would be a bad thing would be if they went unnoticed and unanalysed. So, there are opportunities. This is the sort of thing that my analysis was about. A core part of it was about my desire to connect with my father in a way that I never was able to achieve. This countertransference enactment, it's accurately described as that, but it's also diminished if it's only described as that. That was one of many opportunities for me to understand my own transference, but also it was a real thing that happened between me and him, which made me feel that he cared for me. Then again, this is real, and it's grist for the mill of understanding why it means so much." Lees meer

   Episode Description: Mark shares with us aspects of his personal story, his analysis, his neuropsychology research and two clinical examples. He describes how neuroscience has discovered the mind "much like the one Freud sketched out in the first decades of the 20th century...merely by listening closely to what his patients told him." He reports on the impact of his brother's brain injury on his later interest in neuropsychology as well as his childhood conflicts over surpassing him. Regarding the issue of cure,…

5. From the Music Studio to the Consulting Room with Edmund Sprunger, MSW (St. Louis)

   6 september 2026 · 51 min

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   "In analytic training, and actually through my own analysis, is really where it happened. I think I just got more of a sense that whatever was going on with my students and the parents of my students was maybe not about me. It might not be all up to me, and something about that really freed me up to do better work. Another way I'll describe what you're talking about is that I had an adult violin student several years ago, and she wanted me to explain everything. And I said, "Well, I can. Do you want to learn how the violin is played, or do you want to learn how to actually play the violin?" Those are two very different things to me. I feel like what happened in the course of my analytic training, in the course of my own analysis, is I learned how to play the violin. The pre-stuff to that was about how analysis is done, but I actually learned how to do it and how to be it by going through it. Lees meer

   Episode Description: We begin Ed's musical journey with his describing the importance of his musical family and community on his interest in learning to play an instrument. When watching his older sister play piano, he discovered the feeling of I want to do that. He pursued violin playing and studied with Shin'ichi Suzuki in Japan. He then returned to the States and in an effort to better appreciate his young students' experiences, he immersed himself in the world of developmental psychology and earned an MSW. Later he would pursue analytic training at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. This training enabled him to actually become an analytic clinician rather than learning about analysis. We discuss how his clinical work influenced his work as a music instructor, helping him consider "who I become to the student in the lesson." He shares with us the many mentors who have inspired and educated him in his two careers. It was when observing senior colleagues' nuanced analytic ways of thinking that he discovered anew his experience of I want to do that.

   Linked Episodes:

   htt…

6. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis in Time of War: Iran Today with Gohar Homayounpour, PsyD (Paris)

   9 augustus 2026 · 52 min

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   "How do we continue doing this work when the socio-political realities are unimaginable? I've been living in Paris the last few years, and I continue to have a full caseload in Tehran and other cities. There was a time that the internet was cut off for our Iranian patients, so there is reality, and then there is a reality that actually affects the frame - they couldn't contact their analyst. But in the middle of all of these things, something very interesting came up, which is, some patients, as soon as there was the possibility of contacting me, they would find a way. There were other things that came up in the supervisions I was doing, particularly if the analysts were outside of Iran and the patients were in Iran. For example, one thing that came up in the supervision was that the analyst would write to the patient all the time, saying, "Are you safe? Are you okay?" That's not something I chose to do. When we discussed this and reflected upon this in the supervisions I felt like the analysts were feeling quite guilty for feeling that they are in a safe place and the patients weren't, or they were at times terrified of the aggression that could be awaiting them in the session. It was in a sense like a little bit of an acting out on the part of the analyst." Lees meer

   Episode Description: We begin by acknowledging the ongoing war and Gohar's safety in Paris while many of her patients remain in Iran. We explore what this gradient in danger between analyst and analysand means and evokes for both parties. Gohar notes that many supervisees contact their patients to ask, "Are you OK?" and she invites them to reconsider this response. She also describes working with Russian colleagues, many of whom were abandoned by their Western supervisors after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This leads to a discussion of analytic work with patients whose political views sharply differ from those of their analysts. Gohar reflects on Jonathan Lear's concept of "radical hope" and shares her persp…

7. From Couch to Page: The Craft of Psychodynamic Case Writing with Aner Govrin, PhD (Tel Aviv)

   12 juli 2026 · 58 min

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   "We have a trove of treasure. These are the case studies, and we need the case studies - these are the flora and fauna of our field. This is how we work. We work by reading case studies and they enrich us. Not only do they enrich the community, but they also enrich us as therapists who write their case studies, and they get to be involved in deeper layers of the actual case study. When we write a case study we are in a better position to understand the patient, and we are in a better position to convey that knowledge to the psychoanalytic community. But as you said, it's a big challenge. Psychodynamic case studies belong to the genre of creative nonfiction. They are like memoirs, biographies, all are based on truth and imagination. This dual form of truth, what actually happened and imagination, is very important to our genre. But we are different from those who write memoirs or biographies, because we have responsibility to our patients and to our community." Lees meer

   Episode Description: Aner views case reports as the Rosetta Stones of our field. We discuss the nature of the 'creative non-fiction' that is inherent in writing about the nuanced, intimate and affectively alive experience that is dynamic treatment. He shares his commitment to maintaining "responsible creativity" in writing about this work and always keeps in mind protecting the dignity of the patient. Aner recognizes the vulnerability that the therapist also undergoes in revealing themselves to the reader and alerts us to "clinical narcissism" - the temptation to exhibit oneself in place of sharing the authenticity of the clinical encounter. He presents the different phases of a deepening treatment along with the understanding that they are inherently schematic and removed from the aliveness of the dyad. He shares vignettes that are understood through a Kleinian, Winnicottian and Relational lens and closes noting that "effective clinical writing is as much an art as a science requiring technical proficiency,…

8. My Journey from Veterinary Medicine to Psychoanalysis with Michele Gaspar, DVM,MA,LCPC (Chicago)

   28 juni 2026 · 53 min

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   "I have always been fascinated by the world of animals. What fascinated me about them is that when you pay attention to animals, this is a world beyond words. Words are not part of their world, so you start paying attention to movement, to breath, to reaction, to the pause, all these things, and I found it fascinating…Certainly, in veterinary medicine, as any type of clinical medical practice, if a patient comes to you, there's always things that you can do. You can take a blood sample, you can do a radiograph, you can give oxygen, you can give certain treatments. There's always a solution that you can give, a fix. Psychoanalysis is very, very different. I haven't successfully overcome the urge to fix, but I have come to realize that solutions that are given too early are oftentimes not usable. So, as a clinical veterinarian, most of my solutions were usable. That's not what happens in psychoanalysis." Lees meer

   Episode Description: Michele begins with sharing her life-long fascination with animals. As a veterinarian she learned to attend to the nonverbal and to the triadic aspects of veterinary medicine - clinician, animal and owner. She noted that owners often communicate their own distress through their animal's behavior. She learned that "animals don't require you to be brilliant but to pay attention" - certainly relevant to psychoanalysis. In addition to describing her ongoing practice of Zen meditation, she shared with us the challenges of changing mindsets from medical intervening to analytic listening, "This shift - from resolving not knowing to working within it - has been a central aspect of my development." We discuss the role of suffering and mourning, which relates to her Catholic background, and the importance of the body both in her veterinary and psychoanalytic work. She closes with an example of an analysand crying out for help with her acutely ill pet and recognizing that "you can help me."

   Our Guest: Michele Gaspar is an advanced candidate at the Chicago…

9. The Analyst as Transference and Developmental Object with Carla Neely, PhD (Washington, DC)

   14 juni 2026 · 57 min

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   "As analysts, we have our own development - as humans, we have our own development. My view is that the work of analysis, if the developmental piece is present, requires some relatively sophisticated developmental capacity on the part of the analyst. The work is intimate, and the patient is going to know something of our inner lives, despite the fact that we work hard not to let our own selves interfere with the work. I think to truly trust the analyst, the patient has to believe that the analyst can tolerate knowing all of him or her. If you think about it, how many times have you heard patients say that nobody in the world quite knows him the way the analyst does? There's going to be something in that connection that doesn't happen anywhere else." Lees meer

   Episode Description: We begin by outlining the distinctions between serving as a transference vs. a developmental object for a patient. Carla writes about "affective honesty," which concerns the analyst's willingness to have their heart be experienced by a patient as malevolent or compassionate based on the patient's needs. We consider similarities between child and adult work, the differences between the 'corrective emotional experience' and being a developmental object, and her sense that a patient's "intimate experience can bring structural change." She presents a clinical example where her own authentic sadness helpfully enabled the patient to recognize her own - "we take on what the patient can't bear." We close with Carla sharing her personal analytic journey and stating, "I expect I will keep searching, as that is what analysts do."

   Our Guest: Carla Neely, PhD, adult and child psychoanalyst, guest faculty, Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute. Past President, Association for Child Psychoanalysis. Past faculty member at the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Washington, Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute. Topics of her publications - sublimation, creativity, developmental object, working through, and the…

10. AI, Subjectivity and Psychoanalysis with Amy Levy, PhD (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

    31 mei 2026 · 56 min

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    "Humanism has been the dominant Western belief system of the last century. It's based on the worship of human wisdom, human creation, human experience, human mind, and psychoanalysis has very much emerged from this humanist tradition. We believe in psychoanalysis, that delving into our feelings, our thoughts, and our shared wisdom will allow us to access truth and meaning and find proper direction for navigating life. AI is changing all of that. Instead of trusting our feelings and our thoughts, people are turning to algorithms to make meaning of our experiences and to offer us direction. We're plugging in our data and allowing the algorithms, or Chat GPT or Claude, to do the thinking and the decision making for us." Lees meer

    Episode Description: We begin with Freud in 1930: "Humanity would proceed to create unimaginably great advances in technology so as to increase our likeness to God." Amy outlines the challenge that AI poses to our humanistic tradition and values within which psychoanalysis makes its home. She starts with the 'cult grooming' aspects of smartphones, which introduces our exchanging "human dependence for AI companionship." The question of the subjectivity of AI is a central focus, with some analysts emphasizing its "simulation of human intimacy" and others considering that "is it not also possible for AIs to at the same time be intersubjectively engaged with us?" Regarding using AIs as a therapist, we discuss the clinical implications of "without there being two bodies in a room, the contact is shallow and lacking an essential human component." Amy describes "a desire for transgression" involving AIs as well as the associated search for immortality that they represent. She writes about Bach's prescient 2008 term of "digital consciousness" as contrasted with the "analog watch where one can see the hour from which the hand has come and the hour to which it is going." Amy shares that it was fear that motivated her personal interest in the AI world we are fac…

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