11 Common Symptoms Experienced by Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Recognizing common symptoms of childhood sexual abuse can help parents, caregivers, teachers, social workers, counselors and childcare staff alert the appropriate authorities and take proper steps to protect the welfare and safety of our children. It is far too often that I hear stories of adults, who fail to recognize that something is wrong with their child and attribute concerning changes in their kids’ behavior to temperament, age or other misguided explanations.
Because of this, I want...
Cinema and Psychoanalysis: The Question of the Father in “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.2”
We are going to continue our Cinema and Psychoanalysis series with Part II of the Psychological Analysis of "Guardians of the Galaxy" guest post by my Bulgarian colleague and psychologist Mihail Mihaylov. The question of fatherhood and the role of fathers in the psychological development of children has been a topic of interest for psychoanalysis since its very inception. In this analysis of the "Guardians of the Galaxy, ," you will see how we can apply...
Cinema and Psychoanalysis Guest Post: A Psychological Analysis of “Guardians of the Galaxy” Part I
Psychoanalysis has a long history of using fictional and non-fictional characters from the movies to illustrate theoretical psychoanalytic concepts and put them into practice. In order to protect the confidentiality of our patients in the clinic, we often turn to the creative fields of film making, novels and sometimes even mythology, to shed some light over what may appear like mystical and hard-to-grasp psychoanalytic jargon. This is exactly what my Bulgarian colleague and psychologist, Mihail Mihaylov,...
Psychoanalysis, Art and the Unconscious
I remember when my interest in psychoanalysis first sparked. I was a high school student when I read the Bulgarian edition of Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" for the first time. I remember the outlandish works of art on the book cover - naked bodies,...
5 Reasons to Pay Attention to Your Dreams
"Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious." Sigmund Freud
I've always been fascinated by dreams. I dream a lot and I usually remember most of my dreams. I also used to find it easier to talk about my dreams than about my thoughts or feelings. There seems to be something safe when it comes to dreams, a certain distance or disconnect between you and the dream that makes it easier to talk about than it is to talk...
7 Questions about Psychoanalysis with Aileen Schloerb
Today, I speak with Aileen Schloerb, a psychotherapist at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis' Center for Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and a Clinical Coordinator of the Englewood Project in Chicago, which provides psychoanalytically informed services to underserved children and adolescents. She is currently undergoing psychoanalytic formation at the Ecole Freudienne du Quebec and is the President of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Circle. She did her personal psychoanalysis with a Lacanian psychoanalyst in France and brings us her international and bi-lingual...
10 Questions with Psychoanalyst Carol Ganzer, LCSW
We continue our interviews with mental health professionals, who practice from a psychoanalytic perspective in their clinical work. Today, we speak to Carol Ganzer, a psychoanalyst with the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, where she is on the faculty and serves as the president of the...
Understanding the Ego, Super Ego and the Subject of the Unconscious
I recently returned from the Annual Training in Psychoanalysis in Quebec City, where we discussed the Clinic of the (Psychoanalytic) Symptom. There is something to be said about the culture in Quebec that allows psychoanalytic thought to flow freely and for the unconscious to express itself through the work of art and psychoanalysis. I am trying to make space for something similar through this blog.
A lot was said about the clinic of the symptom and the...
10 Questions about Psychoanalysis with Charles Turk, MD
Alright folks, as promised, I give you my 10 questions about psychoanalysis with one of my mentors, psychiatrist Charles Turk, who connected me to the training analysts of GIFRIC in Quebec City around 8 years ago, as well as to their extraordinary program for the treatment of young adults with psychosis. The center is named after its street address, Le 388, and I first visited it five years ago with Dr. Turk. I will talk more about...
The Psychoanalytic Symptom: Making Space for the Unconscious
Hello there. I am exactly three and a half days away from going to Quebec City for the Annual Training in Lacanian Psychoanalysis. I am so excited! It's almost always the same group of people, same place, same time. Five days of intense immersion in psychoanalytic text, concepts, thoughts, clinical material and case presentations, nicely framed with a welcoming cocktail at the beginning and a farewell dinner at the end. My dream come true!
This year, we...
