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Practical Psychoanalysis Blog Moves to a New Home

This will be my last blog post for PsychCentral website. It has been a great journey to have the Practical Psychoanalysis Blog here and I am saddened to say that it will no longer be hosted by PsychCentral. The website is undergoing a transformation of its own and will no longer need contributions from bloggers like myself.

Thank you for your support and comments throughout the years. You have been a great audience. It...

Coping mechanisms

From Psychoanalysis to Short Stories. Coping with the Pandemic Through Creative Writing

Since the beginning of the lockdown in March, it was obvious to me how many people turned to their creative selves to cope and navigate through the challenges of the pandemic. Left to our own devices within the confinement of our homes, we've had to adapt and adjust the way we live to match the reality of our public health circumstances. From a psychoanalytic perspective, quarantine presents a particular challenge for the human by eliminating distractions...

Aesthetics

Coping During the Pandemic: The Getty Museum Challenge or Between Art and Quarantine.


Staying home for more than two months now is not easy. Many people are struggling with the quarantine and being around their families 24/7, working from home or not having a job at all. Actors and influencers are stepping up to the challenge and producing content from their homes, keeping us entertained and engaged from afar.

While nurses and doctors are battling COVID-19 on the frontlines, others are stuck at home, bored, stressed, or demotivated. It is...

Adolescence

Artwork and Psychoanalysis: How Art Saved a Boy, Whose Mother Struggled with Addiction

Under quarantine

Since the shelter in place order began here in Illinois, my kids and I have been watching a You Tube series called "Draw Every Day with JJK". It helps us keep a routine and it gives us something to look forward to every day at the same time. The series teaches us a lot about how to draw comic book characters, come up with our own stories, how to use colors, motion lines and speech bubbles to communicate a story through pictures...

Adolescence

Psychoanalysis with Children and Adolescents: Making Space for the Unconscious


Psychoanalytic theory and practice is based on extensive research and observation of infant and childhood development. In fact, as a part of my psychoanalytic training in working with children and adolescents, I had to observe the development of an infant and his relationship to his mother for two years, for a couple of hours every week. Much of what we deal with in psychoanalysis involves experiences prior to language development or beyond words and you can...

General

5 Books You Should Read to Learn More About Psychoanalytically Informed Clinical Work

For better or worse, psychoanalytic concepts are interwoven into so many theories and schools of thought that it feels overwhelming to simply name them all. The everyday usage of words like “the unconscious,” “Oedipus Complex,” “transference,” “dream analysis,” “projective identification,” etc. serve to help us identify a common way of speaking about clinical issues but can also be used to repress what is really at work in the subject and in the clinic. As patients become...

General

“The Handmaid’s Tale”: The Human Spirit in the Face of Atrocity


I heard about the Handmaid’s Tale when it first came out on Hulu last year from my neighbors and friends. At first, it sounded too dark and dramatic to watch so I avoided seeing it for just about a year. When people continued talking about the series and one of you even recommended that I see it , I decided to take the plunge. Needless to say, I ended up obsessing over it, caught up on...

Adolescence

Abortion, Rape and Domestic Violence in the HBO Drama “Big Little Lies”


I am on my way to the Annual Training in Lacanian Psychoanalysis in Quebec City, Canada, lead by the teaching analysts at the Freudian School of Quebec. I have a copy of “Big Little Lies” in my carry-on and my memories from watching the HBO Series last summer. The topics of the feminine, the masculine, women and motherhood have been recurring issues that the School has examined, along with the main topics discussed such as “Transference and...