THE ELEPHANT (WALK) IN THE ROOM by Joseph A. Cancelmo
There has been a curious omission in the public debate following Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on allegations of sexual assault…
PROGRESS NOTES by Hattie Myers
Room never knows where the next submission will come from. With every essay, poem, photograph, image of art, piece of music, or description of activism…
PSYCHIC SPACE by Phyllis Beren and Sheldon Bach
When our yoga teacher first taught us to visualize the space between two joints in our body and then to breathe into that space to open it up, we followed her instructions avidly…
TWITTER DEE TWITTER DUM by William W. Harris
Trump. I am discombobulated because of Trump. I binge watch TV – not Fox, MSNBC. He has infected everything: my dreams, my conscious, my unconscious, dinners with my family, my work.
CHUNHYANG: #METOO IN THE PENTATONIC SCALE by Ittai Shapira and Laureen Park
A young woman from Namwon known for her virtue captured the unwanted attention of the newly installed magistrate who was arrogant, cruel, and narcissistic…
THE ANNIVERSARY by Hattie Myers
Anniversaries exist as a demand to remember and, as such, they have a great deal in common with the work of psychoanalysis. Looking back from the vantage of ROOM’s first anniversary, it is amazing to recall that ROOM might not have happened at all but for a fortuitous accident.
WHAT IS AT PLAY by Margaret Fulton
When I was asked to write a piece for this newsletter on the subject of play, work/life balance or the analyst at play, I began gathering materials as I usually do in my writing process, and then I wait and see what thoughts begin to germinate…
GROWING ROOM by Hattie Myers
It feels impossible to begin this introduction to Room 9.17 without mentioning the attack in Charlottesville even though, by the time you read this, that horrific August weekend will likely be occluded by whatever will have happened next. ROOM is not a blog. It is not a tweet. It is not a newsletter at one with the news. ROOM is a re-occurring place of reflection…
THE BRAND by Jeri Isaacson
The day in April that Ivanka Trump appeared on the dais with Angela Merkel at the Women’s Summit in Berlin, I was in my office. I was listening to a vibrant and astute young woman in her twenties as she confessed, a little sheepishly, that her new shirt had “trendy” sleeves…
THE PRESIDENT TWEETS LIKE A BIRD by Eugene Mahon
Eugene Mahon M.D., is a Training and Supervising psychoanalyst at Columbia Psychoanalytic. His articles have been published widely in major psychoanalytic journals. His books include A Psychoanalytic Odyssey: Painted Guinea Pigs, Dreams, and Other Realities (Karnac, 2014), Rensel the Redbit: A Psychoanalytic Fairy Tale (Karnac,2015) and a volume of poetry, Bone Shop of the Heart (IPBooks, 2017).
IN THE LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE: THE NEW TRUTH THAT GETS RID OF LOSS by Coline Covington
A patient in her early thirties recently admitted that she hadn’t voted, yet again…
MAKING ROOM by Hattie Myers
From 1934 -1945, the Rundbriefe was a top secret newsletter that circulated among a small group of socially and politically committed refugee psychoanalysts. Otto Fenichel, its founder and one of Freud’s most eminent followers, urged this small group of analysts not to isolate themselves…
UNDERSTANDING, DEMOCRACY by Jared Russell
I try to rise up each time the pits of Trump fears and anger draw me down. Many people speak of the tangle of old fears…
ADDICTED TO WATCHING OUR PRESIDENT? by Richard B. Grose
Since the election of T as president many people who can see nothing positive in him whatsoever, either as human being or politician…
ROOM WITH A VIEW by Hattie Myers
In the weeks after 9/11 the IPTAR Clinical Center received a grant to fly in mental health professionals from Ireland, the Middle East, and South America to talk about the experience
of doing psychoanalysis in the midst of existential terror. Hundreds of therapists practicing in New York came…
WHERE DO THEY KEEP THE WHITE PEOPLE? by Jane Lazarre
I try to rise up each time the pits of Trump fears and anger draw me down. Many people speak of the tangle of old fears…
SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE NEW ‘NEW NORMAL’ by Joseph Cancelmo
Sitting down to write these words on Inauguration Day felt like the exact right thing to be doing. For this is another inaugural — of ROOM. Perhaps we can even…
THINKABLE / UNTHINKABLE by Gila Ashtor
When I got ready to see patients on the morning of November 9th, I wanted to wear a hoodie to work. My army green hoodie is something I reserve for errands and weekends, but that post-election morning…