BETWEEN THE LINES by Gabriel Heller
We can all—or most of us—agree on the existence of a thing called structural racism. But can structures have a life of their own, independent of the people inside them?
LEARNING FROM CHICKENS by Linda Emanuel
It had been an unseasonably hot day in July. The news said—improbably, I felt—that it didn’t break a record. The fifteen chickens in the coop next to me panted through their open beaks, spread their wings to create shade, or moved within the stingy shadows, one pecking the neck of another to get a place to scratch down to cooler earth.
POLLUTION: THE CASE OF INDIA by Shreya Varma
Early in January 2020, while anxiously speaking to a colleague, I was thinking about how I have become dysfunctional. I obsessively read everything. My panic-stricken and recurring thoughts about the state of my country, my home, were haunting me like a waking nightmare. My colleague at the time responded and said, “That’s how everyone is. Panic and dysfunction are not a pathology of the individual anymore. You are not alone.”
GRIEF SUSPENDED IN EXPLOSION by Lara Sheehi
Karachi is underwater. They say the flooding is devastating. They speak as though it is constitutive of the people of Karachi to suffer, that they just can’t imagine another way of being: hardship, plight, poverty. 1948 is all that comes to mind. Partition. Colonialism. But nineteen years and counting: Afghanistan, that is how Pakistan exists to them, a mere association.
THIRTEEN TASKS FOR ANALYTIC INSTITUTES by C. Jama Adams
So, what happens when an analytic institute invites in a galaxy of Black analysts? How will the very structures that kept them out change to allow these folks to facilitate the needed and desired transformation… if that was the intent?
FAULT LINES, BLIND SPOTS, & OTHERNESS by Dinah M. Mendes
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been seismic in its exposure of systemic cracks and flaws across the spectrum. Assumptions about what once felt relatively predictable in terms of health and economic safety, job and educational security, and expectations for the future have been upended by the destructive course of the virus. And at the national level, in the equally unpredictable convergence of events that determine historical moments, the fault lines of foundational and transgenerational racism that undergird our country have been highlighted.
PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THE COMMUNITY by Caroline Volel
I am not yet an analyst. I am a pediatrician for urban public schools and state-regulated behavioral health facilities. In my current capacity, I address the medical needs of hundreds of minority kids and families who are excluded from traditional psychoanalytic culture but who could deeply benefit from this healing art. Every day, I witness both the need for psychodynamic applications on a programmatic scale and imagine possibilities for public health partnerships to enable this process.
COLLECTIVE DISAPPEARANCE by Rocío Barcellona
I feel as if I’ve been punched in the throat. Being treated like a person is scary here. One must then recognize that one is indeed a person, which then makes one aware of the inhumane realities of this place. I thought I understood then. But as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, I got an even better understanding…
WAR AND PANDEMIC IN ALEPPO by Mohamad Kebbewar
Danger during the war in Aleppo was marked with sound and smoke. During the pandemic, danger is boundless. It can be everywhere and anywhere. The most fashionable and well-off person can carry the virus and pass it on to me, while on the other hand, an armed person walking next to me on the sidewalk could be harmless. The invisible danger is what makes the virus lethal. In war, if the sound is far away, then I can assume I am safe.
FIRE AND ICE IN PORTLAND by Raphael Ogusz, Maryam Omidi, and Omer Leshem
Portland protesters armed with leaf blowers and cardboard signs face off with masked federal agents sporting fatigues and riot gear—guns, truncheons, and shields. Orange tear-gas clouds plume up from the tarmac as the agents grab protesters and hurl them into unmarked cars. These are images typically associated with far-off, war-torn countries ruled by authoritarian regimes—not democratic governments. But in less than six months, some of the most toxic elements of the US national psyche have risen to the surface, denuded by the global pandemic and bull-horned across the country by the divisive and belligerent rhetoric of the White House.
DENYING DEATH: LIVING MADNESS A Podcast Review by Richard Grose
Steven Reisner, a New York psychoanalyst known for leading the successful effort to get the American Psychological Association to stop having any connection with torture sessions, has come out with a podcast series called Madness: The Podcast. In episode six, “The Masque of the Black Death (Racism in the Time of Trump),” Reisner speaks to us in a voice that conveys the urgency of this moment when the nation seems to be hurtling toward what could be an explosive decision point regarding Trump.
STANDING STILL by Hattie Myers
Psychoanalysis, art, and poetry make visible and expand the boundaries of our psychic reality and so the world. But what happens when those boundaries fracture? When we are on top of each other and oceans apart? When days merge and space contracts? When inner and outer reality converge on a pixilated screen? Just this. We must create a new path forward.
LETTERS FROM LOCKDOWN by Tiffany Chu
Last week, I dug up a box of my parents’ old letters. They were written before my parents were married, while my mom was still in Taiwan and an ocean away from my dad in the United States. A surprising number of the letters were in English; the writing is stilted, and it’s clear that English is neither of my parents’ first language, but the mundane recounting of their days felt somehow both endearing and sacred. Holding the tangible artifacts of my parents’ courtship in my hands, I imagined for the first time the twentysomethings they were when they wrote those letters.
Letter from Pittsburgh by Miriam DeRiso
Yesterday, my phone rang early in the morning. The voice on the other end of the line whispered, with strain, “I’m sorry. I came home for spring break, and I won’t be returning to Pittsburgh for a while. I don’t know what we can do. Is there anything we can do?”
Letter from Buenos Aires by David Rosenfeld
Dear all, Here in Buenos Aires / Tango city / We are working / By telephone / And Skype / With patients / The country will be / Confined / I repeat / All the country will Be Confined…
Letter from New York by Kate Muldowney
I thought I’d share some thoughts I wrote earlier today. By way of explanation, I started my career as a young social worker at the outset of the AIDS crisis in the United States. These weeks have so reminded me of those early days of AIDS: the fear, terror, and confusion. After working in pediatric HIV in the Bronx for eight years, I was able to travel to visit schools and orphanages in East Africa numerous times. I witnessed firsthand the destruction that HIV…
Letter from Paris by Julia-Flore Alibert
I would like to share with you my short experience doing video sessions with children from ages four to fifteen during this troubled period. I still work in my office, which is in a part of my home, so they can see me and the office on the video. Most of the children have chosen to continue the therapy. I tell the parents to let their child stay in a quiet room alone…
Letter from Seattle by Adriana Prengler
In the Seattle suburbs (where I live), people stay at home, as in most cities in the world, except for outings for groceries, to the pharmacy, and for walks or biking on trails. My state (Washington State) has not officially declared a lockdown yet, even though there are many infected and many fatalities, especially among the elderly. As many others have described, I initially consulted with my patients about the possibility of continuing their treatment…
Letter from Jerusalem by Viviane Chetrit-Vatine
Since last Monday, I have been working by phone, going through my regular schedule. All my patients in analysis are very well and responding to this situation. My patients who were in face-to-face psychotherapy are discovering how speaking on the phone allows them freer expression. But obviously this mean of communication…
Letter from Bucharest by Daniela Andronache
In Romania, the coronavirus has only sickened less than three hundred (tested) people so far, and nobody has died until today. Our population seems to understand pretty well the recommendations of going out only for strict necessities. And yet, over these last couple of weeks, in the sessions with all my patients, I have begun to immensely appreciate the life experience…