Letters to Room: Charles Rizzuto
The writing is clear on the wall and has been for some time now for anyone open to facts. Demographics in the US all speak to the demise of the Republican Party as currently constituted.
Letters to Room: Stefanie Hofer
It has been over a year that I had sent you my piece “Playing with Guns” after attending a church Halloween Festival for children that had many games centered around toy guns. I am happy to report that Blacksburg Christian Fellowship has made changes to its Halloween celebration.
EDITORIAL: BRAVERY by Hattie Myers
“Bravery,” Coline Covington, a psychoanalyst living in London, told me last spring, “exists in the eyes of the beholder. No one who has done something…
NO JOKING MATTER by Coline Covington
The world listens as Donald Trump, President of the United States, on a state visit to the United Kingdom bemoans the fact that Prime Minister…
TAKING THE U.S. PERSONALLY by Michael A. Diamond
Politics is about power — who has it and who doesn’t. Politics is also about ethics, fairness, justice, and governing assumptions about the state of nature…
A TEAR IN THE FABRIC by Delia Battin
William Blake was outraged by the idea of a bird in a cage, it being a violation of the natural order. One can only imagine what he would think…
OUTSIDE OF HISTORY by C. Jama Adams
Engaging with marginalized social histories and recognizing the psychic consequences these histories hold for the treatment dyad poses a challenge for psychoanalysis…
BURIED NECK DEEP by Lama Z. Khouri
Lately, a dream I had twelve years ago has been coming back to me. I dreamt that my four-year-old son (he’s sixteen now) was buried neck deep in the middle of a neighborhood and surrounded by modest houses…
AFTER THE LYNCHING MUSEUM by Elizabeth Trawick
“Nigger take this! Take it, I tell ya!” Howard yells at the black carhop. It is 1951 in Macon, Georgia. I am eight years old. My brother, Toby, is six. We are in the back seat of a 1948 Ford. I am cringing. I do not know what Toby…
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DEMOCRATS? by Carolyn Ellman
What happened to the party of the working class? When did the Democratic party become a party that neglects the poor? When did politicians stop fighting for economic equality…
ESTRANGEMENT EFFECT by Aneta Stojnić
As a young candidate transferring from the field of performing arts and theory into psychoanalysis, I am struck by their provocative resonances. In addition to theoretical connections, I have noticed between psychoanalysis and performing arts/performance studies…
PSYCHOANALYSIS’ FOURTH WALL by Isaac Tylim
The “fourth wall” is a technical device used by actors. It works in the following way: Actors choose a spot in the back of the theater, internalize it, and move on with the action, bypassing the potential interference of….
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…
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.
DUTY TO SPEAK by Betty Teng
The folks in the images appearing with this essay hold the traumas of racism, immigration, natural disaster and genocide. I show these faces because they reflect experiences of trauma so many of us Americans contain, directly or intergenerationally. I point to these images also to reflect on the ongoing fact that Donald Trump and his supporters’ aggressive words, policies and actions
against these already vulnerable people — against what is vulnerable in us all — has been traumatizing or re traumatizing for far too many.
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…
Letters to Room by Samera Nasereddin and Leni Winn
We are grateful to both Leni and Samera for letting us share their words publically and for giving us the idea of having a ‘Letters to ROOM’ section. The creation of ROOM is an unfolding process between the editorial team and the community…
UNDERSTANDING, CHARLOTTESVILLE by Jared Russell
For the previous issue of ROOM, I contributed a piece that argued against the idealization of tolerance, diversity and understanding that I see so many in the psychoanalytic community currently engaged in. I’m aware that some readers…
WHAT THE Q by Brian Kloppenberg
There was a time when I thought that two words—gay and lesbian— and therefore two letters—g and l— sufficed. I now know—in fact I think I always did—that the words gay and lesbian never really did justice to the exceedingly complex variability…
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…
A TOAST
Sheldon Bach is a Training and Supervising Analyst and on faculty at IPTAR, He has written five books on psychoanalysis, most recently “Chimeras and Other Writings: Selected Papers of Sheldon Bach” (IP Books, 2016).
‘CAN YOU SEE ME?’ PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOUL-BLINDNESS by Carlos Padrón
In the epigraph, Jimi Hendrix’s poetic alter-ego expresses skepticism in regard to being seen and heard. Does he pose a question: “Can you see me?”; a demand: “Can you see me!”; or perhaps a plea: “Can you see me…please”?…
ALONE AND TOGETHER by C. Jama Adams
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…