Distinguished Speakers Series

Scholarly Dialogues: McGleughlin | ONTOLOGICAL WRITING: The Analyst's Necessary Vertigo

This paper reimagines psychoanalytic writing as an ontological practice centered on being and becoming, rather than interpretation and knowledge. Through clinical encounters, the author illustrates how therapeutic transformation emerges when analyst and patient enter shared states of experience and embrace nonsovereignty- a mutual openness to influence, misrecognition, and the unsymbolized.

Can the psychoanalytic session be thought of as a shared dream? Starting from this evocative question, this event offers a reflection on clinical work through the lens of field theory, exploring the interplay between interpretation and conversation. All material brought into the session – nighttime dreams as well as everyday narratives – can be understood as an expression of an unconscious co-created by analyst and patient.

Scholarly Dialogues: Dianne Elise "Analytic Eroticism: Embodied Vitality in Clinical Process"

In our group discussion, we will consider a Winnicottian formulation of the analytic field in order to understand the often unspoken, implicit erotic dimensions of analytic work. Material from an analysis with a very inhibited, emotionally-constricted man shows both patient and analyst encountering difficulty in “locating” one another within the analytic field.

Scholarly Dialogues: Todd McGowan "The Death Drive in Love: Pride and Prejudice and the Obstacle"

This talk will focus on how we might understand the concept of the death drive as it evolves in Jacques Lacan’s thought and in relation to his conception of desire. It will subsequently interpret the Joe Wright film Pride and Prejudice (2005) in the light of this concept, arguing that death drive must play a crucial role in the development of love. Registrants are invited to view the film on their own prior to the event.

Scholarly Dialogues: Stephen Purcell "Un-Thinking Technique: The Analyst’s Presence in Treating Early Trauma"

Stephen Purcell will lead discussions of two of his papers that address the analyst’s way of being: “Psychic Song and Dance: Dissociation and Duets in the Analysis of Trauma (2019) and “Un-thinking Technique: On Being, Not Doing in the Psychoanalysis of the Sequelae of Trauma” (2026).

Scholarly Dialogues: Nicholas DiCarlo,

NWAPS Distinguished Speakers Committee is pleased to invite you to join us for another dynamic and lively In Conversation event in which we invite an esteemed psychoanalyst to present new work and dialog with another scholar doing groundbreaking work in a field outside of psychoanalysis.

Scholarly Dialogues--formerly called Masterclass, is an open discussion and learning session where small groups gather together with important scholars in the field to discuss 1-2 papers from their body of work. The intimacy of the setting allows participants to be able to ask personal questions about the author's ideas and share some of their own reactions and thinking about the material. Papers will be distributed in advance to registered attendees.

Scholarly Dialogues--formerly called Masterclass, is an open discussion and learning session where small groups gather together with important scholars in the field to discuss 1-2 papers from their body of work. The intimacy of the setting allows participants to be able to ask personal questions about the author's ideas and share some of their own reactions and thinking about the material. Papers will be distributed in advance to registered attendees.

This program is sold out.

Scholarly Dialogues--formerly called Masterclass, is an open discussion and learning session where small groups gather together with important scholars in the field to discuss 1-2 papers from their body of work. The intimacy of the setting allows participants to be able to ask personal questions about the author's ideas and share some of their own reactions and thinking about the material. Papers will be distributed in advance to registered attendees.