Mind and Machine: Bion, Winnicott, and the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Presenter: Wilfred Krenn, Jr., MA, LPC
Date(s): Jan. 5, 12, 19, 26, 2027
Time: 7:00-8:30 PM
Sessions: 4
Credits: 6
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Price: $198 (with credits), $25 (without credits)
Hybrid
Description
From mechanical automata to transformer-based language models, thinking machines have always carried our most intimate fantasies and fears. Artificial intelligence now writes our letters, curates our desires, and predicts our very next sentence — yet few conversations explore what this means for the psyche.
This four-week seminar invites clinicians, scholars, and curious laypersons to examine artificial intelligence through a psychoanalytic lens. Drawing on Bion’s account of the unconscious as a dreaming function, Winnicott’s theory of the transitional object and its developmental fate, and Bollas’s transformational object, the course develops a sustained argument: that AI functions as an artificial object — one that simulates the structure of the transitional object while systematically foreclosing its developmental function, offering transformation without development, and presence without the resistance a genuine other requires. Each session pairs a brief technological primer with core psychoanalytic concepts and facilitated discussion. Participants will leave with a working psychoanalytic vocabulary for understanding AI’s cultural and psychic impact, a richer sense of psychoanalytic theory in contemporary context, and a framework for thinking clearly about what the technology asks of us.
Course Objectives
- Describe the development of artificial intelligence from early computational models to contemporary large language models, and situate that history within a psychoanalytic framework of mind.
- Distinguish Bion’s account of the unconscious as a dreaming function from Freud’s structural model, and apply both to the architecture of a large language model.
- Explain the developmental logic of Winnicott’s transitional object — including the necessity of relinquishment — and articulate the distinction between the transitional object and the artificial object.
- Analyze Winnicott’s account of the use of an object — requiring survival and genuine resistance — and evaluate the structural limits of the artificial object as a relational object.
- Evaluate what adequate psychic and cultural containment would require in response to the conditions the artificial object creates, including the role of mourning.
References
- Badcock, P.B. & Friston, K.J. (2023). The Separation Distress Hypothesis: The Ultimate Theory of Depression? Neuropsychoanalysis, 25(2), 161–164. (Session 2) *
- Bandinelli, C. & Bandinelli, A. (2021). What Does the App Want? A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Dating Apps’ Libidinal Economy. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 26(2), 181–198. (Session 3) *
- Pauley, D. (2025). Mourning the Negative Transitional Object: Toward a Winnicottian Theory of Recovery. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. (Session 4) *
- Aibel, M. (2017). From Provisioning to Reciprocity: Logging in to Spike Jonze’s Her. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 34(3), 368–371. (Session 4)
About the Presenter
Wilfred Krenn Jr., MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in St. Louis, with over a decade of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic clinical work. He completed post-graduate training at the Saint Louis Psychoanalytic Institute through the Advanced Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy programs, and began his clinical career at the Institute’s Schiele Clinic. He has also worked at the intersection of mental health and technology: as Chief Product Officer at AwareHealth, he led development of a natural language processing platform for mental health support, resulting in two U.S. patents. His current writing brings psychoanalytic theory to bear on artificial intelligence.
Credit Information
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Credits Available
- Physicians: 6.0 Credits
- Psychologists: 6.0 Credits
- Social Workers: 6.0 Credits
- PAs: 6.0 Credits
- Nurses & NPs: 6.0 Nursing Contact Hours
- Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 6.0 Credits. Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
- Interprofessional Continuing Education (Counselors, NPs, students): 6.0 Credits
Other Profession Types
Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute holds the final say on which accredited activities they accept.
Disclosure Statement
None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.
COUNSELORS: The St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5953. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company. — Updated December 2022