Endowed Lectures

The Saint Louis Psychoanalytic Institute hosts three endowed lecture series, each honoring a distinguished figure in the history of the Institute and the field of psychoanalysis. These lectures are open to professionals and the public. The Dewald and Fingert lectures bring nationally and internationally recognized speakers to the community, while the Cohn Lecture is presented by a candidate or member of the Institute faculty.

About the Lecture Series

The I. H. Cohn, MD Lecture. Established through the generosity of Thomas and Sally Cohn, and named in honor of Mr. Cohn’s father, Isadore H. Cohn, MD, one of the innovators of adolescent and group psychotherapy in New York.

The Paul A. Dewald, MD Lecture. Underwritten by individual donations made to the Paul A. Dewald Education Fund. Established by Dr. Dewald’s family to honor his long-standing interest in education and his contributions to the Institute, the Education Fund supports special educational events and projects related to the application of psychoanalytic concepts to issues of interest to lay and professional groups. In 1995, the Board designated this fund to support the first Paul A. Dewald, MD Community Lecture.

The Hyman H. Fingert, MD Memorial Lecture. Established in 2000 by Judith Fingert Chused, MD, and Patricia Fingert to honor Hyman H. Fingert, MD, one of the founders of the Saint Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. The lecture is presented by the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Society and the Saint Louis Psychoanalytic Institute.

2025-26

Cohn Lecture — 12/11/2025
What Bion Meant by “Dying”
Harold Braswell, PhD, LCSW

Dewald Lecture — 10/4/2025
The New Other: A.I. What Have We Created and Why?
Amy Levy, PsyD

Fingert Lecture — 2/26/2026
The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst: Enactment, Trauma and Time
Robert Grossmark, PhD, ABPP

2024-25

Cohn Lecture — 10/10/2024
When the Teacher’s Feelings Hurt
Edmund Sprunger, MSW

Fingert Lecture — 3/28/2025
What Words Can’t Say: The Talking Cure and the Limits of Language
Howard Levine, MD

2023-24

Cohn Lecture — 3/14/2024
Increasing Adaptive Racial Socialization for Black Boys: A Culturally Competent Psychodynamic Analysis
Huey Hawkins Jr., PhD, LCSW

Dewald Lecture — 5/16/2024
Traumatophilia: Notes on Libidinal Fugitivity
Avgi Saketopoulou, PsyD

Fingert Lecture — 4/11/2024
Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparation is the Road Less Traveled in our Racial and Sociocultural Healing and in our Reach for Human Resonance
Paula Christian Kliger, PhD

2022-23

Cohn Lecture — 3/23/2023
Age of Consent: Fetish, Kink & Politics of Sexual Exploration
Alison Feit, PhD

Dewald Lecture — 4/28/2023
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: Facing Ethical Fragility in Psychoanalysis
Jane V. Kite, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 9/15/2022
Evolving Controversies in Treating Gender Dysphoric Youth
Jack Drescher, MD

2021-22

Cohn Lecture — 4/1/2022
Attachment Trauma and Developmental Disruption
Chester Smith, M.Ed, LPC

Dewald Lecture — 9/24/2021
What Are We Learning? Gender Development – an Ongoing Process Throughout Development
Donald Spivak, MD

Fingert Lecture — 3/4/2022
Psychoanalysis of Culture, Culture of Psychoanalysis: Character in the Consulting Room
Dwarakanath G. Rao, MD

2020-21

Cohn Lecture — 4/16/2021
Neuropsychoanalysis: Reconciling Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience
Mary Nielsen, MD

Fingert Lecture — 9/25/2020
Listening for Meaning Across Time
Bonnie Litowitz, PhD

2019-20

Cohn Lecture — 3/6/2020
The Couch Meets the Dragon: Emerging Psychoanalytic Training in Modern-Day China
Tom Campbell, MD

Dewald Lecture — 10/24/2019
Embrace Your Neuroses! Illusions of Everyday Life
A. Chris Heath, MD

Fingert Lecture — 10/4/2019
On the Value of the Lacanian Approach to Analytic Practice
Bruce Fink, PhD

2018-19

Cohn Lecture — 10/26/2018
The Songs and Poetry of Leonard Cohen: The Transformation of Longing
Bernard Feinberg, MD

Dewald Lecture — 11/15/2018
Learning to Cope: Lessons from the Movies
Volney Gay, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 9/28/2018
The Thanotics of Knowing: The Aggression Inherent to Analytic Process
Adele Tutter, MD, PhD

2017-18

Cohn Lecture — 10/20/2017
The Re-Dawning of the Veil
Nilufer Yalman, PhD

Dewald Lecture — 11/30/2017
Understanding Race, Social Class, and Culture Through a Psychoanalytic Lens
Neil Altman, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 10/6/2017
On the Intergenerational Transmission of Sexual Fantasy in Two Analyses
Susan C. Vaughan, MD

2016-17

Dewald Lecture — 10/26/2016
Childhood Trauma in Cultural Context
Gabriel Ruiz, LCPC

Fingert Lecture — 9/23/2016
Attachment, Play and Sexuality: What Does Playing Look Like?
Norka Malberg, PsyD, LPC

2015-16

Cohn Lecture — 10/16/2015
Yes, Virginia, You Can Be a Little Pregnant: False and Denied Pregnancies — When the Mind and Body are in Conflict
William D. Kenner, MD

Dewald Lecture — 10/22/2015
Pink Parenting: Providing a Facilitating Environment for Gay & Lesbian Teens
Gary Grossman, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 9/25/2015
Self Care and the Logic of Play
Ken Corbett, PhD

2014-15

Cohn Lecture — 10/17/2014
Searching for Bruce Springsteen: An Intersubjective Perspective
Peter Ruderman, MSW

Dewald Lecture — 11/6/2014
Remaining Relevant: The Key Role of Psychoanalytic Research
Andrew Gerber, MD, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 3/27/2015
Anticipatory Greed and Compensatory Greed: Early Adolescence and the New Object, Later Adolescence and the Lost Object
Christine C. Keiffer, PhD

2013-14

Cohn Lecture — 11/1/2013
Fumbling in the Dark or Cupid and Psyche Today
J. Todd Dean, MD

Dewald Lecture — 10/17/2013
Keeping Your Child in Mind: The Mindful Ways to Solve Everyday Behavior Problems — From Infancy through Adolescence
Claudia M. Gold, MD

Fingert Lecture — 9/27/2013
Development of a Psychoanalyst
Judith Fingert Chused, MD

2012-13

Cohn Lecture — 3/8/2013
Is It True Love? Sympathy, Passion and Empathy as Illustrated Through the Wisdom of Leave it to Beaver
Volney Gay, PhD

Dewald Lecture — 12/6/2012
The Heart of Addiction: Understanding the Behavior
Lance M. Dodes, MD

Fingert Lecture — 10/12/2012
Elusiveness and the Female Body: Some Problems in Female Psychoanalytic Gender Theory and Practice
Rosemary Balsam, MD

2011-12

Cohn Lecture — 9/23/2011
The Beatles’ White Album: A Multimedia Psychoanalytic Excursion into Pepperland
Michael Brog, MD

Dewald Lecture — 10/27/2011
Meaning Making: How Infants and Young Children Make Meaning of Themselves in the World
Edward Tronick, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 5/11/2012
Confusion of Tongues in Psychoanalysis: What Analysts Really Do in Their Consulting Rooms
Abbot Bronstein, PhD

2010-11

Cohn Lecture — 10/29/2010
True Blood: Our Fascination with the Vampire
Andrew Chirchirillo, PhD

Dewald Lecture — 10/14/2010
The Effects of Trauma on the Developing Child
Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 9/24/2010
On Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: Psychoanalytic Knowledge as a Process
Fred Busch, PhD

2009-10

Cohn Lecture — 10/16/2009
Toward an Understanding of the Role of Uncertainty in an Uncertain World
Gail Glenn, MAEd

Fingert Lecture — 10/2/2009
The Kore Complex on a Woman’s Inheritance of her Mother’s Failed Oedipus Complex
Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau, PhD

2008-09

Fingert Lecture — 9/26/2008
Close Encounters with Different Psychoanalytic Institutes over the Decades
E. James Anthony, MD

2007-08

Cohn Lecture — 1/25/2008
Sixty Years of Psychoanalysis: A Personal Odyssey
Paul A. Dewald, MD

Dewald Lecture — 3/6/2008
Psychological Roots of Community Violence
James Gilligan, MD

Fingert Lecture — 9/28/2007
Endings, Beginnings, and the Countertransference
Herbert S. Schlesinger, PhD

2006-07

Cohn Lecture — 10/27/2006
Serious Play: Passion or Poison
Eric J. Nuetzel, MD

Fingert Lecture — 9/15/2006
I Read the Kite Runner and Loved It: The Concept of “Anonymity” Revisited
Carolyn Ellman, PhD

2005-06

Cohn Lecture — 10/28/2005
Tomboys, Sissies and other “Gender Outlaws”
Britt-Marie Schiller, PhD

Dewald Lecture — 2/17/2006
Great Expectations and First Impressions
Adam Phillips

2003-04

Dewald Lecture — 9/19/2003
Does Evil Have a Psychology
Jonathan Lear, PhD

Fingert Lecture — 4/2/2004
Imaginary Garden, Real Toads: Reflections on Changing Views of the Analytic Process and the Process of Change
Theodore J. Jacobs, MD

2002-03

Fingert Lecture — 9/20/2002
Enactments in the Therapeutic Setting
Owen Renik, MD & Judith Chused, MD, Discussant

2001-02

Dewald Lecture — 4/12/2002
Father Hunger: Exploring the Fathering Principle and its Role in Development
James M. Herzog, MD

2000-01

Fingert Lecture — 9/22/2000
Why Theory?
Judith Fingert Chused, MD

1999-00

Dewald Lecture — 4/11/2000
Half Empty, Half Full
Susan C. Vaughan, MD

1997-98

Dewald Lecture — 3/3/1998
Parenting Our Children – From Newborn to 30 Years Old and Beyond
Judith Viorst

1995-96

Dewald Lecture — 5/14/1996
The Good Marriage
Judith S. Wallerstein, PhD

1994-95

Dewald Lecture — 4/21/1995
Racism & Violence in the United States: The Psychological Underpinnings
Vamik Volkan, MD

Endowed Lectures (Draft – Academic Year Format)

Endowed Lectures