SCHEDULE
9:00 – 10:00 AM
Welcome Breakfast
10:00 – 10:45 AM
A Crack in Everything: On Democracy and Psyche
Speaker: J. Todd, Dean, MD
11:00 – 11:45 AM:
Psychoanalysis and Democracy
Speaker: Joseph Scalia III, PsyaD
11:45 AM – 1:15 PM
LUNCH (provided)
1:30-2:15 PM
Embodied Listening: Field Theory & Multi-Species Democracy
Speaker: Risa Mandell, LCSW
2:45-3:15 PM
Group Work: Toward Meaning-Making and Linking
Speaker: Rana Sioufi, PhD
3:30-4:30 PM
Group Discussion
Speaker: Michael Brog, MD
6:00 PM
Dinner at Anthonino’s on The Hill
Prices
Candidate Registration $35.00
Candidate Dinner $40.00
Faculty Registration $50.00
Faculty Dinner $50.00
Virtual Registration (Candidate & Faculty) $25.00
2025 FACULTY/CANDIDATE RETREAT SYLLABUS
SESSION 1: THE CRACK IN EVERYTHING (J. TODD DEAN, MD)
DESCRIPTION: In this presentation, the problematics of determining the values of psychoanalysis will be addressed, as well as the challenges this presents for the psychoanalytic community in general. In addressing this, however, we are also addressing the realities of culture more generally, since the
conflicts over what we value go way beyond the world of psychoanalysis. This is especially a major issue today because of the assumptions of clarity that we have come to expect through the advancements of modern life, culminating most recently in the development of AI. The relation between democracy and certainty is a central issue for modern culture in general, a fact which speaks to why psychoanalysis continues to be such an important discourse for our times.
OBJECTIVES:
- Participants will be able to recognize the parallels between the conflicts that arise in the psychoanalytic world and in the larger culture when it comes to addressing conflicting views on major issues.
- Participants will be able to critically evaluate the ways in which conflicts are addressed and worked through in psychoanalytic debate.
- Participants will be able to recognize the relevance of democratic process in working through conflicts over psychoanalytic theory and practice.
REFERENCES:
- Monisha Nayar-Akhtar (2022): An American Identity: The Shifting Sands of Democracy. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 75:1, 93-107.
- Hinshelwood, R.D. (2021): The Disappointment of Democracy. Free Associations 22:28-37.
- K. Figlio (2021): Lying in Autocratic Society: A Challenge to Democracy. Free Associations 22: 15-28.
BIOGRAPHY: J. Todd Dean, MD is a training and supervising analyst at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute, and currently dean of Education at the Institute.
SESSION 2: PSYCHOANALYSIS & DEMOCRACY (JOSEPH SCALIA, III, PSYA.D)
DESCRIPTION: This seminar will address the individual and group minds that are encountered in what thinkers such as the psychoanalysts D. W. Winnicott and Cornelius Castoriadis conceived of as democracy. In this sense, democracy will be considered as being for “the good of the all” and as only possible when it is predominated by persons “capable of community,” as Freud put it late in his life.
R. Bion referred to the psychoanalytic “Establishment” as being led by an oppressive “ruling caste.” What happens when a leader, or a group of leaders, or a leading idea draws its followers into a false security that they feel in blind faith toward the leader – as paternal protector – and the libidinal ties they feel with each other? Conversely, what happens to those who see and openly resist that perceived security in its falsity?
What might be a way forward, as Paulo Freire explored it?
OBJECTIVES:
1) To explore and consider one’s personal relationship to the divergent paths of psychoanalysis today.
2) Become conversant in prospective democratic responsibilities of the institution of psychoanalysis, of individual psychoanalysts and of psychoanalytic schools.
3) To take stock of the unsettling consideration that a number of psychoanalysts have not attained the attributes of a person at the “end of analysis.”
REFERENCES:
1) Christopher Bollas (2018). Meaning and Melancholia: Life in the Age of Bewilderment. London and New York: Routledge.
2) Adam Phillips (2021). The Cure for Psychoanalysis. London: Confer Books.
3) Jeffrey Librett (2020). The subject in the age of world-formation (mondialisation). In Aner Govrin and Jon Mills, Eds. (2020). Innovations in Psychoanalysis. Routledge: London and New York.
BIOGRAPHY:
Joseph Scalia III, Psya.D. is a psychoanalyst and a social and environmental critic and activist. He has been a student of Christopher Bollas, and of the Freudian School of Quebec. Dr. Scalia is currently the Co-Director of the Institute for a Democratic Psychoanalysis. As well, he is a former President of both the Montana Wilderness Association, and the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance. He has authored/edited three books and articles on both psychoanalysis and environmentalism. His most recent book, with Lynne S. Scalia, is Critical Consciousness: Beyond Impasses in Environmentalism, Psychoanalysis, and Education.
SESSION 3: EMBODIED LISTENING: FIELD THEORY & MULTI-SPECIES DEMOCRACY (RISA MANDELL, LCSW)
DESCRIPTION: Field theory invites us to listen in an embodied, porous way to invite the unbuilt natural world into democratic processes as an interested party in governance. The interdisciplinary nature of emerging epistemologies will be addressed. The difference between reformative adaptation in psychoanalysis and environmental law as distinct from transformative psychoanalysis and earth law will be delineated. Correlates of desire and legal personhood in humans and unbuilt nature will be addressed. Principles of indigenous culture and traditional Western principles will be employed for extending democracy to more-than-humans will be elucidated. Resources for investigation will be offered.
OBJECTIVES:
- Explain “how mind creates the world” relates to the reigning global paradigm.
- Apply psychoanalytic field theory to multi-species democracy.
- Describe the difference between reformative and transformative work with individuals and society.
REFERENCES:
- Matthew Bird, et al 2025 Town of Lewes, England Charter on the rights of the River Ouse EcoJurisprudence, Monitor https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/lewes-district-england-rights-of-river-motion/
- Celermajer, D et al 2023 A Political Theory for Multispecies, Climate Challenged World: 2050 Political Theory 51 (1) 39-53 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00905917221128833.
- Civitarese, G. 2021 Intersubjectivity and Analytic Field Theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 69:853-893.
BIOGRAPHY:
Risa Mandell is a clinical social work psychotherapist working with people in their 20s and 30s in Pennsylvania. She is a co-founder of DysUnited, a small group of psych practitioners somewhat united around issues of our collapsing biosphere. Otherwise, she’s a dialectic, play and improv enthusiast, suchness practitioner, paradox aficionado and accomplished curmudgeon.
SESSION 4: GROUP WORK: TOWARD MEANING-MAKING AND LINKING (RANA SIOUFI, PHD)
DESCRIPTION:
This seminar will address the need for symbolization and third spaces to collectively process and respond to experiences of trauma, or incursions of the Real in Lacanian terms. A working group was started by psychoanalytic clinicians in New York City in 2021 during the covid-19 pandemic to represent what was occurring and engage in mourning as multiple plagues – war, genocide, ecocide and authoritarianism – spread across the globe. The course will address questions, such as: How does contagion of emotion occur? What defenses are invoked against aggressive impulses at the individual and group levels? Does psychoanalysis need new mythology to keep up with the challenges and failures facing humanity today?
Participants will also engage in a working group session based on a pictogram connecting various psychoanalytic ideas and concepts discussed in the 3 course sessions.
OBJECTIVES:
1) To critically engage with theoretical conceptualizations of the drives and their vicissitudes in group dynamics.
2) To consider and explore the binding role of myths/stories in civilization, culture, and institutions.
3) Develop experiential learning and understanding of a working group process.
REFERENCES:
1) Le Soldat, J. (2024). Voluntary Servitude. Masochism and Morality (A. Samardzic, V. Tsolas, & M. Civin, Eds.) (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032666273.
2) Bollas, C. (2015). Psychoanalysis in the age of bewilderment: On the return of the oppressed*†. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 96(3), 535–551. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-8315.12352.
3) Lippi, S. (2025). De la foule à la sororité : psychanalyse des groupes – fascistes et féministes. Savoirs et clinique, 33(2), 22-30. https://doi.org/10.3917/sc.033.0022.
