Scientific Meeting: “Non-Conscious Internalized Cultures and Abject Failures to Communicate Across Theoretical Divides: The Case of Donald Winnicott’s 1968 Visit to NYPSI”
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June 9, 2026
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
***This meeting is virtual and will be held on ZOOM.***
NYPSI’s 1085th Scientific Meeting:
“Non-conscious Internalized Cultures and Abject Failures to Communicate Across Theoretical Divides: The Case of Donald Winnicott’s 1968 Visit to NYPSI”
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
8:00 – 10:00 PM (EST)
Presenter: Nasir Ilahi, LLM, LP
Discussant: Jonathan Koblenzer, MD
The history of psychoanalysis since Freud has been marked by fragmentation into multiple theoretical schools, often with limited dialogue across them. Dr. Ilahi’s paper examines the deeper reasons for such failures of communication – focusing on schools that originate from different geographical regions such as the US and the UK – proposing that they cannot be explained solely in terms of intellectual divergence but must also be understood in relation to “internalized psychoanalytic cultures”—the non conscious cultural value systems of different cultures that shape the development, reception, and practice of analytic theories in that culture. Focusing on the reception of D.W. Winnicott’s “The Use of the Object” paper at NYPSI in 1968, Dr. Ilahi will illustrate how lack of awareness of differing underlying cultural frameworks and implicit worldviews, especially between British Object Relations theory and American Ego Psychology, obstructed meaningful dialogue despite shared professional language at the surface. Whereas British approaches emphasize the preverbal mind, unconscious phantasy, and early object relations, American ego psychology privileged adaptation, verbal processes, and later developmental stages. These divergences demonstrate that theories in psychoanalysis migrate unevenly across cultural contexts, often undergoing unconscious transformations. While recognizing the influence of such internalized cultures—rather than assuming universal agreement on psychoanalytic concepts—may create anxieties that our theories are not free of local values, and thus not totally “ scientific “, nevertheless it offers a way forward for a more genuine dialogue across schools and geographies and differentiating what is regional versus universal in our theories. The paper argues that without acknowledging the cultural and non-conscious foundations of theoretical orientations, psychoanalysis risks perpetuating confusion, false consensus, and seriously missed opportunities for growth and for creating a more global relevance for itself.
2 Contact Hours. 2 CME/CE credits will be offered. See details below.
General Admission: $50
Student Admission: $35
Free Admission for current NYPSI members/students and HFI Candidates
Please note registration closes at 2 PM on Tuesday, June 9th.
THIS MEETING IS VIRTUAL; READ INSTRUCTIONS BELOW:
***Registration in Zoom Before the Meeting is Required to Attend***
After you have completed registering for the event, please look out for a confirmation email with more details on how to receive your Zoom Link.
Evaluation Survey and CME/CE documentation will be emailed after the event.
Please make sure you type your email correctly when you register! Contact with questions.
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- Blass, R. (2023). “Why analysts do not debate well and what can be done about it” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 104:161-186.
- Ilahi, M. N. (2024). Review of Coming to life in the consulting room: Toward a new analytic sensibility by Thomas Ogden. London: New Library of Psychoanalysis, 2022, 175
- Mullen, G. (2016). Don’t Fence Me In: What is American About American Psychoanalysis? What is American About American Psychoanalysis? Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 64(6), 1225-1234.
M. Nasir Ilahi, LLM, LP is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Association of New York ( PANY), Affiliated with NYU Medical School. Honorary Member, New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. and Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Chair, Board of Directors of PEP. Has authored and lectured in areas dealing with primitive mental states and non neurotic aspects of disturbance as well as cross cultural and comparative psychoanalysis .
Jonathan Koblenzer, MD is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell College of
Medicine, where he supervises and teaches residents and medical students. Dr. Koblenzer has served as Chief of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center and Chief of Inpatient Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Koblenzer’s background in internal medicine includes training at King’s County Hospital Center/Downstate Medical Center where he was Chief Medical Resident. He established the Division of Geriatric Medicine at Beth Israel, and is on the voluntary faculty of the Department of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai. A long time student of the work of Wilhelm Reich, his new translation of Der Triebhafte Charakter (The Impulsive Character) is in press at Orgonon Press and will appear soon. He is in full time private practice.
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Educational Objectives: Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
- Summarize some of the main underlying, implicit/ unarticulated elements of theory and technique shared by all North American schools of psychoanalysis, despite their considerable outward variations, when compared to the various object relations schools as practiced in the UK.
- Describe how these factors, unless made explicit, continue to contribute to an abject failure in communication, not only historically at Winnicott’s 1968 NYPSI presentation but to the present day, between proponents of psychoanalysis from the different sides of the Atlantic
Psychologists
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY – 0073.
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education programs for psychologists. New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content. DISCLOSURE: None of the planners and presenters of this CE program has any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
Social Workers
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW – 0317.