213: Inside and Out: Mutual Influences of Psychic and Social Realities I
Instructors
Donald Moss, M.D.
Lynne Zeavin, Psy.D.
April 25 – June 13, 2022
Mondays, 7:00 – 8:25 pm
No class: 5/30
Co-requisites
Candidates must have at least one case in supervised psychoanalysis to be eligible to take second year courses.
Course Description
Typically in our work we maintain an exclusive focus on the determining power of psychic reality. Psychic reality is thought to be the foundation of all our psychoanalytic understanding. This course will examine the undertheorized contributions of External Reality to individual experience and psychic development. We will discuss a variety of social formations and their impact on psychic life. In addition to taking on such pathological structures as racism, misogyny and homophobia, the course will explore ideology and false consciousness, the formation of our beliefs, and various forms of violence, including to the natural world. This course aims to uncover the multiple determinants of each of these phenomena, not only in unconscious fantasy, but also in unrecognized social forces. Embedded in this course will be a critique of our usual exclusive emphasis on psychic reality and individual development.
Educational Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
- describe how social realities impact the development of our minds.
- discuss the interplay between the psyche and society, including the impact of race,
homophobia and our place in the natural world
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and demonstration of understanding of the course objectives, readings and clinical material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).
These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.
READINGS ARE CONFIRMED.
Section I. Inside and Out
CLASS 1: April 25, 2022
REQUIRED READINGS
Moss, D., & Zeavin, L. (Eds.). (2021). Hating, Abhorring and Wishing to Destroy: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Contemporary Moment (1st ed.). Routledge. [Read Introduction]
CLASS 2: May 2, 2022
Guest Instructor: Robert Lifton, MD
REQUIRED READINGS
Lifton, R. (2021). Can Proteanism be Grounded? Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(6): 1153–1161.
CLASS 3: May 9, 2022
Guest Instructor: Robert Lifton, MD
REQUIRED READINGS
Lifton, R. Rejecting survival: How Trumpist denials of the COVID catastrophe impede recovery and renewal. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published online August 24, 2021.
Section II. Toward a Social Unconscious
CLASS 4: May 16, 2022
REQUIRED READINGS
Gentile, J. (2020). Time May Change Us: The Strange Temporalities, Novel Paradoxes, and Democratic Imaginaries of a Pandemic. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 68(4):649-669.
González, F.J. (2020). First World Problems and Gated Communities of the Mind: An Ethics of Place in Psychoanalysis. Psychoanal Q., 89(4):741-770.
CLASS 5: May 23, 2022
REQUIRED READINGS
Moss, D. (2021). I’m Walking in the Woods in the Pouring Rain: A Plea for the Primary Status of Oceanic Experience. [Manuscript under review, IJP]
DOWNLOAD THE PDF
Section III. Our Human Relationship with the Natural World
CLASS 6: June 6, 2022
Guest Instructor: Lindsay Clarkson, M.D.
REQUIRED READINGS
Searles, H.F. (1972). Unconscious Processes in Relation to the Environmental Crisis. Psychoanal. Rev., 59(3):361-374.
Segal, H. (1993). On the Clinical Usefulness of the Concept of Death Instinct. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 74:55-61.
CLASS 7: June 13, 2022
Guest Instructor: Lindsay Clarkson, M.D.
REQUIRED READINGS
Clarkson, L. (2020). Trees and Other Psychoanalytic Matters. Forthcoming in: Hating, Abhoring & Wishing to Destroy: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Contemporary Moment (Donald Moss & Lynne Zeavin) New Library of Psychoanalysis