Author: Max Cavitch

Psyche on Campus has been on hiatus for a few months while I’ve been finishing a new book, Psychoanalysis and the University: Resistance and Renewal from Freud to the Present, which will be published by Routledge in 2025. (More about that as the publication date approaches.) The blog is getting back up to speed with some terrific posts lined up for publication soon.

Meanwhile, here are four timely announcements sure to be of interest to many of you:

First up, on June 2 (that’s this coming Sunday!)

Consider tuning in to the free, online conference on “Psychodynamic Psychology in Academia: A Call to Action.” The panels and discussions will take place between 11:00am and 2:15pm (EST). To register (again, it’s free to all!), visit https://forms.gle/yXqoxFGAECcFh75MA.

Calling all undergraduate writers and their instructors!

Submissions are due by September 30, 2024, for the American Psychoanalytic Association’s annual Undergraduate Essay Prize. This $500 prize will be awarded to an undergraduate essay which engages psychoanalytic ideas in relation to a focused question, in any academic discipline. Essays must be submitted by the instructor (just one submission per instructor, please). For complete details and submission instructions, visit https://apsa.org/fellowships-awards/undergraduate-essay-prize/.

Scholars and clinician writers take note!

The journal Re:visit~ Humanities & Medicine in Dialogue is now accepting article submissions of 6,000-8,000 words—in either English or German—for its next open section issue. The submission deadline is November 30, 2024. Re:visit publishes critical and (self-)reflexive writing about concepts and questions that place medicine (including mental health and mental healthcare policy) and the humanities in dialogue with one another. Theoretical, historical, and clinical/empirical approaches are all welcome. For complete details and submission instructions, (re)visit https://journal-revisit.org/jr/index.

Calling all readers!

If you’re a reader of Psyche on Campus then you almost certainly have something to say about psychoanalysis and undergraduate education, whether as a teacher, student, clinician, or administrator—maybe something you’d like to share? Psyche on Campus is especially eager to hear from those of you who are psychoanalytic training institute affiliates, candidates, faculty, and/or administrators, as well as from clinicians in private practice and those of you who are active in APsA, Division 39, IPA, etc. What are your views on the importance of teaching psychoanalysis at the undergraduate level? How important to you is it that new generations of college students have more and better opportunities to learn about psychoanalysis? What sorts of benefits might result from expanding the scope of undergraduate psychoanalytic education? What about the possibility of independent analytic institutes joining forces with universities? Any and all points of view are welcome. Send your short (800-1200 words) post or pitch your idea to me at cavitch@upenn.edu.

     

Applications are now being accepted for student externships to the American Psychoanalytic Association’s 2024 Annual Meeting, at the Hilton Midtown in New York City, February 6-11, 2024.

 Eligibility: College Juniors and Seniors (not limited to any major or minor) and Graduate Students (in any field) with an interest in psychoanalysis.

 This externship provides a unique opportunity to discover the world of psychoanalysis in all its aspects: as a theory of mind, as a method of interpretation across the disciplines, and as a clinical practice. 8-10 students will be chosen to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, February 6-11, 2024, at the Hilton Midtown in New York City. Registration fees and hotel rooms will be covered for all externship winners, who will also receive  stipends for transportation, food, and extern-mentor events.

Students will be able to attend all parts of the scientific program, such as plenary presentations, featured panels, and smaller discussion groups and workshops on an extraordinary array of topics including gender and sexuality, addictions, child and adolescent analysis, ethics, psychoanalysis in the social sciences and humanities, research and empirical studies, etc. Students will also be assigned mentors to assist in registration and to serve as guides during the meetings.

Application requirements:

1. 1. Current resume
   2. Unofficial Transcript
   3. One academic recommendation
   4. A 2-page essay responding to the question: “How do you imagine psychoanalysis might impact your field of study?” (maximum 750 words)

Application deadline: November 11, 2023. Include all four required elements in a single email to be sent to Dr. Susan Donner at sldonnermd@gmail.com.

 Questions? Ask Dr. Susan Donner at sldonnermd@gmail.com.

 For more on the externship experience, read program alumna Esha Bhandari’s blog post, “Child’s Play at APsaA: Discovering Psychoanalytic Play Therapy,” linked here: https://web.sas.upenn.edu/psycheoncampus/2022/02/18/childs-play-at-apsaa-discovering-psychoanalytic-play-therapy/

To be eligible, papers must have been written within the past year, either in an undergraduate course or independently under an instructor’s supervision, at a college or university within the United States.  Papers must be 12 to 20 pages long and must not have been published (or submitted for publication) elsewhere.

For more information: https://apsa.org/fellowships-awards/undergraduate-essay-prize/

And good luck to all the applicants! 

Remember, too (or, if you’re an instructor, please alert your students), that here at Psyche on Campus we’re always eager to hear from undergraduates studying psychoanalysis–anywhere where in the world!–who have a good pitch for a blog-post.  Simply email your pitch (or a completed post of approximately 800-1200 words) to cavitch@upenn.edu to be considered for possible publication!

I’m delighted to share the news that Psyche on Campus is the recipient of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s 2022 Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Sincere thanks to the blog’s many contributors, who share in APsaA’s recognition for helping to sustain and enrich what the award citation calls “a public forum for teaching about psychoanalysis in the college classroom and beyond–to an interdisciplinary audience of over 10,000 readers in over two dozen countries–and demonstrating the breadth and value of the psychoanalytic perspective today.”

Sincere thanks as well to the blog’s many readers–more of whom, I hope, will become contributors themselves!

Calling all undergraduate juniors and seniors and graduate students…in all disciplines!

Applications are now being accepted for an expenses-paid externship to the next Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA): January 31 – February 5, 2023
Hilton Midtown Hotel, New York City

Professors: Let your students know about this fantastic opportunity!

Application deadline: November 10, 2022.

Please open this pdf document for further details and application instructions:
APsaA 2023 Externship

by Max Cavitch

Launched three years ago, the “Psyche on Campus” blog has continued to be extremely fortunate in its contributors—including academics, clinicians, and students from many colleges and universities in the U.S. and the U.K.—and extremely fortunate in its readers. In fact, the blog now has well over 10,000 readers in dozens of different countries. And in 2022, for the second year in a row, “Psyche on Campus” has been selected by FeedSpot as one of the “15 Best Psychoanalysis Blogs and Websites.” Posts continue to be published every 6-10 weeks, and readers can anticipate forthcoming posts by Jane Abrams, Gila Ashtor, Rachel Conrad, Brian Connolly, Marcia Dobson, and Nicholas Ray, among others. (If you have an idea for a post of your own, please let me know!) And our “Syllabus Archive” continues to grow. (Again, relevant syllabi from your own courses are very welcome!)

Continue reading “Teaching 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 Psychoanalysis and Teaching 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ Psychoanalysis; or, Contemporary Undergraduate Psychoanalytic Education and the Future of Transferential Pedagogy”

Thanks to our thousands of readers and subscribers around the world, “Psyche on Campus” has been chosen as one of the “Top 10 Psychoanalysis Blogs You Must Follow in 2021” by Feedspot. You can see the full list here: https://blog.feedspot.com/psychoanalysis_blogs/

Subscribing to the blog is free–just click the “Subscribe” button in the bottom right corner of your screen.

And remember: If you have an idea for a post of your own, just let us know by writing to: cavitch@english.upenn.edu.

 

by Max Cavitch

Note: There are terrific posts by Kelli Fuery, Michael McAndrew, H.N., and others awaiting publication—please be on the lookout for them in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, given our extraordinary present circumstances and—as educators, students, and clinicians—our need to adapt to them as we prepare for an uncertain new academic year, it seems important to jump the queue with this selected bibliography of resources—to which readers are welcome and encouraged to contribute in the “Comment” section.

Many of us will be spending the summer preparing to resume teaching in a world transformed, not only by Covid-19, but also by the revitalized struggle against systemic assaults on black bodies and minds. The psychic fallout of state-sponsored violence—including racially motivated police brutality and the extrajudicial murder of black men, women, and transgender folk—has scarcely begun to be calculated, much less adequately addressed, by the psychoanalytic community. How might those of us who teach psychoanalysis at the undergraduate level, or provide psychodynamic therapy to college students, do a better job of centering black lives—and matters of race even more broadly—in our classrooms and counseling facilities?

Continue reading “Race and Psychoanalysis: Some Resources for Undergraduate Education and Counseling”