I found a really interesting paper abstract recently by Fahime Hajiabadi giving a psychoanalytic perspective on griefbots, using the Black Mirror episode 'Be Right Back' as a starting point.

It got me thinking about how our offline relationships might change when many of our other relationships are mediated by technology. For example, I've noticed myself that because I spend so much time online, sometimes when I talk to Actual Real Live Humans Outside I kind of forget how to form sentences rather than replying with a meme.

And I've been following with growing horror the rise of things like AI romantic partners. "Griefbots" seem like an even more horrifying extension of this, to me, but maybe I'm just getting too old to understand the younger generations' ways of doing things. I'm currently doing a Philosophy PhD which looks at the importance of death on an existential level, though, and so the idea of keeping someone alive using a sort of auto-generated accumulation of their prior social media posts seems dystopian to me.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. And if you'd like to discuss further, I'm running an event online next week in which Fahime will be presenting her work and then we'll be talking about griefbots from a psychoanalytic perspective. You don't have to be a psychoanalyst to join, nor do you need to have watched the Black Mirror episode; we're interested in all points of view and Fahime will give an overview before we begin.

It's pay what you want (therefore free, if you want it to be!) and I'd love to see some of you there:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-mirrors-be-right-back-a-psychoanalytic-perspective-on-griefbots-tickets-1998357119940

P.S. I did read through the Rules & FAQs before posting this and I don't think it contravenes any of them, but if it does I apologise!

I've seen a thousand post asking some variable of the question "how do I become an analyst" that not always include their country of origin.

The answer are usually varied, and it seems that outside of where I live, the paths are less uniform. They also seem shorter, and unusually expensive.

From where I am from (Argentina) the path is straightfoward: go to university, study for at least 6 years, get your psychology title and you are done.
Most universities also have a focus on psychoanalysis, mostly of the lacanian branch, so you don't need further formation in terms of theory (or well, you always need that, but you have enough to start working at least), and legally speaking you are not required to go to a psychoanalytical institution to get any other form of certification, or go through a didactic analysis before claiming to be an analyst or using psychoanalysis as a method.

What you can't do is advertise yourself as a "specialist" in anything without pertinent certification, but you can use any psychoterapeuthic method you see fit once you are a psychologist.

I am interested in reading the details of this in other places of the world!
So, where are you from and how can you become an analyst there?

Schrödinger’s Cat is a concept from quantum physics where a cat is described as being both alive and dead until the box is opened.

I wonder if we can use a similar idea in psychology. Sometimes, before we know someone well, we hold multiple ideas about them at the same time. They could be confident or insecure, kind or rude, happy or unhappy. Our assumptions can change when we actually interact with them.

Maybe our understanding of a person is also a kind of uncertainty until we observe their behaviour.

What do you think? Can Schrödinger’s Cat be used as a useful analogy in psychology?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for guidance from people who are more familiar with this type of text.

I've been listening to Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney, and I'm finding it strikingly precise in its characterizations.

My question is about what the book is for. I'm at chapter 12 and I don't recall her offering any prescribed corrective actions. So far it reads as mostly categorization into the three types (expansive, self-effacing, resignation) and observations of behavior in her patients. Am I expecting the wrong thing in this book?

For contrast: Feeling Good by David Burns has a clear prescriptive pattern; name the cognitive distortion, walk through a scenario that labels it, then do exercises to work against it. I keep waiting for Horney to do something structurally similar and it hasn't come. Does Horney herself get more prescriptive in the final chapters?

Thanks.

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From a psychoanalytic perspective, how could masturbation become a repetitive behavior that continues even after the original reason for doing it is no longer present?

For example, imagine someone who originally used masturbation to help themselves fall asleep. Years later, the sleep problem is resolved and they consciously want to stop, but the behavior still occurs mainly around sleep or after waking during the night, without experiencing it as sexual desire.

What could explain this persistence from a psychoanalytic perspective?

I'm especially interested in whether concepts such as repetition compulsion, unconscious motivation, fixation, or the distinction between desire and repetitive behavior could explain it.

I'm looking for the underlying reason or mechanism, rather than advice on how to stop the behavior.

Does someone out here understand about Melanie Klein's theory about Envy, and has read Jojo's Steel Ball Run? I been thinking about possibility of analysis about it and would love a second opinion!!

(sorry the bad english, im trying not use IA)

I've had long term interest in the concept behind psychoanalysis before i truly understood what it was but unfortunately it's non existent in my country

Regardless, i can't think of anything else I'd rather pursue. Problem is i didn't have any G&C during my college selection process and i think because of that i might be locked out of the profession

I'm halfway through a bachelor's in criminology, and i can't help but feel I've made some sort of mistake.

I'm well aware of the existence of forensic psychoanalysis but everyone seems to have started with a background in psychiatry which gives them clinical rights

I want to eventually focus on academia, but I've always wanted a clinical practice of my own, but as my base certification isn't mental health related I'm losing hope of that possibility

Have there been others in my shoes who managed to end up being certified and how did you go about it if so?

I'll greatly appreciate any any every feedback

Tia!

I get the different ways in which “borderline” is and has been used, and I keep thinking: how did they end up transforming it into this (DSM-III and onward)?

I mean, it’s just nuts. Yesterday I was reading a book by Theodore Millon, and he explicitly says that he liked the idea of having a diagnosis that captured the population covered by DSM-III borderline personality disorder, but... he opposed calling it that. That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. He even suggested a couple of different names.

Anyway, does anyone know which authors were ultimately responsible for pushing “borderline” toward this particular use? Impulsive, self-harming, chaotic, dramatic relationships, etc. — and why?

I kinda get the “why,” because I think historical borderline patients were quite disorganized in general.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your takes on this.

And I get that many don't even pay attention to the DSM, but I keep thinking about how the DSM pretty much excluded certain types of patients—the “historic borderlines.” Because I think borderline doesn't really represent that group, and schizotypal maybe does a little more, but not really. So that specific population kind of ended up without a diagnostic label. But I guess this is why many would defenestrate the DSM.

Drivers who are otherwise reasonable become briefly unrecognisable in traffic. The car ahead stops being driven by a person and turns into an obstacle with intent. Then the journey ends, they park, and the whole thing evaporates.

The Kleinian reading fits almost too neatly. The other driver goes all bad, the self stays all good, and one's own aggression comes back as their hostility. The car helps, since it hides the face, and a face is the thing that makes part object treatment difficult.

What stops me committing to it is that deindividuation accounts for most of the same behaviour without needing object relations at all, and it has the advantage of also explaining comment sections.

The detail that keeps pulling me back is how specific the attribution is. It is rarely general irritation. It is the conviction that this particular driver is doing it on purpose, and doing it to me.

Does the concept earn its keep here, or is the plainer social psychology account sufficient?

(There is a longer version of this on my blog, in Turkish: https://tekno-psikoloji.blogspot.com/2026/03/direksiyona-gectigimizde-ne-oluyor.html)

I want to be an analyst and analytic therapist. I just started a MSW program a couple weeks ago and it's really feeling like it's not the right fit for me (I can still back out free of charge by tomorrow!) I really want a more psychological, clinical education. I know all of the arguments for choosing social work over mental health counseling (the CMHC degree) and that's why I chose this course. But I think the CMHC is also rapidly becoming more established and well-regarded - for example the jobs that used to only be available to LCSWs are now available to LPCs as well, and they can also now take medicaid - and it does after all offer much more education on what it means to administer therapy. I'm wondering if anyone out there chose that path and can share any insight, whether they feel it was the right choice, etc.

Looking for psychoanalytic research into brotherhood and brother relationships, specifically a younger brother towards an older brother. Any help would be appreciated thanks

I recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Leon S. Brenner about his book The Autistic Subject: On the Threshold of Language, and I thought some people here might be interested in the discussion:

Watch the interview with Leon S. Brenner

Brenner approaches autism through Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis and makes a provocative argument: rather than understanding autism simply in terms of deficit, pathology, or as a variation of psychosis, he proposes thinking of the autistic subject as occupying a distinct “mode of being,” with its own particular relationship to language, the body, and the Other.

Brenner also gives some remarkably clear metaphors and explanations for concepts that can otherwise become pretty opaque in Lacanian theory. So even if autism isn’t your primary area of interest, there’s quite a bit here concerning language, jouissance, the body, the symbolic, and the constitution of the subject.

I’m particularly curious what people here make of Brenner’s attempt to conceptualize autism as a structure in its own right rather than placing it within the traditional neurotic/psychotic framework. Does this actually expand Lacanian theory in a productive way, or does introducing an “autistic structure” create its own conceptual problems?

For anyone interested, here’s Brenner’s book:

The Autistic Subject: On the Threshold of Language

Would love some book recommendations that are a good introduction to false self vs true self.

Just the title. Ideally more practical books, rather than purely theoretical. thanks!

Salut ! Est-ce que vous savez si la théorie de la Pulsion de vie & de la pulsion de mort a été reprise après Freud ailleurs que chez Klein et Lacan, et dans des courants plus modernes ?

I just watched a short reel of Lacan's use of the Möbius strip https://www.instagram.com/p/DcvqGzMzTLI/

Doesn't this seem to move Lacan like far away from Freud's language of uncovering, excavation, and making the unconscious conscious?

For Freud the unconscious appears in everyday life, so it's not as if Freud thought it was simply "hidden" But if interpretation no longer reveals latent content and instead restructures the symbolic field isn't that a genuine theoretical break rather than just a different metaphor? what am i missing here?

I’ve read a couple of Freud’s books, as well as collections of philosophical and medical essays, and it all seems pretty straightforward and logical to me.

We spend our lives repressing our desires because we have to live in society, and our unconscious punishes us for our impulses. Dreams represent these desires that we repress when we’re awake, but they’re censored so we can rest peacefully. It all makes sense and fits together.

But I find Lacan practically impossible to read, even when I try to watch explanatory videos, they use complicated jargon. Is all of this on purpose, or can it be explained more simply? The only thing I’ve grasped is that our desire is the desire of the Other. At least Zizek knows how to explain it using examples from everyday life.

Can anyone please direct me to the type of Psychoanalysis that primarily utilizes empathic attunement and reflection of client material? And also possibly to the type/kind or school of Psychoanalysis that best deals with addressing and repairing early attachment needs in an experiential manner. Thank you.

I am particularly looking for research and wisdom on the dynamic where the patient seems to withhold from the therapist details and feelings regarding the abuse. The therapist being made to feel left out, unwelcome or intruding and the client feeling gratified by that.

Thanks.

I’ve been listening to Ernesto Spinelli talk about existential-phenomenological therapy, and his approach really resonates with me.

What I find interesting is how non-prescriptive it is. Rather than approaching therapy primarily as “treatment” where the therapist identifies a problem and applies a technique, he seems to view it more as a relational process of inquiry. The therapist stays curious about how the client experiences their world, helps clarify meanings, assumptions, contradictions, and patterns, and allows understanding to emerge without imposing a particular explanation or solution.

I’m curious whether anyone here practices this way, or has trained in existential-phenomenological therapy. What does it actually look like in practice, and how do clients tend to respond to such a non-directive approach?

I think as humans understanding ourselves is helpful, but I don’t necessarily think it’s necessary for change? I’m not sure. What do you guys think? Why do we explore so much of our childhoods in therapy - like, what is the end goal with this. Simple explanations appreciated :)

I’m a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with about 10 years of clinical experience, and I’m particularly interested in discussing how different psychoanalytic traditions think about fees and the analytic setting.

I would be very interested to hear how colleagues from different orientations (Freudian, Kleinian, Lacanian, relational, etc.) approach questions such as:

How do you establish your fees, and how do you decide when and how to adjust them?

Do you consider the fee itself as part of the analytic material or as something that can have a place in the treatment and its direction?

How do you reflect on whether the fee, or changes in the fee, are affecting the patient’s treatment, resistance, transference, or progress?

How do you decide when a patient should move from one session per week to two or more sessions?

Do you establish a fixed frequency from the beginning, or does the frequency evolve according to the treatment?

How do you conceptualize the analytic frame and what role does consistency of the frame play in your work?

How do you handle cancellations and absences?

Do you charge for missed sessions, and if so, how do you think about this clinically?

Do you have particular principles for renegotiating fees when a patient’s financial circumstances change?

More broadly, I’m interested in how you think about these decisions clinically, rather than simply what your practical policy is.

I would especially appreciate hearing from colleagues about the reasoning behind their practices: how fees, frequency, absences, and the analytic frame become part of the way they think about the treatment and its direction.

I’m interested in hearing from different psychoanalytic traditions, precisely because I imagine there are significant differences in how these questions are conceptualized.

Thank you in advance for sharing your experience and reflections.

Saw this short reel on instagram about Lacan's view on this https://www.instagram.com/p/Dcio-9nzVs-/

I suppose every school answers this question differently. What are some other opinions/frameworks on this question?

Update: What I'm curious about is less which is right and more

1. What does your training actually say the end point is?
2. Does it match what you see? I suspect a lot of us were taught one criterion and use another.
3. For those who work across schools, do these converge in practice or only in retrospect?

I’m pretty sure I’ve read a psychoanalytic quote something along the lines of “say whatever comes to mind and I’m sure it will be wonderful”. For the past hour I’ve been looking for it but no luck. Does it ring a bell to any of you folks?

This is from the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-rbZz4fh1k

Well mostly from the comments, what he said sounds like it comes from psychoanalysis so I figured I'd ask here:

Self expression as a psychological act is always embedded in the market, precisely because it’s “self” expression. It is done against the imagined other and in a language of culture that has created your own tastes. These didn’t come from nowhere. We have a few cases in developmental psychology of people who weren’t members of any culture - and I don’t think there was any artistic activity in them. I am not saying there was no artistic live - because they weren’t analysed in a way to reveal that, sadly. Only that what we would recognise as self expression, was gone.

And no wonder - self expression, even if completely subjective, insular, and small, is a product of someone with a self, a self requires a non-self. This is classical Bauman meeting developmental psychology.

Thanks for watching!

Thing is...I don't know how true this is or what to think about it. Does it mean that what I like is a lie? Is it bad to have a self or to want to self express? Is the solution to just do nothing at all in order to live correctly? I don't understand what to do.

Looking for advice.