Psychoanalytic Salons
Our Psychoanalytic Salons are based on Freud's Wednesday Psychological Society Meetings.
We hope to encourage and foster intellectual curiosity and friendly debate within our community. Our vision is of an intimate gathering of ASPP members listening to and discussing a member's recently written and published paper. Of course, black coffee and cake (click here if you are curious) is served along with wine, cheese and other snacks.
If you would like to present at an ASPP Salon, let us know!
We will give preference to the published papers of candidates, recent analytic graduates and earlier career analysts, but hope that this will not discourage faculty and supervisors with recently published papers from inquiring.
Please email us at society@adelphiaspp.org if you are interested and include a pdf of your paper if possible.
Dr. Melinda Blitzer
The Analyst's Courage and Vulnerability
in the Countertransference
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Courage requires us to persist and persevere despite fear.
We make choices everyday—some are courageous, and some are not courageous at all. This dimension of psychoanalytic work is significant, yet relatively neglected in the psychoanalytic literature. Maintaining a courageous stance as an analyst can be challenging and threatening. Often, the therapist faces deeply rooted fears about abandonment, envy, competition, anger, or other forms of intense emotional arousal. This requires us to confront ourselves but also, at times, confront our patient’s behaviors. It is crucial to think and act independently, and deal with their disapproval and opposition, despite the risks challenging patients present. Ultimately, we need to manage our vulnerable feelings while remaining authentic, rather than hiding behind an overly clinical stance.
The Analyst's Courage and Vulnerability in the Countertransference was published in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis:
Blitzer, M. (2023). The analyst's courage and vulnerability in the countertransference.
The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 83, 74-88.
We had a wonderful afternoon of camaraderie and discussion on May 4th! Using the clinical vignettes in her paper, Dr. Blitzer led a lively discussion that centered on the necessity of courage in psychoanalytic practice and how our own histories can interfere with it.
Those in attendance included candidates, graduates, faculty and supervisors of the Postgraduate Programs. We were also thrilled that several new, returning, and future members of our community joined us.
Our first Salon was a success! Dr. Kahoud presented excerpts of his paper to a group of ASPP and Postgraduate community members that included candidates, advanced candidates, faculty and supervisors at the home of ASPP President Elizabeth Sullivan. A lively discussed followed and the conversation lingered into the evening.
Dr. Kahoud's paper is an inquiry into the role of smartphones in shifting the dynamics of human relationships as we have traditionally known them. He reimagines the Oedipus Complex to account for the company we keep in the digital age—the smartphones that have become ubiquitous inhabitants of our interpersonal world. Specifically, he focused on triangular relational configurations that now include smartphones as ever-present object representations. Further, he explored the nuances of how smartphones play oscillating roles as points of contact in interpersonal triangles. Whether idealized or devalued, worshipped, or despised, eroticized or dehumanized, real or imaginary, smartphones are imbued with a broad range of intense human projections.
The Rise of Oedipus Tech: Life in the Shadow of the Digital Object was published in Psychoanalytic Inquiry:
Kahoud, D. (2023). The Rise of Oedipus Tech: Life in the Shadow of the
Digital Object, Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 43:1, 47-56, DOI: 10.1080/07351690.2023.2160192
https://doi.org/10.1080/07351690.2023.2160192
Dr. Dustin Kahoud
The Rise of Oedipus Tech:
Life in the Shadow of the Digital Object
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Dr. Alan Weiss
Emerging from the Valley of the Shadow of Death:
Reclaiming the Self after Massive Psychic Trauma:
A Case Illustration
Sunday, December 7, 2025
During our Salon, Dr. Weiss presented a work-in-progress: a paper on his psychotherapeutic work with Cheryl (a pseudonym). Cheryl was the sole survivor of a murderous attack in which beloved friends were killed, and in which she nearly lost her own life. Dr. Weiss argues that attention to death anxiety and the human capacity for evil were essential in creating a “relational home” (Stolorow, 2015) for the patient. Dr. Weiss drew upon his own existential vulnerability to enter the upended world of the patient. He emphasized his years-long work with war veterans, and his decades of grappling with metastatic prostate cancer, as factors that helped him to respond to Cheryl in ways that were good enough to be of help to her in rebuilding a collapsed self.
