Psychoanalysis, Leadership, and the Challenge of Engaging the Social
Caroline Sehon • December 15, 2025

Psychoanalysis, Leadership, and the Challenge of Engaging the Social

Questions about how psychoanalysis engages the social world—while remaining grounded in clinical rigor and analytic method—have become increasingly central to our professional life. They evoke strong convictions, thoughtful disagreement, and a wide range of perspectives across our membership. Precisely for these reasons, they call for clear, informed, and containing leadership.


At the most fundamental level, psychoanalysis has always understood the intrapsychic as inseparable from the interpersonal and the social. We are shaped by complex relational, cultural, and historical contexts, just as our internal worlds shape how we experience and interpret external reality. To speak meaningfully about one without the other is ultimately not possible.


At the same time, these questions are not only theoretical. They raise important distinctions between personal conviction and institutional responsibility—between how individual members engage social issues as clinicians, scholars, and citizens, and how our professional organization defines its mission and speaks on behalf of its membership as a whole.


I find it helpful to hold two definitions of psychoanalytic work simultaneously. A narrower definition refers to clinical practice—whether in psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy with individuals, couples, families, or groups. A broader definition refers to psychoanalytic thinking as it is engaged beyond the consulting room, in scholarly, educational, organizational, and societal contexts. This expanded domain includes not only clinicians, but also researchers, academics, scholars, and other psychoanalytic thinkers working in a wide range of settings.


My orientation to these questions developed early. My commitment to integrating individual and collective perspectives was reflected in my choice to combine a residency in community medicine with psychiatry, and it has remained a through-line in my work as a clinician, educator, and organizational leader. As a child analyst, it is impossible for me to separate the intrapsychic life of the child from the social contexts in which children live. In my training and teaching, including work with concepts such as the social unconscious, I have seen how social realities enter moment-to-moment clinical and leadership experience.


During my analytic training, I was immersed in an educational approach that places "group affective learning" at the center of psychoanalytic thinking and practice-an orientation that past IPA President, Stefano Bolognini, has described as a "fourth pillar" of psychoanalytic education. Additionally, I participated in a psychoanalytic group relations conference that brought together clinicians and professionals from other fields interested in bringing psychoanalytic and group-based thinking to organizational, social, and leadership contexts. These experiences deepened my appreciation of how psychoanalytic concepts can illuminate collective life without displacing the centrality of clinical work, and they continue to inform how I think about leadership and institutional responsibility.


From a leadership standpoint, I think it is important to distinguish personal convictions from institutional responsibility. From my perspective, and informed by my experience, APsA’s mission rests in studying, teaching, and advancing psychoanalytic theory and practice,. This also requires leadership to differentiate carefully between the many ways members engage social issues as clinicians, scholars, and citizens, and the more bounded circumstances in which APsA itself speaks institutionally on behalf of all members.


Within APsA, I have seen the importance of working toward thoughtful integration firsthand through the close collaboration between the Social Issues Department and the Department of Psychoanalytic Education and Leadership (DPE). As Chair of the Psychoanalysis in the Community Committee, I have been involved in supporting projects aligned with this integrative aim, including initiatives. One such example is ROOM, a psychoanalytic community project whose recent recognition underscores the value of socially engaged psychoanalytic work that remains firmly grounded in analytic principles.


I will offer one concrete example of how I have tried to put these ideas into practice. In February 2022, in the earliest days of the war in Ukraine, I designed and began leading a weekly International Town Hall. In that work, we do not gather to influence the course of the war. Rather, we gather to use our analytic minds to examine how our unique histories, identities, and training shape how we experience one another in the here-and-now. The work has been painful and destabilizing at times and has required ongoing attention to safety, limits, and containment. I have often found myself learning in real time, making mistakes, and rethinking my own assumptions. I think of this work as a kind of humanitarian corridor-one devoted to psychoanalytic thinking in relation to our shared and deeply conflicted human experience.


In my role as Secretary, I worked with colleagues on the Executive Committee and Board to help develop a policy clarifying how and when APsA issues or cosigns public statements. That policy was created precisely because the social dimensions of our work evoke strong and divergent views, and because leadership has a responsibility to create structures that support thoughtful engagement without collapsing difference.


Another part of this conversation concerns the state of our own organizational life. The association has experienced significant membership attrition over the past several years. Across APsA, multiple groups appear to have encountered barriers to joining or remaining engaged. From an organizational and analytic standpoint, these patterns are not random to me-they are signals deserving of careful attention and thoughtful engagement.

This is why I think of our current moment as a consequential one for APsA. To optimize our effectiveness in engaging the broader social world, we must also attend to the internal conditions of our own association. Current efforts at governance reform, along with thoughtfully designed containers (in the Bionian sense), are essential to supporting constructive dialogue across difference.


At the same time, I recognize that a "turn to the social" can feel, to some, like a turn away from the intrapsychic. When either dimension eclipses the other, we lose something essential. The task of leadership, as I see it, is not to resolve this tension by endorsing a single stance, but to hold it thoughtfully and responsibly.


Ultimately, my hope is that APsA becomes an increasingly intellectually alive, welcoming, and forward-looking professional home—one that people actively want to join and remain part of. I envision an association that can hold difference without fragmentation, engage conflict without rupture, and sustain psychoanalytic rigor while remaining responsive to the world in which we live.


I see this as a core task of leadership at this moment: not to collapse complexity or enforce unanimity, but to create the conditions in which thoughtful dialogue, institutional trust, and professional vitality can grow together.

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Psychoanalysis and the Social Unconscious

By Caroline Sehon • December 15, 2025
Psychoanalysis and the Social Unconscious

The Effectiveness & Place of Online Training

By Caroline Sehon • December 5, 2025
How might APsA approach the issue of training standards for online or hybrid analytic education?
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What are the implications of APsA's change in Regional Status for NAPsaC?

By Caroline Sehon • December 4, 2025
What are the implications of APsA's change in regional status for NAPsaC?" I think we're all still finding our bearings with this shift. My experience with organizational change has taught me to approach moments like this with openness rather than certainty. These transitions often open space for fresh perspectives on long-standing arrangements. I hope to bring "new eyes" to our shared work. For me, relationships and collaboration across societies matter as much as any structural definition. What feels most promising right now is the opportunity for renewed dialogue across NAPsaC - listening closely and exploring how our distinct societies might collaborate in ways that feel meaningful and generative. On a personal note, I have long-standing friendships and valued colleagues within the CIPS societies - and as someone who is both Canadian and American, I'm never entirely impartial when it comes to Canadians. Perhaps the question for all of us is how we can create pathways of communication that deepen understanding and support our shared purposes. If I were entrusted with the role of APsA President-Elect, I would approach this moment as an evolving process rather than a settled answer. Over the past three and a half years on ExCom, I've had the opportunity to develop a strong, collaborative partnership with President-Elect Bonnie Buchele, grounded in our shared training in analytic group process and in a commitment to understanding organizational dynamics. Together, I believe we would stay closely connected with our NAPsaC colleagues, continue asking thoughtful questions, and discover what this new chapter invites. With time and continued conversation, I hope this new moment will find its own rhythm - one shaped by all of us.

Expanded Membership, Succession, and APsA’s Path Ahead

By Caroline Sehon • December 2, 2025
WHAT KIND OF APsA DO WE ASPIRE TO BE? I appreciate Bill's reflections on this shared priority of expanded membership, which is deeply aligned with APsA's mission. My view is that APsA must define itself both by whom we welcome and by the integrative vision that unites us-a center for rigorous psychoanalytic inquiry across clinical, cultural, and intellectual traditions. HOW DID WE ARRIVE AT THIS MOMENT OF EXPANDED MEMBERSHIP? Our progress builds on decades of work by psychoanalytic psychotherapists and psychotherapy leaders who consistently advocated for lowering barriers while maintaining standards. Bill Glover and Kerry Sulkowicz also deserve recognition for their presidential leadership during the pandemic in widening our doors to psychoanalytically minded clinicians, scholars, and community partners. During Kerry's term, the Expanded Membership bylaw revision (2023) passed with an 81.1% majority of votes cast. WHAT HAVE WE ACHIEVED TOGETHER? To move this initiative from idea to action, I have worked with psychotherapists and analysts in my roles as Secretary and as Executive Committee Director. I collaborated with Psychotherapist Committee Co-Chairs Katie Fleming-Ives and Cindy Lucas, Membership Chair Deana Shuplin, Director-at-Large Linda Michaels, and with President Dan Prezant, President-Elect Bonnie Buchele, and ExCom colleagues to pilot a national outreach effort to welcome psychoanalytic psychotherapists to APsA. The event drew 240 registrants, of whom 74 attended the Open House. We now have plans for additional outreach to new institutes. WHAT LEADERSHIP DOES APsA NEED NOW? This project exemplifies what I love about collaboration-how the wisdom, talent, and imagination of our members can create something none of us could have built alone. APsA now needs steady, integrative leadership that honors our past, plans for succession with care, and moves us forward. WHY AM I PREPARED TO GUIDE APsA FORWARD? I feel fortunate to have on-the-ground experience leading an international institute where psychotherapy and analytic programs have coexisted for decades. This work has taught me to hold differences with clarity, turn tension into progress, and foster belonging-showing how psychotherapists and psychoanalysts can learn and work together harmoniously. It is this experience that grounds my conviction that APsA can embrace an integrated future with confidence.
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Affirming Research and Scientific Inquiry as a Core Value of APsA

By Caroline Sehon • December 1, 2025
Answering the important question about the place of research in psychoanalysis and within APsA-an area that has shaped my clinical identity and my sense of our Association's future.

Introducing My Candidacy for APsA President-Elect

By Caroline Sehon • November 24, 2025
Dear Friends and Colleagues, I thank the Board and Nominating Committee for recommending me for your consideration as APsA's President-Elect. I aim to lead with humility, curiosity, and openness, committed to fostering an APsA united by rigorous analytic thinking and respectful dialogue. I enter this election with a listening stance-eager to hear your priorities, concerns, and hopes for our collective future. My commitment is to foster a more integrated APsA-one that deepens analytic dialogue and builds a durable foundation for generations to come. We stand at a pivotal moment. We grow stronger and transcend division when we engage around differences with generosity, openness, and a commitment to listening. I look forward to engaging with Past President and President-Elect nominee Bill Glover, PhD, as we each bring forward our experiences, priorities, and visions for APsA's future. ANALYTIC WORK AND EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE My conviction that psychoanalytic work is developmental and culturally situated guided my formation as a child and adult analyst and community medicine specialist. My background in community medicine helped connect my analytic work to community engagement and to the broader social determinants of health. This foundational training informs all my work-my analytic practice, the leadership of an international institute, humanitarian initiatives during wartime, and my responsibilities as APsA Secretary and Chair of APsA's Psychoanalysis in the Community Committee. During my six years as Executive Director of the International Psychotherapy Institute (IPI), we strengthened the Institute as a leader in high-quality, distance-mediated psychoanalytic education and training. Over this time: Annual revenues grew by over 200%. We built a reserve equal to one year of operating expenses. Our faculty community expanded by more than 40%, including significant growth across full Faculty and Adjunct Faculty. To secure our future through mentorship and recruitment, I developed a new Associate Faculty category-an initiative grounded in scaffolding and intergenerational renewal. Today, this group represents approximately one-quarter of our full faculty community and strengthens a robust pathway for emerging leaders. Some not-for-profit organizations make the mistake of focusing solely on mission and neglecting the "business" element. I believe the two must work together to secure long-term institutional strength and impact. At IPI, I guided program leadership, faculty development, accreditation, administrative systems, institutional culture, and admission as an APsA Approved Training Center. Before becoming Executive Director, I chaired IPI's psychoanalytic training program. Leading the integration of analysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists at IPI taught me that institutions grow best when roles are respected, differences are acknowledged, and cohesion is strengthened while preserving the distinct contributions each role brings. Our world is moving quickly. Organizations like ours must be nimble and be able to pivot rapidly when needed. In the early months of Covid, I developed emergency courses and presented widely on teleanalysis, teletherapy, and the effective delivery of psychoanalytic training online. IPI faculty supported many APsA members and institutes-illustrating how psychoanalytic organizations thrive when we share knowledge generously and collaborate during moments of crisis. PRESSING CHALLENGES APsA MUST MEET An Integrated Vision: Strengthening the cross-fertilizing relationship between child and adult analytic work. Succession and Governance: Cultivating new leadership and addressing the polarization and attrition of recent years. Technology and Values: Integrating emerging technologies and digital innovation while preserving our core psychoanalytic values. A Culture of Respect: Welcoming all analytic minds-therapists and analysts alike-across differences of language, culture, race, gender, and identity. PILLARS OF ACTION FOR APsA Drive Innovation & Intergenerational Renewal APsA's future depends on bridging the wisdom of senior colleagues with the vision and energy of early-career analysts, therapists, and trainees. Innovation thrives when we create structures that support generational reciprocity, enabling new ideas to take root while honoring long standing expertise. We must expand opportunities for mentorship and leadership to foster renewal across the Association. Preserve & Grow Membership As Chair of APsA's Psychoanalysis in the Community Committee, I support projects applying analytic principles to societal challenges. I co-lead a community-based pilot project supporting frontline responders in Ukraine, and I lead a weekly International Town Hall Project at IPI that brings colleagues together to reflect on war, polarization, and global crisis through a psychoanalytic lens. These initiatives strengthen APsA's connection to broader communities, deepen engagement, and help sustain a vibrant and growing membership. Foster Constructive Dialogue APsA must move beyond polarization. Having led more than 180 international town halls-on Covid, racial injustice, war, and political upheaval-I bring the group expertise needed to help us hold conflict and deepen dialogue. Integrate Technology with Core Psychoanalytic Values My experience with teletherapy, teleanalysis, hybrid training, and online teaching and supervision, positions me to support APsA's ongoing dialogue with the IPA about the place for online training. Bridge Psychoanalysis and Social Context Psychoanalysis must remain engaged with the world around us. My work as a child analyst, my edited book Echoes of Childhood, and my humanitarian projects reflect a developmental and socially attuned vision. ACTIONABLE APsA INITIATIVES Below are two recent examples that demonstrate my commitment to practical, collaborative, and forward-moving initiatives: Expanding Membership I spearheaded an IPI–APsA Open House celebrating APsA's 2023 bylaw change welcoming psychotherapists as equal voting members. This initiative was developed in collaboration with Cynthia Lucas, LCSW; Kathryn Fleming-Ives, MD; and Deana Schuplin, LMHC, FABP. The event drew 240 registrants and 74 participants. We will be recording the presentation so that it can be repurposed and offered periodically to reach and engage psychotherapists nationwide. Enhancing Access I recommended to PEP's leadership the development of curated thematic collections (e.g., diversity, child analysis) to make specialized readings more easily accessible to APsA members and institutes. This initiative was developed in partnership with Jeff Tuttle, MD, and members of APsA's Executive Committee. OPPORTUNITIES FOR DIALOGUE AND ENGAGEMENT Virtual Campaign Forums Wednesdays (8:00 p.m. EST) & Saturdays (12:00 p.m. EST) (Nov. 19, 2025 – Jan. 24, 2026) Direct Communication The APsA Elections Discussion List is the best venue for general questions about my views. For all requests for one-on-one discussions, please contact me directly at Candidate@VoteSehon.org. I am glad to find a time to meet with you. Presidential Town Hall Sunday, Dec. 14 (4–5 p.m. EST) Additional information about my analytic practice can be found at www.CarolineSehonMD.org , and additional details about my candidacy are available at www.VoteSehon.org . Your voices-your hopes, concerns, and visions-are essential to the future we build together. Thank you for your time and consideration. Warm regards,