When I think about psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, I start from my daily work in the consulting room with individuals, couples, and families. As a child and adult analyst, my clinical practice is grounded in careful listening, close attention to development, and ongoing engagement with transference and countertransference. Over time, that work draws on a disciplined range of therapeutic interventions, including both interpretive and non-interpretive forms of analytic action. This clinical work remains central for me-it is the foundation from which everything else I do grows.
In my experience, psychoanalytic work requires us to tolerate uncertainty rather than foreclose understanding by rushing to premature conclusions. These capacities allow suffering to be understood and addressed over time, and they also shape how I think about clinical practice, research, evaluation, and learning as ongoing ways of asking questions and learning over time across different clinical approaches.
The Importance of Research for APsA's Future
I also want to speak directly to the question of research. For me, research in psychoanalysis is not separate from clinical work, nor is it limited to any single methodology. It grows out of the same stance that guides analytic practice: sustained attention, openness to not-knowing, and a willingness to test, revise, and deepen our understanding over time. This includes systematic clinical research, outcome and process studies, qualitative and mixed methods, and comparative approaches across different psychoanalytic models. Supporting this kind of inquiry is, in my view, one of the ways innovation takes shape in our field. It allows us to learn from our work, to articulate what we do more clearly to ourselves and others, and to strengthen psychoanalysis as a living, evolving discipline rather than a fixed tradition. I see it as essential to APsA's future to support this kind of inquiry.
Interests Develop Alongside Clinical Work
My interest in work with groups, institutions, and communities has developed alongside-not instead of-my clinical work. Paying attention to group, institutional, and broader sociocultural dynamics has often sharpened my understanding of what patients bring into the consulting room, rather than pulling me away from it. For me, the task has been to keep these different levels of work in conversation with one another.
This way of thinking informs my vision for APsA. I care deeply about strengthening our shared clinical foundations within APsA while also underscoring these key priorities:
(1) Driving innovation and intergenerational renewal;
(2) Preserving and growing membership;
(3) Fostering dialogue across differences;
(4) Integrating technology with core psychoanalytic values;
(5) Engaging social context in ways that remain grounded in psychoanalytic thinking and clinical judgment.
APsA is a Professional Home Grounded in Core Expertise
I also believe it is important that APsA remain a professional home grounded in its core expertise. We serve the field best when we stay oriented toward understanding human psychology-whether in individuals, groups, or larger social contexts-and when we bring psychoanalytic ways of thinking to bear on difficult and emotionally charged realities. In my view, our distinctive contribution is to deepen understanding of the psychological processes that shape how those realities are experienced, thought about, and lived.
