Elan Cohen - Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Repetition of Trauma...

Please note: the entrance to the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis is on Livingston St. Upon arrival please ring "3rd Floor Reception" for entry and head up via elevator to the 3rd floor.

As Paul Racamier observed, psychiatric institutions are vulnerable to a reversal in their therapeutic purpose, sometimes adopting the symptoms they aim to treat. Other stakeholders have noted that psychiatric services can be retraumatizing, duplicating the forms of suffering that are embedded in symptoms of madness and trauma on a massive scale. What insights can psychoanalysis offer to disrupt the repetition of trauma in psychiatric services? Embracing a history of psychoanalytic thought, this talk critiques prevailing biopolitical approaches and reimagines therapeutic practice to honor the dignity and subjectivity of persons with psychosis. Drawing from Freud, Ferenczi, Bion, and Lacan, the presentation advocates for clinical approaches that focus on the relationship between the subject of psychosis and the social link. By locating the etiology of psychiatric suffering in traumatic human relationships, attacks on linking, or foreclosure from the symbolic order, we might have a better chance at addressing the repetition of trauma in psychiatric services.

Elan Cohen holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Adelphi University, where he researched the intersections of historical trauma and psychosis through the lenses of biopolitics and psychoanalysis. Since 2012, his clinical experience has included community mental health programs, state psychiatric centers, city hospitals, and outpatient clinics. His writing has appeared in the Journal of Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, Ethical Human Psychiatry and Psychology, and Psychosis. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Soho Psychoanalytic, where he works with adolescents and adults of all ages, identities, and socio-cultural backgrounds.

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Psychosis in the City is a series curated by Dr. Christopher Landry, a psychiatrist, psychoanalytic candidate at Columbia University, and a Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis Community Psychoanalysis Grant Recipient. He is the Associate Medical Director at Fountain House, a therapeutic community supporting recovery for people with Serious Mental Illness, and co-founder of the Constellation Program, a psychoanalytically-informed treatment program for young adults experiencing psychosis and extreme states.

With the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis Chris is working on three interrelated endeavors. The Foundation supports the Constellation Program as a space for 1:1 therapy as well as group work facilitated by Isaiah Madison. Chris also organizes the Working Group for Community Mental Health Workers and he leads the speaker series Psychosis in the City, produced in collaboration with the Greene Clinic Speaker Series, hosted at the Foundation space.

Host or Publisher The Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis