🚨NEW MAILBAG🚨 We field listener questions about psychoanalysis and Buddhism; Melanie Klein; what a "master signifier" is and whether the Left needs one; the discourse about limerence and "person addiction"; precarity, education, and much, much more www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Great podcast and she deserves more followers (and a good job)

Friends! Here's an update from @counterfactual.bsky.social with news about our brand new, limited-time-only Higher Ed Death Spiral Membership Drive. Note: the Death Spiral is ongoing, but our Membership Drive only lasts until 12/31/25!

We also talked about Grace's vital piece on conversion therapy in @parapraxismag.bsky.social (www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/idl...) as well as her trenchant writing on exorcism and possession in @thebaffler.com (thebaffler.com/latest/repos...)!

🚨 NEW EPISODE 🚨 We're joined by the brilliant @emotrophywife.bsky.social, author of the superb novel Herculine! We talk utopian desire, separatist politics, the challenges of solidarity, pacts with demons (literal and otherwise), and much, much more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

in the latest @unhappinesspod.bsky.social we opened a mailbag of (delightful) questions from our (amazing) listeners! also I made the case for why the Singularity/AGI will only happen if we torture AI into an awareness wherein it yearns for death and/or vows to kill us all

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 How can psychoanalytic concepts help us in our everyday lives? What fantasies drive people to seek advice from chatbots? And what's the libidinal economy of Hallmark Christmas movies? All this and more in our latest mailbag ep! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by brilliant therapist and sex educator Lucie Fielding (@sexbeyondbinaries.bsky.social)! We talk the new edition of her book Trans Sex, tackle Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, polymorphous perversity, pleasure, and more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

if you need to get some kind of psychic handle on your upcoming Thanksgiving experience, or at least want material to wield as either shield or weapon against your family, @unhappinesspod.bsky.social is here for you

In part two, we move from family rituals and traumas to social traumas and historical crimes; the history of the holiday and behind the holiday; and the fantasies, brutalities, and anxieties of settler colonialism itself. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

In part one, we tackle the so-called "Holiday Syndrome," the Thanksgiving family scene in all its yearnings and pain, what it means to regress, why so many holiday dishes resemble baby food, and more. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨UNLOCKED🚨 Upcoming holidays filling you with dread? Need something to listen to while traveling, or while staying home? We've got you covered: BOTH parts of our classic Thanksgiving Special are now unlocked! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis... www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Browsing the back catalog of Ordinary Unhappiness, I found this goddamn delight, a conversation with @samadlerbell.bsky.social on Janet Malcolm: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o.... Thank you! @counterfactual.bsky.social & @patblanchfield.bsky.social

we're continuing my favorite of Freud's Case Studies over at @unhappinesspod.bsky.social. it's been a delightful time - check it out!

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 We continue the case of Elisabeth von R, talking family dynamics, short-circuits of care, parentification, tragic losses, gendered social roles, and more. Plus: what does it mean for a psychic "blow to fall"? www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨UNLOCKED🚨 We spoke with the great @sarahlovescali.bsky.social about climate grief, her experience of ayahuasca therapy in the Peruvian Amazon, our expectations for psychedelics, our fantasies of transformative experiences, and what we can learn from plants!

we could've spent another two hours on this - easy. karlin was so brilliant and generous, and we went in so many directions. @counterfactual.bsky.social and I have been talking about this @unhappinesspod.bsky.social conversation nonstop since bsky.app/profile/unha...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 How do perception and language shape subjectivity? What makes an experience ineffable? And can LSD offer new prospects for treating MDD and GAD? We're joined by @dankarlin.com of MindMed to talk new research trials, neurobiology, and more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW WILD ANALYSIS🚨 Abby (@counterfactual.bsky.social) and Dan watch "The Substance "(2024). From sexual difference to gendered expectations, from the male gaze to femininity as self-surveillance, it's a psychoanalytic body horror Halloween spectacular! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨What are the fantasies, anxieties, and institutional realities of education? How does knowledge relate to authority - and to lack? And why is the figure of Jacques Lacan so seductive? We're joined by Nick Stock (@89stock.bsky.social) and Nick Peim, authors of The Lacanian Teacher!

people keep asking for more Lacan, and so it was a double (triple?) pleasure to be able to deliver via this excellent @unhappinesspod.bsky.social conversation with the great Nick Peim and Nick Stock (@89stock.bsky.social). as Lacan commanded: Enjoy!

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 We begin "Fräulein Elisabeth von R," Freud's most accessible case study. It's a tale of a woman burdened by her family system, social roles, and bodily pain, and whose suffering finds poignant symbolic expression in her symptoms.

This episode is from earlier this year - but it feels only more salient now. And if you want more @unhappinesspod.bsky.social content, including tons of exclusive episodes, please consider subscribing to us on Patreon! It's how we stay always and forever ad-free! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnha...

🚨UNLOCKED🚨 We unpack Julia Kristeva's concept of "abjection" and "the abject." It's a powerful idea that clarifies real bodily experiences, raw affects, and urgent political concerns involving violence, vulnerability, scapegoating, and disgust. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

mostly I think people should subscribe to @unhappinesspod.bsky.social which is ad free for all forever, anti AI to the end, and even has done some cronenberg content! I do love Bella tho

🚨 NEW EPISODE🚨 The incomparable @lilyscherlis.bsky.social joins @counterfactual.bsky.social and Dan to discuss her experience at the 2024 Tavistock conference, the meaning of “group relations" in general and for leftists in particular, the legacies of WR Bion, and much more!

🚨NEW BONUS EPISODE🚨 Our own @patblanchfield.bsky.social joins the great Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell of the Know Your Enemy podcast to talk Charlie Kirk, martyrdom, mourning, memory, and the psychic and political landscape of our moment. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Fashion isn’t fluff but a psychic and political engine. This conversation tracks how Freud fretted over his barber and tailor, while Lacan’s gaze and Anzieu’s skin‑ego live in clothes as armor and second skin. With Valerie Steele on @unhappinesspod.bsky.social

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by writer Michael Clune, author of the new novel, Pan! It's a tour de force tale of growing up, friendship, coolness, drugs, unfolding on the boundaries between the normal upheavals of adolescence and acute pathology. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 Freud goes on an alpine holiday - but altitude is no barrier to psychic distress. Joins us for the story of Katharina, the shortest, strangest, and saddest of the Studies on Hysteria. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 From protective armor to revealing display, from the mirror stage to the skin ego, and from runways to our dreams, in what ways do we all use clothes, like it or not, to literally fashion ourselves? www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

we're at the fashion show we're at the psychoanalysis show we're at the joint fashion and psychoanalysis show this amazing exhibit at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology opens tomorrow; our interview with MFIT Director and Chief Curator Valerie Steele drops this Saturday!

🚨NEW WILD ANALYSIS🚨 We finish "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema"! It's a Lynchian carnivalesque of lack, desire, and the mystery of what Zizek means, precisely, by all the "precisely"-s. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 From preparation to dose day to integration, Dr. Josh West shares the details of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy clinical trials in Australia. Plus: the history of psychedelic research, legacies of appropriation, and the ethics of care www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 It's the case of Lucy R, an English governess plagued by unrequited love and haunted by phantom smells. And it's the story of Freud confronting something radical about memory, narrative, time, and the process of cure. Check it out! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

we're doing a Back to School membership special! check it out! www.patreon.com/posts/back-t...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We mark the demise of "And Just Like That..." by giving it, and "Sex and the City," a psychoanalytic send-off. From ambivalence to desire to neurosis to the meanings of clothes and the psychic stakes of fashion, we go all in! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW BONUS EPISODE🚨 @patblanchfield.bsky.social goes on @inbedwiththeright.bsky.social to talk Epstein: what we know, what we don’t, what we’ll never, what we always did, and what all these contortions of knowledge, secrecy, anticipation, and obviousness might mean www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 What do people mean by 'somatics,' and what does that have to do with politics? We're joined by Sumitra Rajkumar of @actionlabny.bsky.social to talk the body, the forces that shape it, therapeutic practice, organizing, and collective transformation www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨 NEW STANDARD EDITION EPISODE🚨 Abby and Patrick read the case of "Frau Emmy von N" AKA "the one where Freud learns to listen." Then they go behind the pseudonym for the real Fanny Moser's tale of wealth, scandal, and maybe even True Crime! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We unpack Julia Kristeva's concept of "abjection" and "the abject." It's a powerful idea that clarifies real bodily experiences, raw affects, and urgent political concerns, from the hatred of vulnerability to Alligator Alcatraz and beyond. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by the brilliant novelist and poet Hilary Plum, author of the new book "State Champ." We talk the politics of abortion, the meanings and motivations of protest, running, eating disorders, and much more. CC @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Dear Listeners: For reasons of both health and travel, this summer we’re on a three episode/month schedule - two for Patreon supporters, one public. If you don’t yet subscribe but are still hungry for more OU, check out our extensive back catalog at patreon.com/OrdinaryUnha... !

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 Who was the real Anna O? We dive into the story of Bertha Pappenheim, the German-Jewish feminist, pioneering social worker, withering author, polyglot translator, dogged anti-Zionist activist, and all-around remarkable human being www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Amid the horrors of American life right now, this conversation—about housing, homelessness, and the pernicious myths surrounding both—was a true gift. Grateful to the brilliant @patblanchfield.bsky.social and @counterfactual.bsky.social for engaging my book with such depth, clarity, and care.

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We talked with @brian-goldstone.bsky.social, author of the phenomenal There is No Place for Us, about the forces pushing ever-more Americans into homelessness and how media and popular narratives about "mental health" mystify the core problem: housing www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We spoke with the great Sarah Miller about climate grief, her experience of ayahuasca therapy in the Peruvian Amazon, our expectations for psychedelics, our fantasies of transformative experiences, and what we can learn from plants! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

I absolutely loved Sarah Miller's "Pirates of the Ayahuasca" in @nplusonemag.com and it was a blast to talk with her about it, climate grief, our fantasies about psychedelics, and so much more in the latest @unhappinesspod.bsky.social!

we're off this weekend because @patblanchfield.bsky.social has pneumonia but returning with back-to-back bangers for the next two weeks: Sarah Miller on psychedelics and then @brian-goldstone.bsky.social on homelessness. but if you need a fix in the meantime, this ep only gets more germane...

I'm still buzzing from our @unhappinesspod.bsky.social conversation with @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social about reparations, climate justice, social contract narratives as fantasies, and so much more. definitely check this one out folks www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...