🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 Clinician Loren Dent talks community psychoanalysis from Freud's call for "psychoanalysis for the people" to Lacan's overhaul of analytic training to the US today. Plus: the stakes of community, international histories, burnout, and more. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨 NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 As Freud's treatment of Elisabeth von R enters its "second phase," we focus on Freud's technique! From free association to the analysis of resistances to the part played by a clinician's confidence - it's all there, and more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

some lovely news: our own @counterfactual.bsky.social is a 2026 Marc Sanders Foundation Philosophy in Media Fellow! marcsandersfoundation.org/philosophy-i...

The logic of desire means that you will never truly get what you want. But sometimes you get what you didn’t even know you needed. This is one of those times. www.youtube.com/watch?v=izMw...

incredibly grateful for our @unhappinesspod.bsky.social conversation with Avgi Saketopoulou about the politics of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic institutions; fantasies and capacities for tolerating speech, distress, and difference; the uses of sadism; and more!

🚨NEW EPISODE 🚨 Psychoanalyst Avgi Saketopoulou returns to talk the politics of psychoanalysis, psychoanalysts, and psychoanalytic institutions in our moment of wars, state repression, mass murder, and fear. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

our latest @unhappinesspod.bsky.social is an in-depth interview with the great @seamus-malekafzali.com about Iran, the US-Israel relationship, the politics of memory, and much more. I'm still sitting with it all, will be for a while, and am so grateful to Séamus for his insights, generosity and time

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by the brilliant @seamus-malekafzali.com to talk the US war with Iran; intergenerational experiences of historical traumas; repression, resistance, and enactment; Israeli-US relations as a “feedback loop”; and much more. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by one of our favorite writers, @jordyrosenberg.bsky.social, author of the brutal, sublime, and hilarious new novel Night Night Fawn. We talk everything from mothers to melancholy to Marxism to ethnonationalism and more! CC @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social

on the topic of judith butler, i’ve read this essay 3x this week thank you to @counterfactual.bsky.social for introducing it to me!! avidly.org/2014/05/09/g...

my latest column in @nplusonemag.com: on Iran, the Millennium Challenge of 2002, why no one wants to learn anything, and how the repressed returns regardless www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 We continue the case of Elisabeth von R! On the cusp of romance with a promising young suitor, a family crisis and feelings of guilt leave Elisabeth in bitter disappointment and trapped by punishing double binds. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 How do material conditions relate to individual distress - and what happens when communities experience traumatic political and economic change? Author Helen C. Epstein joins us to talk about suicide epidemics, community, PTSD, and more www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 It's part two of our intro to Jean Laplanche! Danielle Drori of brooklyninstitute.bsky.social joins us to talk "New Foundations for Psychoanalysis," moving beyond Freud's Oedipal and seduction theories, the stakes of parenting and therapy, and more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by the brilliant Danielle Drori of @brooklyninstitute.bsky.social for the first in a two part series on the work and legacy of psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW WILD ANALYSIS🚨 It's our Heated Rivalry episode! From group psychology to the psychoanalysis of professional sports to the cultural work of fantasy, play, recognition, and more, we go big! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨BONUS EPISODE🚨 @counterfactual.bsky.social cial joins @moiradonegan.bsky.social and @adriandaub.bsky.social on @inbedwiththeright.bsky.social to talk romantasy, fantasy, and trauma! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Friends! We're delighted to joining @medicinered.bsky.social's "Anti-Self-Helpline" next week! Write in questions, comments, and reflections on your experiences of political struggle so we can discuss them and take seriously their psychic and emotional content! bit.ly/4qH9mB3

Abby and Patrick are going to be joining for the February edition of the Anti-Self-Helpline! Write in if you’d like to have them respond to your questions and reflections!

And likewise brand new and excellent is his Last Week in End Times Cinema, out via @mitpress.bsky.social! mitpress.mit.edu/978163590268...

Be sure to check out @hamrahrama.bsky.social's brand new collection of film writing, "Algorithm of the Night" via @nplusonemag.com! shop.nplusonemag.com/products/alg...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 The great film critic and author @hamrahrama.bsky.social joins us to talk movies, moviegoing, moviemaking, and the significance of cinema itself in our era of streaming, "second screen content," and a dystopian landscape made possible by reality TV. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

incredibly excited and honored to be joining @rooseveltinstitute.org as a 2026 Fellow!

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 We continue the case of Elisabeth von R! Tragedies mount, family fragmentations multiply, and a dark parental secret emerges. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

You can read @lilyscherlis.bsky.social's fascinating reportage of her experiences at a Tavistock groups event in @nplusonemag.com at www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/ess...

🚨UNLOCKED🚨 As a coda to our series on projective identification, we're unlocking the brilliant @lilyscherlis.bsky.social, @counterfactual.bsky.social, and Dan talking “group relations" in general and for leftists in particular, the legacies of Bion, and much more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 How does projective identification work in groups? We talk group dynamics from marriage to classrooms to corporations to American mass incarceration and beyond. It's Part II of our Projective Identification series with Brian Ngo-Smith! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

last day for 20% off annual memberships at all tiers!

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by the great Brian Ngo-Smith for a conversation about one of the most difficult but powerful concepts in psychoanalysis: projective identification. We go from development to pathology, from Freud to Klein to Bion, and more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

🚨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!