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The office. The couch. Individual psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy with an adult patient. These are the typical and traditional associations we have of psychoanalytic theory and practice. Even though our theories have much to say about children, communities, social issues, organizations, leadership, politics, climate change, and more, we still refer to such uses as “applied”—not central, not fundamental.
Erika Schmidt was a psychoanalyst, yet conceived of her work and our field expansively and pushed herself, her students, her peers, and our community to broaden our perspectives, as well. Erika was a strong leader and creative thinker, blazing trails for decades. She believed in taking action and making real impacts not only in the lives of her patients, but their families, schools, and communities. She was the first woman, first social worker, first non-MD, and first child analyst to become president of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. She was an active leader in the American Psychoanalytic Association. She worked with Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) from its start in 2017, and was most recently its vice chair. Her retirement plan was to devote more time and energy to PsiAN. Her excitement about PsiAN’s advocacy and vision of a world in which psychotherapies that create lasting change are universally available to those in need was palpable. Her retirement was heartbreakingly short, lasting for just a few short months; she passed away unexpectedly in late 2022.
Before she died, Erika had talked about wanting to educate others about the multiple and varied ways in which psychoanalytic theory and practice are used, well beyond the consulting room, and well beyond 1-on-1 treatment with adults. At PsiAN, we coined the phrase “therapies of depth, insight, and relationship” to open an umbrella under which many therapies that value these principles in theory and incorporate them in practice could find a place. To us, these therapies
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