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We are pleased to offer this select group of three papers, originally presented at the 2023 Conference of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW), Reaching Across the Divide: Bringing a Psychoanalytic Sensibility to Culture and Practice.
This conference, which was co-sponsored by the AAPCSW’s educational arm, the National Institute for Psychoanalytic Education and Research in Clinical Social Work, Inc. (NIPER), took place in Chicago in November 2023.
Its mission was
…to explore what we are experiencing inside and outside the consulting room… How are we to hear the other and bridge the gaps that we encounter? From its focus on internal conflict to the ways we understand and face difference, psychoanalytic thinking has much to say about the topic of divisiveness… to the issues that are presented to us in our practices, in our communities, and in the world.
Conference presenters were given an opportunity to submit their papers to this Journal, which has its own independent peer review process. Although we were unable to accept all of the papers submitted for consideration in this issue, we strongly believe that each of the three papers selected for inclusion in the section portrays the breadth and depth of current thinking in the psychoanalytic world. Brent In, Terry Northcut, and Thomas Kenemore importantly offer us a treatment paradigm that addresses the unique challenges of individuals who are transitioning from a carceral to a post-carceral world, a clinical population that can no longer be neglected by psychodynamic practitioners. Dan Hoffman, in his creative essay on “Deconstructing the Language of Psychotherapy Documentation,” blends literary and psychoanalytic references to discuss the absurdity of burdensome documentation requirements in community/hospital mental health services and how these requirements dehumanize and misconstrue the psychotherapy process. Finally, Sylvia Steinert reminds us of the unique vantage point of th