by Danni Biondini, LMFT

My seatmate knocked over my cup of valerian root tea as soon as we boarded the plane. That, plus my $1.50 inflatable neck pillow from Daiso, were my ticket to getting some sleep on my red eye flight to Philadelphia. Alas, I slept an hour, but emerged on the East Coast excited to register for two days of the Division 39 (“Society for Psychoanalysis & Psychoanalytic Psychology”) conference. 

I accidentally overpaid.

Getting to the hotel that morning, I was underslept and confounded by the pay structure for registrants. I weighed the possibility of simply sneaking into panels, unregistered, before I remembered the existence of the superego. I resignedly paid the full fee, despite having some sense that it wasn’t the right fee for me. Later, a friend pointed out that I qualified for the much-lower Early Career Clinician price. I was refunded the difference, but this little bungled action thrust my emotions right into the middle of the divide at Division 39: the division between the old guard and the new. The split between those who can pay full price and those who request a different entry fee to become part of the community.

The Division 39 divide mirrors the divide happening more broadly in the psychoanalytic world. On one side, the establishment, the full-fee folks who work in private practice and are quite comfy with the protection of the status quo. On the other side, the new generation of critical clinicians who are questioning the white/cis male/hetero-centric norms of the field. The latter groups’ panels were on topics like race, gender, and whiteness; on being an ally; on healing cultural trauma. They raised questions like: Is therapist self-disclosure a way of resisting the interpellation of ourselves and our patients into hegemonic discursive norms? These were the panels where the speakers were more likely to use the term Interpellation than Interpretation.

In short, psychoanalysis is changing, and we’re all struggling with what side we are on. Or, maybe, some folks have moved more into depressive position functioning and are trying to integrate both sides. (See, I still like object relations!)

A fellow attendee I later talked to said, “I feel like there were two different conferences going on at the same time.”

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In this month’s issue, we have a contribution from our new writer, Amber Trotter. She illuminates some of her highlights from the Division 39 conference and grapples with the question: as psychoanalytic psychotherapists, are we also activists?

This is an ongoing question that we at NCSPP are interested in engaging. Feel free to write back with your thoughts on this hot topic. Did you attend Division 39? Let us know what your experience was: danni.biondanni@gmail.com.