Impulse is a community newsletter produced by the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP) and distributed electronically at no cost to subscribers. We envision Impulse as an integrative source for local news, events, and thinking of interest to the psychoanalytically inclined. Our goal is to be your guide as you explore the Bay Area's rich array of analytic resources.
We invite you to become a member of NCSPP, if you are not already. And, we welcome you as a subscriber to Impulse. Join us as we highlight the exceptional diversity of psychoanalytic thought and practice in Northern California.
by June Lin-Arlow, AMFT
Hello everyone, I’m June, the new editor of Impulse! I wanted to introduce myself here so that you can get to know a bit about where I come from when you’re hearing from me each month.
I’m the daughter of Chinese immigrants who grew up during the Cultural Revolution and came to the US in search of education and freedom from an authoritarian government (we had a good run until, well, you know ...). I was raised in Texas around very few people who looked like me, which was challenging but also helped me understand the complexities of feeling like an outsider. In addition to being a therapist, I’m an oil painter, plant enthusiast, and recovering tech worker. I first became interested in mental health and psychoanalysis through my experiences in activist spaces organizing for racial justice around when the Black Lives Matter movement started 7 years ago.
I love the potential for psychoanalysis to be subversive. At its core, psychoanalysis honors subjective experience and looks under the surface at what in the world happened to us. To me, psychoanalysis represents a willingness to turn towards suffering rather than turn away from it (ahem, CBT). This also extends to the collective experience. Through this pandemic we might stay in our homes, order from Amazon and DoorDash, and never have to contend with what it means to be forced to work a job that puts you in danger to enable others to stay safe. Or how capitalism and White supremacy work together to create generational wealth for some while exploiting others. The willingness to look at things that are hard to be with is pretty radical in a world where quick fixes and productivity are valued over complexity and questioning the status quo.
by Nicholas Hack, Psy.D.
WHEN SPACE COLLAPSES
Throughout the last year my patient has been unable to tear their eyes away. They’ve followed the news closely, watching the now-former president ignore a worldwide pandemic and deny help to millions of Americans suffering from COVID-19. They’ve watched wide-eyed and shocked — but not surprised — as the president ridiculed a resurgent movement to end police brutality and told White supremacists to “stand by.” As the election ramped up, as the stakes ramped up, the vigil became even more intense.
The election came … but it didn’t go. Their fantasies of swift justice were disappointed. Even more upsetting, when the final numbers came in there was no clear repudiation of the madness, the egomania, and the aggression. To the contrary, they saw an abuser double down on lies and threats.
by Molly Merson, MFT
Psychoanalysis and Post-Truth: A discussion of the evolution of politics and truth in our contemporary world. An interview between Aimée Lê, Foivos Dousos, and Jordan Osserman offers psychoanalytic complexity in considerations of conspiratorial thinking, truth, politics, and desire.
A ‘Category 5’ mental health crisis is coming. This opinion piece from a psychotherapist offers a warning, of which we all may already be aware, that the psychological effects of the pandemic will be felt for a long time to come.
Looking Beyond: Toward a Psychoanalytic Future. This article by Francisco González takes up how individuals and communities can move, and have moved, forward in times of catastrophic change. What is being required of us, and of psychoanalysis, to keep opening, growing, and going-on-being during this time of social upheaval, reckoning, and pandemic? (This article is available through JAPA at no cost for a limited time.)
FOUR FULL-TIME PSYCHOTHERAPY OFFICES AVAILABLE. Great location (a block next to UCSF Mt. Zion on Divisadero Street). Each office has double doors, a window(s), and is carpeted. This is a psychotherapy/psychoanalysis suite - six offices with a spacious, furnished shared waiting room and staff kitchen, a variety of neighborhood businesses and restaurants (Starbucks on the corner). WiFi provided: Telehealth sessions for those looking for space outside your home. Two are smaller (approximately 8'x10' unfurnished), great for individual/couples therapy, available for full-time sublet immediately ($750 a month each). Two are medium sized (unfurnished), for individual/couples/family work available Feb 1st for $900 a month each. For more information text/call Tom at (415) 810-6481.
Old couches, new books, hot jobs, cool internships, office rentals? List them in Impulse's Classifieds for a modest fee. Please see our submission guidelines for details.
Filling the Void: Analytic Perspectives on Addiction
Wed, Feb 3 (begins) / 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm / Zoom
SFCP / (415) 632-2438 / B. Goldstone, MFT / free
Visiting Scholar Robert Grossmark — The Untelling
Sat, Feb 6 / 10:00 am - 12:00 pm / Zoom
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / R. Grossmark, Ph.D. / free - $40
SF Psychotherapy Forum
Thu, Feb 11 / 7:00 pm - 8:45 pm / Zoom
SFCP / (415) 632-2438 / C. Turner, Psy.D.; C. Kwun, LCSW / free
Second Fridays – Tears of a Clown
Fri, Feb 12 / 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm / Zoom
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / J. Sekoff, Ph.D. / free - $40
A Working Model of Psychotherapeutic Change
Sat, Feb 20 / 9:00 am - 12:00 pm / Zoom
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / R. Lane, M.D., Ph.D., et al. / $10 - $90