The Liberation of Psychoanalysis:
Breaking Free from Intergenerational Blindness into Growth and Transformation

Seminar Description:

In this intensive 3-hour interactive seminar, Dr. Rubin invites clinicians and scholars to examine how psychoanalysis, while offering profound resources for our troubled times, remains constrained by its own unexamined challenges and unresolved conflicts.  Participants will explore how recognizing these limitations can unlock new possibilities for clinical practice, theoretical advancement, and personal growth.

Psychoanalysis has profound relevance for our troubled age — providing both a sanctuary and a refuge from a speedy, anti-introspective, and cognitively oversaturated world; a safe and reflective space to contemplate the deepest kinds of questions about how to live; and the resources to challenge received meanings and understandings, discover unconscious motives, and work-toward authenticity and enlightened intimacy.

But psychoanalysis is plagued by problems of its own making. There is covert authoritarianism — the unvalidated belief that one analytic school of thought has the monopoly on truth and other schools of thought are misguided. This constraints analytic listening, causing us to search for confirmation of what we already believe. It also results in pathologizing therapists who question the analytic status quo and censoring their perspectives.  

In this seminar we’ll explore some of the unconscious forces plaguing psychoanalysis, such as Freud’s incomplete self-analysis and his “blindness of the seeing I”—a wish-to-know and a-wish-not-to-know, which created analytic blind spots in theory and practice which were passed on to the next generation; leading his colleagues and successors to overemphasize and avoid certain topics. Analytic theory then clarifies and conceals clinical realities. After surveying that history and process we’ll offer some remedies that could aid psychoanalysis in reaching its emancipatory potential.  

Psychoanalysis is an unparalleled resource for accessing the best within, illuminating the cultural sphere, and fostering relationships of depth and meaning. When we deepen our capacity for critical and compassionate self-reflection and illuminate the blind spots in the field and employ empathic scholarship — treating analysts from different theoretical perspectives with curious benevolence — untapped possibilities for growth and transformation emerge.

LEARNING POINTS:

At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Analyze and describe some of the unconscious forces constricting psychoanalysis, including Freud’s incomplete self-analysis and his “blindness of the seeing I”, which led to intergenerational blindness
• Analyze the double-sided nature of theory — the way it illuminates and obscures clinical realities: revealing unconscious motivation and interfering with psychoanalytic listening, which leads to a pathologization and marginalization of dissidents and a splintering of the field.
• Analyze the role empathic scholarship, openness to corrective feedback, and collaboration could play in the liberation of psychoanalysis.

Suggested Readings:

Rubin, J.B. (1998). To see or not to see: That was Freud’s dilemma. In: A psychoanalysis for our time: Exploring the blindness of the seeing I (pp.13-37). New York University Press.

Rubin, J.B. (1998). Politics and censorship: Sandor Ferenczi and the Secret Committee. In: A psychoanalysis for our time: Exploring the blindness of the seeing I (pp.38-48). New York University Press.

Short Bio:

REGISTRATION AND FEES:

Early Bird registration (before May 15th, 2025)
$45 regular/ $35 grad students & candidates/ $15 undergrad students

Regular registration (from May 15th, 2025 – to June 21st, 2025 – before 6pm EDT/NYC time)
$60 regular/ $45 grad students & candidates/ $20 undergrad students

Registration ‘at the door’ (after 6pm EDT/NYC time on June 21st, 2025)
$70 regular/ $55 grad students & candidates/ $25 undergrad students

Please Note: IF CEs ARE REQUESTED — please use the “regular” registration (not a “student”) option. There is an additional fee of $25 for CE certificate processing (can be paid on the day of the conference or in advance).

SPECIAL SCHOLARSHIPS are available for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for retired or disabled practitioners, or need-based.