This course, now in its third year, explores the psychoanalytic writing process. Each of the four evenings features a different writer—and a different kind of writing—and one of their published pieces. We discover each writer’s inspiration, routines, and impasses. We learn about revisions, peer-reviews, publishing, and promotion. And we invite attendees to bring in issues and questions related to their own writing projects.

September 11, 2025

Hattie Myers, PhD, Psychoanalyst (FIPA), New York, NY
ROOM Editorial
Hattie Myers PhD is Editor-in-Chief of ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action magazine, a member of the IPA, ApsA, and a Training and Supervising Analyst at IPTAR. She will share the process of crafting the introductory editorial of one of ROOM’s most recent issues. How does she synthesize and thematize such diverse writings? With whom does she collaborate? How do she and the editorial board decide what to include? What in their opinion makes for good analytic writing?

September 18, 2025

Stephen Bernstein, MD, Psychoanalyst, Boston, MA
“The Process of Case Writing: A Fourth Pillar of Analytic Training”
Stephen Bernstein, MD, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and has chaired a discussion group on writing about analytic cases for over 30 years. We will discuss his recent paper, “The Process of Case Writing: A Fourth Pillar of Analytic Training” (JAPA). Dr. Bernstein’s work highlights the centrality of case writing as an essential tool for self-reflection and professional development. He has written a structure for case report writing and another about the writing with a writing mentor during the writing process. Dr. Bernstein will discuss why, how, and what effects his writing has on himself, and what case writing and other types of written expression can do for others. He will discuss how to get started, the need for structure, how to edit one’s work, how to do scholarly research, what can impede one’s writing, and the pleasures of the transitional writing space.

October 30, 2025

Chris Van der Wees, PhD, RP, Toronto, ON
Psychoanalysis and the New Rhetoric: Freud, Burke, Lacan, and Philosophy’s Other Scenes, by Daniel Adleman and Chris Vanderwees
Chris Vanderwees is a psychoanalyst, registered psychotherapist, and clinical supervisor at St. John the Compassionate Mission in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of On the History and Transmission of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (Routledge) and translator of Betty Milan’s Analyzed by Lacan (Bloomsbury). He is also a member of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis and an Affiliate of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society. He will talk about the pleasures and agonies of writing about psychoanalysis through a Lacanian lens via the last chapter of the book he recently co-authored with Daniel Adleman, Psychoanalysis and the New Rhetoric, a chapter about non-understanding and Lacan’s rhetoric during his seminars. How does one write about non-understanding? What are the rewards of wrestling with such tantalizing and enigmatic ideas?

December 4, 2025

Mary Kay O’Neill, PhD, Psychoanalyst
Mothering Alone: A Plea for Opportunity
TPS Supervising and Training analyst, researcher, and author Mary-Kay O’Neill’s most recent book, about a program facilitating low-income single mothers to attend college or university, weaves history, autobiography, and first-person accounts using a psychodynamic lens. The result is a unique and important book. We will focus on its introduction and consider how psychoanalytic writing is almost always interdisciplinary – and highly personal – in nature. In addition to Mothering Alone, Dr. O’Neill is author of The Unsung Psychoanalyst: The Quiet Influence of Ruth Easser, has co-edited seven books, and has written many journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews. Her research includes studies of depression, young adult development, sole-support mothers, the analyst as art collector, post-termination contact, and psychoanalytic ethics. Member TPS&I.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Understand more fully the psychoanalytic writing, editing, and publication process;
2. Query and challenge the notion of “inspiration”;
3. Consider ethical questions regarding confidentiality and self-disclosure related to psychoanalysts who write.

Karen Dougherty, MA, RP (CRPO), FIPA

Karen Dougherty is a Registered Psychotherapist and Psychoanalyst in private practice in Amaranth, Ontario, a writer and documentary filmmaker, a communications consultant for psychoanalytic institutions and initiatives, and a mental health consultant for film and television. She teaches at the ATPPP, the FPP, the TIP, and the Extension Program of the TPS, of which she is Chair. Member TPS&I.