Voices from ROOM: A Podcast for Analytic Action

Dr. Vamik Volkan, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, is celebrated for his insights on chosen traumas and peace-building. Joined by Molly Castelloe, they discuss their film, 'Blind Trust,' which explores leadership and followership during crises. They delve into the healing power of poetry for refugees, emphasizing personal stories in overcoming trauma. The conversation also covers ethnic conflict and identity, linking historical trauma to political challenges, and the transformative role of creativity in addressing mental health and racism among marginalized youth.

This week, Isaac and Aneta talk with Lara Sheehi about living in a state of suspended grief, bringing a decolonial, revolutionary, liberatory perspective to psychoanalytic work, emigrating to the United States, and more.

This week, Isaac and Aneta talk with Coline Covington about how shifts in ideology affect us, how we struggle to maintain personal and group identities, how political events relate to our basic attachments, and more.

This week, Isaac and Aneta talk with Dr. Adrienne Harris about her timely piece, "My Back-Alley Abortion." They discuss Harris's personal experience, the implications of overturning Roe v. Wade, and what it means to step into the line of fire as a politically engaged clinician. 

This week, Isaac and Aneta talk with Dr. Scott Graybow about the status of psychoanalysis in mental health education, mainstream narratives in mental healthcare, evidence-based therapy (EBT), and the importance of helping people think for themselves.

This week, Isaac and Aneta talk with psychoanalysts Phyllis Beren and Natasha Kurchanova about their experiences immigrating to the United States from the Soviet Union at different historic periods, finding a home in psychoanalysis, what it means to write autobiographically as analysts, and more.

Psychoanalyst Karim Dajani deepens the discussion he began in his essays from ROOM, “The Culturing of Psychoanalysis” and “From Beirut to San Francisco” as he speaks with Isaac and Aneta about the societal and political implications he has experienced in the rapidly changing field of psychoanalysis.

ROOM’s editor-in-chief Hattie Myers joins us on the premiere episode to discuss the evolution of ROOM as a transdisciplinary platform intersecting psychoanalysis, art, literature, and politics.