Registration opens January 1 2027
Abstract
Psychoanalytic perspectives have been seriously marginalized by the interests of private equity, insurance companies, Big Pharma, and the consequences of certain academic and bureaucratic developments. As analytic supervisors age out of medical schools and graduate programs, students are losing access to analytic ways to think about patients. Yet we are seeing interest in psychoanalysis emerging from early-career therapists who find their training insufficient to help them with real-world clinical complexities, and also from those interested in issues like racism, colonialism, and heterosexism – topics about which psychoanalytic theories shed considerable light. Dr. McWilliams will talk about ways of engaging non-psychoanalytic colleagues in the common goal of ensuring adequate mental health care.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Name two evidence-based psychoanalytic treatments for borderline personality disorder.
2. Cite three recent empirical studies that support contemporary psychoanalytic practice.
3. Describe the main area in which psychoanalytic therapy has demonstrated superiority to other approaches.
Biography
Nancy McWilliams is Visiting Professor Emerita at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology and practices in Lambertville, New Jersey. She is author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (1994, rev. ed. 2011), Psychoanalytic Case Formulation (1999), Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2004) and Psychoanalytic Supervision (2021) and is
associate editor of all editions of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (2006, 2017, 2025). A former president of Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association, she has been featured in three APA videos of master clinicians. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA and a Psychological Humanities Fellow at the Boston College Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics. Her books are available in over 20 languages, and she has taught in person or remotely in more than 50 countries.
References
Fine-Thomas, J., & McWilliams, N. (2027). Expanding your clinical repertoire: Psychoanalytic ideas you can use to help patients. New York: Guilford.
Kors, S., Levenson, B., & Sacks, J. (2026). Overcoming bias in graduate student perceptions of psychodynamic therapy. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 43, 90-97.
Smith, J. (2027). How psychotherapy works: Navigating the therapeutic space with confidence. New York: Routledge.
Tillman, J. G., & Lewis, K. C. (2026). Psychic pain and psychosocial adaptation following residential treatment: A long-term follow-up study of a high-risk psychiatric sample. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 43(4), 436.
