Series: Connections and Conversation
Connections and Conversation created and hosted by Shir Shanun, Psy.D. is a psychoanalytic open space for cultivating creativity and freedom of thought and feeling in a free Zoom meeting. We invite you to engage with our presenters and community as they share their interests and passions in conversation on current topics in psychoanalysis. Please see our calendar of events. The meeting often begins with a 45 minute presentation followed by 45 minutes of conversation. When an event is recorded you can access the recording at the vault.
This series is open to all.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Dis-Illusionment and Repair
November 15, 2026 @ 9:00 am - 10:30 am PST
This talk takes up the question of what a social psychoanalysis might look like in the clinic, in our psychoanalytic institutions, and in our society. Drawing on some earlier psychoanalysts’ concepts that have connected the social world and the psychic world, I introduce the concept of normative unconscious processes, which addresses the ways that racism, heterosexism, classism and other social inequalities are unconsciously replicated in the clinic. The talk then explores how therapists can resist unconsciously replicating such cultural inequalities. We will then look outside the clinic at how cultural inequalities manifest in the wider circles of contemporary institutional and sociocultural life. Here, too, we will explore how we, as citizens and therapists, both unconsciously replicate and can resist replicating harmful, unequal relations. We will think together about how to address the places in our different subjective and communal worlds where harm has been done, and engage together on how to make repair.
Presenter
Lynne Layton
Lynne Layton is the daughter of lower middle-class Jewish parents who grew up in an antisemitic small town where they barely passed for white. Seeking to pass better and escape antisemitism, they chose to raise their children in an exclusively Jewish, segregated neighborhood. Socialized to be a nurse or teacher who would marry and be subordinate to a nice Jewish doctor, she turned to psychoanalysis to heal from wounds of sexism. Lynne writes about how the hierarchical norms of systemic racism, heterosexism and classism become rooted in a relational unconscious and enacted in both clinic and culture. She is the author of Who’s That Girl? Who’s That Boy? Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory (1998) and Toward a Social Psychoanalysis. Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes (2020), winner of a 2021 book award from the American Academy and Board of Psychoanalysis. In 2024, she received the Hans Loewald award from the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education.
Series: Connections and Conversation
Connections and Conversation created and hosted by Shir Shanun, Psy.D. is a psychoanalytic open space for cultivating creativity and freedom of thought and feeling in a free Zoom meeting. We invite you to engage with our presenters and community as they share their interests and passions in conversation on current topics in psychoanalysis. Please see our calendar of events. The meeting often begins with a 45 minute presentation followed by 45 minutes of conversation. When an event is recorded you can access the recording at the vault.
This series is open to all.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
Social Psychoanalysis, Normative Unconscious Processes, and an Ethic of Dis-Illusionment and Repair
November 15, 2026 @ 9:00 am - 10:30 am PST
This talk takes up the question of what a social psychoanalysis might look like in the clinic, in our psychoanalytic institutions, and in our society. Drawing on some earlier psychoanalysts’ concepts that have connected the social world and the psychic world, I introduce the concept of normative unconscious processes, which addresses the ways that racism, heterosexism, classism and other social inequalities are unconsciously replicated in the clinic. The talk then explores how therapists can resist unconsciously replicating such cultural inequalities. We will then look outside the clinic at how cultural inequalities manifest in the wider circles of contemporary institutional and sociocultural life. Here, too, we will explore how we, as citizens and therapists, both unconsciously replicate and can resist replicating harmful, unequal relations. We will think together about how to address the places in our different subjective and communal worlds where harm has been done, and engage together on how to make repair.
Presenter
Lynne Layton
Lynne Layton is the daughter of lower middle-class Jewish parents who grew up in an antisemitic small town where they barely passed for white. Seeking to pass better and escape antisemitism, they chose to raise their children in an exclusively Jewish, segregated neighborhood. Socialized to be a nurse or teacher who would marry and be subordinate to a nice Jewish doctor, she turned to psychoanalysis to heal from wounds of sexism. Lynne writes about how the hierarchical norms of systemic racism, heterosexism and classism become rooted in a relational unconscious and enacted in both clinic and culture. She is the author of Who’s That Girl? Who’s That Boy? Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory (1998) and Toward a Social Psychoanalysis. Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes (2020), winner of a 2021 book award from the American Academy and Board of Psychoanalysis. In 2024, she received the Hans Loewald award from the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education.
Presentation Archive
Watch recordings and download papers and slides from past Connections and Conversations and Decentralized Learning Experiences.
