The following piece was adapted from remarks initially delivered on February 21st, 2017 following a screening of the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. It was first printed in the Spring/Summer 2017 edition of the BPSI Bulletin, which can be read here. The “Off the Couch” series will resume Thursday, September 19th. © Ronald Wimberly, 2015   Michele Baker, MD   I was sympathetic...

In our new webcast series “The Voice of Experience”, Dan Jacobs asks Malkah Notman about women in psychoanalysis. Malkah T. Notman, MD, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. This conversation was recorded on February 10, 2017, in the BPSI Library. A more detailed interview of Dr. Notman had been produced earlier by...

Today marks exactly two months since the Women’s March on Washington, one of the largest protests the capitol and the country have ever witnessed. We asked BPSI member and Social Awareness Chair Dr. Deborah Choate for her thoughts on how our new political reality affects human relationships, both in the realm of psychoanalysis and in the “real” world.    Deborah Choate, MD   “Alternative facts.”  The Orwellian chill...

On January 17th, 2017, BPSI screened 20th Century Women at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. The film went on to receive the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The following essay is adapted from remarks delivered after the screening. Harold J. Bursztajn, M.D.   Mike Mills’s semi-autobiographical film, 20th Century Women, is about more than the gender and time period suggested by the title.  It tells the story of a teenage boy being raised by...

by Simona O. Grabel, PhD A book which begins with a quote from All Quiet on the Western Front gives us fair warning of the cataclysm which is to follow.  In War and Turpentine, the Flemish author Stefan Hertmans offers us a fictionalized account of his beloved grandfather’s memoirs, whose life spanned two centuries.  Perhaps in atonement for the heirloom watch the author dropped and shattered, Hertman’s account of his grandfather’s life is a...

On Tuesday December 20th, BPSI screened  LA LA LAND at the Coolidge Corner Theater, as part of it’s monthly Off the Couch series. The following was adapted from remarks delivered following the screening.   Benjamin Herbstman, MD, MHS   Thank you for joining us tonight for this achingly beautiful film, and thanks for sticking around for the discussion.  I’d like to take about 10 minutes to talk about how film,...