Phantoms of the Clinic: From Thought-Transference to Projective Identification
Online event Wednesday, December 3rd with Dr. Mikita Brottman
Join us on Wednesday, December 3rd for an enlightening journey through the realms of the unconscious, from thought-transference to projective identification. Discover how these concepts shape our understanding of the human mind and its complexities.
We will be meeting online for 90 minutes beginning at 11AM NYC (8AM Vancouver/ 4PM London/ 17:00 Stockholm/ 18:00 Beirut).
All paid subscribers to RU Center for Psychoanalysis are automatically registered for this event. Paid subscribers are welcome to attend live via zoom, and the recording will be archived here at Substack.
If you are not a paid subscriber for RU Center for Psychoanalysis Substack, you may register by sending $9 to RU Center via paypal.me/drvanessasinclair. Proceeds raised go towards paying our presenter(s). Thank you for your support!
This event will be recorded and made available for all those who register.
As Freud predicted, there has always been great anxiety about the place of psychoanalysis in contemporary life, particularly in relation to its ambiguous and complicated relationship to the realm of science. There is also a long history of widespread resistance, in both academia and medicine, to anything associated with the world of the supernatural; very few people, in their professional lives, at least, are willing to admit a serious interest in occult phenomena. As a result, paranormal traces have all but vanished from the psychoanalytic process - though not without leaving a residue. This residue remains, Brottman argues, in the acceptably “clinical” guise of projective identification, a concept first formulated by Melanie Klein, and widely used in contemporary psychoanalysis to suggest a different variety of transference and transference-like phenomena between patient and analyst that seem to occur outside the normal range of the sensory process.
In this lecture, Dr. Mikita Brottman considers the nature and implications of the connections between projective identification and thought-transference, as well as the slightly embarrassing associations between “ordinary” psychoanalysis and telepathy. Her project, then, is to adumbrate the implications of the psychoanalytic notion of projective identification, with particular reference to the ways in which this concept can be considered to be a “doorway” from the traditional realm of psychoanalysis into the realm of the occult and paranormal. In particular, she considers the connections between projective identification and mind-reading, clairvoyance, and other well-known paranormal phenomena.
Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to expand your knowledge and explore the depths of the unconscious mind. Register now and join us for an unforgettable experience!
Mikita Brottman, PhD is an author, literature professor, cultural critic, and psychoanalyst. Her most recent books have focused on true crime: An Unexplained Death (Henry Holt, 2018), Couple Found Slain (Henry Holt, 2021) and Guilty Creatures (One Signal/Simon & Schuster, 2024).
Mikita has an online course coming up via Morbid Anatomy: Reading and Writing True Crime with Author and Psychoanalyst Mikita Brottman, PhD, Begins January 6
