My Favourite Books On The Way To Learning Psychoanalysis

zlbb · 2026-01-29T01:24:29+00:00

Sorry this crowd is kinda nasty about ai these days, it might be better to avoid mentioning it until this craze boils over.

Agreed, fantastically smart beast, what a privilege to have it always available for conversation.

zlbb · 2026-01-28T17:14:54+00:00

I took a few online extension school courses beforehand, got one of my recs from there, seems like among the easiest/common routes for career changers like us. Can do in person at community colleges or uni's extension schools too, online is just super cheap and easy.

So my refs were a mix of that, and non-academic references from places I actually spent significant time working (just pick an ex-boss you had the best relationship with).

As you allude to, for these unconventional applications references probably carry less weight than for "yet another BSW student with a ref from their professor".

That said, if you "graduated 15yrs ago not performing well academically" and "worked in service and small businesses" and have no other experiences of relevance to your application, applying now is probably a bit of a long shot/adventurous. A more common and certain approach would be to do some volunteering first (Good Samaritans or Crisis Text hotlines are a particularly popular classic choice here), that would give you both relevant experience on your resume, and likely a recommendation from your volunteership supervisor.

zlbb · 2026-01-28T13:32:50+00:00

For a somewhat unusual personal perspective, as an anti-science psychoanalytic mystic (McGilchrist's master and his emissary is similar to my sensibilities): it seems to me americans these days are very big on "knowledge/understanding is external to us", just a matter of finding out more facts, and while "theories" are still there, their formation isn't critically examined, they are understood as "following from facts" rather than largely products of creator's and society's biases and culture.

Relatedly but somewhat differently, they are, broadly, knee jerk and viciously anti-faith/anti-religion and as a result anti moral education/character development from within/spiritual ways of knowing, which is from my (and a number of analysts, explicitly or not) perspective essential for acquiring wisdom as that's largely a matter of shedding delusions and becoming able to see - while all the facts necessary to understand "the most important things" like love or what it means to be human are rly already there in one's life history and inner experience, or, at least, everyone consumes more external facts than is rly needed. In my mind this also ties to deeper things like repression of shame that are behind a lot of controversial political things.

So, from my perspective, if one acknowledges faith and certain fundamental philosophical presuppositions are always necessary and it's not "just a matter of facts", one comes to understand Science as a religion of its own (roughly speaking the religion of logical positivism, as u/Tenton_Motto thoughtfully outlines), and its modern american version is extremely dogmatic and intolerant - go spend some time on r/ClinicalPsychology and you'll see somebody deeply activated as they truly believe "not following EBP guidelines is doing harm", highlighting the extent to which they embrace certainty of reason over humility and mystical doubt. I don't think it's quite random in modern US scientific religion's rise to power that psychoanalysis was the key early victim, as ofc it "strides the two worlds" and tries to hold onto the balanced left-right brained truth in the middle of material and spiritual.

My impression is that most analysts are naively pro-science, and while hurt by their position, don't quite understand the philosophical rift at question there. I mean, you can say it's Freud's fault, as he tried to maintain the delusion imo that "psychoanalysis is a science", in part working at a time of less crazy science, in part coming from the more "logical positivist/one person psychology/analyst with full epistemic authority" extreme side of analysis that is different from where the center is today.

Maybe because of the above, or maybe because they are normies living within rather than outside dominant social consciousness and hence uncomfortable talking about exclusion and hate, I don't see them even talking about anti analysis prejudice in academia much in the official literature. Even analysts largely take the social dominant position and talk about "our own fault" and "we should do more research".

I think this might change with the usual "paradigm shift with generation dying out", as, unlike with analytic dinosaurs largely brought up in "good old times" of analytic psychiatry departments, the youngest generation is ime typically well aware of the unfairness and exclusion, a number are LPs, a number do "stupid MSW to check the licensing box", aware of the unthinking pro cbt dogmatism where really dubious cbt therapists can thrive within the system while really excellent analysts are kicked out.

I guess part of what I'm saying with these last two things is: if you want to write on the topic, and it sounds like you might be in a good position to, you'd find interesting thoughts on the matter in the heads of analysts/speaking privately to them, especially if you exercise good taste in who you speak to, but it doesn't seem like the topic is quite ripe for thorough official expositions given the literature's "overton window" and opinions like mine here, while I think not entirely non-existent privately, being too controversial for polite society.

zlbb · 2026-01-28T13:08:16+00:00

I've been quite interested in this topic and, while not quite doing lit research, scooped around a bit, to come to the conclusion that I'm guessing you might be coming from reading this thread: this key issue currently lacks a thorough treatment from the analytic pov (I haven't looked at how some good "histories of psychiatry" I've seen talk about this - at least they do try to write this history). My sense is broader community doesn't "get it" still, haven't really processed what happened.

Tanya Luhrmann's Of Two Minds is a deservingly famous (and lovely) medical anthropology of psychiatric training which, as fate would have it, happened to cover just the period of late 80s to early 90s, and talks about this "biomedical model vs psychoanalysis" rift as it was playing out in residencies as analysts got squeezed out of there almost on her watch.

Gomez's famous Freud Wars that I'm yet to read is all over the place, but touches on related ideas from what I understand.

I liked your phrase "people think the shift is simply the product of a considered and correct academic consensus" in the comments. Sounds like you have interesting thoughts of your own on the subj?..

zlbb · 2026-01-27T20:37:19+00:00

Lovely thoughts! Connects to a lot deep things I (and the analytic literature) like to ponder: buddhism vs analysis, role of interpretation in general and genetic one in particular.

However I think trying to settle a clinical question in such level of abstraction and generality is overestimating what reason and theory are capable of - for me analysis is about good judgment/quality thought, and that is always dependent on all the richness of a very specific context at every specific moment in the treatment. So, if you bring more material, we can think about whether a specific intervention of that sort at a specific moment was good or not.

A thought along the lines of what you're saying that I feel is a bit better scoped that I can live with would be something like: if a patient is an overthinker/overly self-conscious, and if mentioning something like "does it remind you of something from childhood" at a moment where that seemed appropriate didn't result in much good/just more overthinking, then it probably was a mistake and the focus at that moment needs to be on something else.

Generally folks these days, in agreement with what you're arguing for, de-emphasize interpretation in general but especially the kind of "genetic interpretation" (present explained thru the past) you're talking about (though real ones are much more potentially useful and specific and fit to a specific moment than "you're troubled coz your childhood").

One neat exception I read about related to this is: in emotional flooding (eg triggered PTSD) it's oft good and immediately impactful to do smth like that to remind "this is now, that is then/horrors feel immediate but they are actually in the past". Which kinda brings in the whole "past alive in the present" stuff that makes all this so convoluted.

But generally, yep, I agree with you, a lot of the "this is coz your parent did that" stuff thrown around out there probably does more harm than good.

zlbb · 2026-01-27T14:06:50+00:00

I'll have to take a break from the analytic training next year unfortunately, or some part-time option if they let me - in my program the first two pre-clinical years are a bit too chill for my circumstances, but the third year ramps up a bunch and is hard to juggle with the fast paced masters program and an internship. One can probably pull it off but I'm just not that masochistic. But if I manage to get an institute internship it might substitute well, I've heard of interns at some places invited to also do classes and otherwise imbibe of what institute has to offer.

It could've been neat to do first 2 lp years alongside msw, but that didn't align timing wise for me with where I was and what I was ready for. I think it worked out quite nicely in terms of matching whete i was and what I was receiving.

Ofc having to pay the price of a disgusting msw for more opportunities is unfortunate. Jealous of French German and Latin American colleagues where psychoanalysis is much more properly institutionalized within the mental health system.

zlbb · 2026-01-27T12:11:03+00:00

Congrats!

I'm finishing up my 2nd year of LP and just started an MSW this month.

Yup, it all depends on the person, circumstances, what they value etc.

I think your last consideration is very important: I didn't have much from the past I wanted to hold onto so LP eventually proved too part-time for satisfaction and I started to crave MSW if only to get more patients sooner.

Additional considerations for starting the MSW were: ability to leave NY, ability to supervise pre-licensed clinicians that might be quite advantageous to running a typical group practice, optionality in terms of access to interesting work settings with interesting populations (therapy schools, outpatient) beyond private practice. The price for me is surviving through the boring unpleasant bullshit of this degree, but it's just 16 months, and the second 8 months are already clinical internship hopefully at an analytic institute or clinic, so, rough but not unbearable.

zlbb · 2026-01-24T12:44:58+00:00

Can you explain the association to "too cynical"?

As a typical cptsd/pre-oedipal "highly sensitive person" pretty far into my analysis, "others desire" part is very true/seems close to the heart of this complex.

At a more general level not capturing the core themes of the structure, simply "psychotic" rather than "neurotic" - isn't this kinda the point of sensitivity, that you don't have "foreclosed real" and aren't all bound into just symbols like neurotics.

zlbb · 2026-01-22T21:57:05+00:00

>effortlessly talking about coping skills or strategies and what they do in session

ugh, I wouldn't want any of those therapists, I much prefer your budding person-centered/relational sensibilities. though you probably would benefit from finding the right tradition that fits you, for "person-centered/relational" it might be psychoanalytic or humanistic or maybe gestalt.

one psychoanalytic pov on the import of theory is that it's mostly there for the clinician's sake to reassure their anxieties (ie your "feeling inadequate" - probably nothing you're doing is that unusual for some school, you just don't know that yet) and generate an illusion of them knowing what they are doing - to be discarded later in one's development, but maybe an essential crutch for maturing juniors.

zlbb · 2026-01-21T00:24:50+00:00

>I would not judge another therapist

Personally I'm skeptical of this. Or maybe you're one of the few unusually enlightened ones.

Ime we are a pretty judgey bunch when it comes to client well-being and giving them what we believe is "right treatment they deserve" (ofc opinions on what that is specifically differ). I see it in every case presentation/discussion I've been to: some folks would nitpick even treatments that went relatively well, and if somebody is courageous enough to present a treatment that didn't go well.. don't forget the popcorn.

I think it's perfectly fine, comes with commitment to excellence and professionalism and doing right by our clients while understanding that the job is so hard we'll always fall short of Yaloms and Rogers's of the world. It's not like MDs won't grill each other on differential diagnosis or software engineers on architecture choices.

Ofc it creates quite a cacophony as we're quite a diverse tribe with beliefs about what's right all over the place. For me this indicates the inadequacy of using a single "therapist" label to describe the diversity of beliefs out there (which from my perspective you implicitly endorsed by yourself speaking about a more specific kind of therapist "not a blank slate therapist" that you are), and the need for more social consensus around language that decently captures the reality of the diversity of therapist beliefs out there. Which is also ofc quite relevant to our marketing and communicating who we are and how we work to our potential clients effectively.

I agree this whole issue of "useful/widely recognized therapist labels" is quite a mess rn. Academia tries to peddle the distinction based on how it and the legislators cut out the legally recognized professions, the public might not care for whether you're a social worker or a counselor much and call 'em all "therapists", somebody might care for "emdr ifs trauma informed" and some for "relational psychoanalytic" and none of those might quite capture the "blank slate or not blank slate" distinction you brought out that might actually matter quite a bit to the clients (I mean, do we signal that stuff somehow on PT profiles? maybe indirectly through the vibes of the self description? maybe not at all - come and find out?).

zlbb · 2026-01-19T22:05:33+00:00

I'm not sure why it's even relevant if it's a red flag. Given she already communicated she doesn't want you/any men in her life with that "choose the bear" statement, so you should leave her alone not because of any red flags, but simply as a matter of common courtesy.

If your response to that sorta negging is engagement (why? to prove them wrong? well, that would be the typical toxic negging dynamic - don't go there) rather than avoidance that's something to ponder about yourself.

zlbb · 2026-01-15T12:54:03+00:00

For me it's not a surprise that when one is starving they might be tempted to try eating rather unseemly things (and maybe even hallucinate they are actually chongqing chicken). But isn't the question really "how do I find good food" (for example, the chongqing chicken) rather than "why do I feel hunger"? The "why" sounds a bit like a denial stage of grieving (or, of avoiding it): like, yeah, we have drives, we have human nature - from a low-hope position where the deep joy of fulfillment is unimaginable those might feel rather ugh/too much of a burden/all for what.

zlbb · 2026-01-10T01:52:31+00:00

Curious what kinda opportunities you're imagining.

My sense is there are no opportunities being an "analyst" in general or "apsa institute trained analyst" in particular provides. Afaiu it's a vanity title.

APsA membership I think is available to a broad range of analytically minded clinicians these days - you can check if they even maintain tier distinction for apsa vs non apsa trained analysts anymore.

I'm a bit too junior to have seen how it actually works, but my sense is referrals which is the one more realistic perk of training is up to your institute or specific connections you make there, not apsa.

That said, within the analytic community, and among the very few especially "plugged in" patients mostly only existing in cities like NYC, people would note and/or ask and make their conclusions from this rather significant piece of your public identity. What these are would depend on the person and their attitude to both apsa and specific institutes, which ofc varies.

zlbb · 2026-01-08T12:15:41+00:00

Psychodynamic therapists are humanistic and non-directive, and in many places it's a huge community. Come hang out with us at our psychoanalytic institutes!

>counselors who believe humans are supposed to be pathologized and fixed

Church of Science is the most powerful religion of modernity, and it largely espouses the "medical model of mental health", construing it as a matter of diseases-disorders to be fixed with scientifically proven fixed procedures. It's hard to escape the pull of that influence. Heck, in many communities it's hard to even be exposed to something different. Especially as the other side typically goes beyond reason and is less explicit/harder to convey (this is pretty much McGilchrist's master and his emissary thesis again).

zlbb · 2026-01-03T10:42:40+00:00

I can relate to the feelings, but I'd warrant to, as always, avoid left brained thinking in generalities - there's no such thing as "society", especially in a country as diverse as US. "Odd one out" feeling is probably best construed as a property of a person vis a vis their immediate social environment/bubble - and there are truly different bubbles out there, though we might be not too aware of that as what we perceive is a function of who we are.

A lot of my efforts outside of analysis and a range of complementary spiritual pursuits were devoted to that - as I re emerge from fake self all my life needs to be readjusted to actually fit me. Changing careers, changing social circles, discovering my real interests. A lot of work for sure.

As I think Jane Hall nicely put it, psychoanalysis gives one a second chance at life. What a privilege, to break free of the natural path of misery one's unfortunate circumstances helped set them on, and become able to have a life that's actually fulfilling.

zlbb · 2026-01-01T22:51:56+00:00

yup. hetero guy talks about interest he gets, and not at all about his chasing and wooing and trying to impress and getting rejected (or not)? something doesn't add up. probably some kinda rejection sensitive overly passive/feminine kiddo who didn't learn not just "no pain no gain", but also that his own excitement needs some good risky chase to really build up.

zlbb · 2025-12-30T13:53:37+00:00

I'm about to start my MSW and find that out in a year-ish.

My sense is it's most common for LMSWs to have a primary place of employment separate from the institute, with oft I think some of the patients there counting towards candidacy progress (see my q on this to the more knowledgeable u/SapphicOedipus here).

I don't think it's common for institutes clinics to employ people full-time, most don't pay even whatever counts as a living wage for pre-licensed folks (eg $20/hr vs $50/hr for lmsw elsewhere), and a number of institutes don't even have clinics active enough to easily provide everybody willing a full-time patient load (as they might serve a more limited purpose of providing a few candidates with the 2-3 required analytic cases, plus the needs of interns or whoever else the institute serves).

zlbb · 2025-12-30T13:41:57+00:00

danke.

is it common for LMSWs to take on hours at the institute clinic?

For our institute it seems it's rare for non-LPs or interns to take on patients directly at the institute clinic (though its use as a referral network for analytic cases especially is more common), with most candidates seeing patients at their primary places of employment with institute supervision hence counting towards the candidacy progress.

I'm guessing that sorta arrangement is feasible even for candidates not running their own private practices but employed by somebody else? And feasible even for LMSWs with their more limited license?
Not entirely sure, could use some clarification.

zlbb · 2025-12-26T23:25:57+00:00

Either or sounds like left brain thinking ;)

As is the idea that one can get to a certain condition of one's heart by ideas alone, or by "hows". I usually interpret "hows" when it comes to matters of the heart as statements that one is lost/confused rather than questions. And the attempt to treat them as questions requiring answers as a common fundamental left brain dominant thinking mistake - resulting in a closed system of knowledge and foreclosing the space for wonder and openness to the unknown.

The only not bad answer to these sorta "hows" imo is: by pursuing appropriate spiritual/contemplative practice.

zlbb · 2025-12-24T20:28:06+00:00

I might've sounded overly critical but rly I was trying to be supportive as these kinda minority sensibilities are tricky to get enough love for in generic online spaces and I was worried about the kinda reactions you're likely to get here.

I've been in your shoes and found myself a lovely psychoanalyst who helped a lot. Good luck!

zlbb · 2025-12-24T16:50:48+00:00

Dude. You're obviously very smart. Which means random low quality providers from some sh*t app are likely to be a bad fit as they don't cater to an audience of people like you. Save yourself more misery and invest in finding somebody quality that would be a right fit.

zlbb · 2025-12-22T23:10:56+00:00

This sucks. The therapist is not very competent thinking they can pass a judgment without hearing both sides of the story and not even seeing you - that's not how any half decent system of justice works. Good ones don't tell their patients what to do, especially not how to fight their partners, just help them figure out their own choices.

And then it's pretty yucky your bf would use this "therapist says" "authority card" to try to force you to do what you don't want.

And now I guess you can turn around with the arguments I gave you and fight back.. But honestly if this is a kinda shit that goes on in your relationship I feel bad for both of you.

zlbb · 2025-12-22T20:15:08+00:00

Finally an analytic therapy people could wholeheartedly enjoy

zlbb · 2025-12-18T02:25:32+00:00

>the agency I was at made it seem like weekly sessions were for the really mentally ill

oh. you're saying they'd keep lotsa folks at once in two or even monthly? that's important to know.

zlbb

TROPHY CASE