Talking Against Each Other

LIMITED TO 30 PARTICIPANTS!

To allow for depth of clinical discussion and a true sense of our formal coursework, participation will be capped at 30 therapists.

The writing of this paper was inspired by observations that public discourse, political policymaking, internet barking, and even conversation within psychoanalytic institutes too often relies on signaling affiliation at the expense of dialogue and discovery. Such flag waving stops rather than promotes conversation. Too many of us seek safety and resonance within familiar groups, where a kind of intellectual inbreeding can limit growth. “Penetrating Language” argues that foundational principles of psychoanalytic listening and engagement continue to offer an attitude and an orientation to finding out sorely needed in so much of today’s fraught communication.

Sylvia Steinert LCSW is in private practice in Ridgefield, CT, and Murray Hill, NYC. She is faculty supervisor and instructor at the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (WCSPP), where she served as executive director from 2021-2025.