by Natasha Oxenburgh, Psy.D.

NCSPP has had a busy first half of 2026. We have had a surge in energy and engagement across our programming and events, with community members enthusiastically participating in opportunities to gather, learn, and be with other clinical minds.

The response to the return of the Annual Lecture with Jamieson Webster, Ph.D., in conversation with Francisco González, M.D., was overwhelmingly positive. Attendees said they were captivated by Webster's mind and exploration of political and psychic life and engaged by González's groundedness, humor, and commitment to community psychoanalysis.

One theme that resonated was the distinction between politics and the political: the idea that psychoanalysis can take up the political (the deeper structures of power, exclusion, identification, and social relations that shape both individual and collective life) rather than politics itself (parties and ideological positions). Webster moved from Freud's study of Woodrow Wilson to Erik Erikson's reflections on American identity, connecting both to contemporary realities. She spoke of politics as a symptom of a failure, and, by extension, as an attempt at a solution to our collective anxieties. We might ask, what desire, resentment, hope, or fantasy is organized by and expressed through politics?

Webster invited critique as well as creation or “world-building,” which lent itself to dialogue about institutions. As one attendee remarked, “What a thing to be in a psychoanalytic dialogue that says, ‘We don’t just have to play in the rubble.’”

Since the Annual Lecture, Peter Goldberg, Ph.D., led a daylong workshop on the body in psychoanalysis that sold out, drawing over 50 participants. Alexander Zinchenko, Ph.D., is now leading a month-long seminar, also full, on the immigrant experience, in which the class is exploring displacement, nostalgia, and the uncanny in a nonlinear way.

Coming up on July 25th, 2026, check out the introductory event to our year-long Intensive Study Group beginning in September. This year's theme is Making Contact: Skin, Containment, and the Somatic in Psychic Life, with instructors Kristian Kemtrup, David Gatta, Maiga Berzins, Mary Margaret McClure, and Alice Jones.

In organizational news, I am delighted to welcome Sam Given-Dennis, MFT, as NCSPP's new Community Outreach Chair and newest Board member. As Sam builds the Community Outreach Committee, NCSPP will have greater capacity to offer free and low-cost events that foster connection and community.

Finally, more big news: Please save the date for September 19th, 2026, when we will welcome Usha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D., for a daylong event in which she will present and consult on her latest ideas and areas of research. Details and registration information will be available soon.

Lastly, if you are not already a member but have taken a class or attended an event or workshop with us, chances are a membership makes sense for you as programming is less expensive for members. Membership benefits also include a subscription to our journal, fort da, as well as journal discounts and invitations to our community events.