Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Normative Unconscious Processes in Dyads Groups and Institutions (member)

Saturday, January 31, 2026 9:00am - 12:00pm

Title: "Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Normative Unconscious Processes in Dyads, Groups, and Institutions "

Speaker: Lynne Layton, Ph.D.

Format: In-person

Cost:
$100 for Non-Members
$80 for Members - Log into the Member Area to purchase
$20 for *Students - Click here to request a student discount
$0 for current Foundation 1 Students

*Full-Time Undergraduate, Graduate, Doctoral students, and LMFT, LADC, LPC, Social Work, Psychology, and Psychoanalytic licensure/certification candidates

Credit: 3 CEUs approved for Psychologists, Social Workers, LPCs/LMFTs and LADCs

Description:

In the first part of her presentation, Lynne Layton will discuss how, in our clinical work, normative unconscious processes reproduce subjectivities that derive from overlapping and intersectional hierarchies of class, race, gender, and sexuality. In the second part of her presentation, Lynne will discuss group and institutional-level normative unconscious enactments that she has participated in and observed while working on such projects as the Task Force on Racial Equity in her institute. In the last part of the presentation, attendees will be invited to discuss the normative unconscious processes they have seen operating in groups and institutions, and share ideas for how to identify institutional resistances to dismantling harmful cultural hierarchies.

• 8:30am-9:00am: Registration & Coffee Social (pastries, coffee, and tea provided)
• 9:00am-12:00pm: Presentation (White Buffalo Event Center)

Learning objectives:

1. Participants will be able to recognize various ways that ordinary psychological states and character are produced by culturally-mandated splitting and projective processes.
2. Participants will be able to define and give examples of clinical and cultural enactments of normative unconscious processes.
3. Participants will be able to recognize the way that neoliberal institutions and ideologies shape subjective practices and create particular kinds of symptoms, with which therapists can either unconsciously collude—or analyze.
4. Participants will be able to address how intersections of gender, race, and class hierarchies are unconsciously enacted in their institutions and propose ideas for institutional transformation.

Speaker’s bio:

Lynne Layton is a writer, social activist, and psychoanalyst. She has taught culture and psychoanalysis at Harvard College and Pacifica Graduate Institute. From 2004-2017, she co-edited the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. She is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and is the author of two books, Who’s That Girl? Who’s That Boy? Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory and Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes, which won the American Academy and Board of Psychoanalysis 2021 book award. She has also co-edited 3 books: Narcissism and the Text: Studies in Literature and the Psychology of Self; Bringing the Plague: Toward a Postmodern Psychoanalysis; and Psychoanalysis, Class and Politics: Encounters in the Clinical Setting. In 2024, she received the Hans Loewald award from the International Forum of Psychoanalytic Education.