Abstract: Relational psychoanalysis increasingly recognizes that the therapist's subjectivity significantly influences the therapeutic process and, on many occasions, facilitates therapeutic progress. The therapist's pregnancy, in particular, may be regarded as a vivid expression of her subjectivity in the clinical room and can yield both disruptive and facilitative effects for her patients. Mothers often become recipients of omnipotent projections and expectations of endless support when they meet others' needs, while simultaneously being represented as insensitive or depriving—receiving envy—when they fail to meet those needs. Comparable transference–countertransference dynamics may operate in the therapist–patient relationship. This article endeavors to (a) provide insight into the impact of the therapist's pregnancy in the clinical setting of combined individual and group therapy, (b) delineate the mutual vulnerability of female therapists and patients in their intersubjective interactions around themes of mothering, (c) support the benefits of combining individual and group therapy, and (d) emphasize the importance of a strong bond between cofacilitators in relationally oriented group psychotherapy, especially in managing "tyrannical" projections and existential anxieties that surface in such challenging therapeutic processes. Core transference–countertransference themes that emerged include anxiety, hostility, envy, identification, dependency, fear of abandonment, separation, and sibling rivalry. Similar transferential reactions have been found in other studies.
Abstract: This article presents case studies that illustrate how relational attunement fosters a democratic environment where the child's voice plays a central role in shaping the process of saying goodbye. One example explores a child who uses imaginative play to enact and process the emotional challenges of ending, while another case highlights the therapeutic repair of ruptures experienced during the final sessions. Additionally, a case involving an abrupt and enforced ending is presented. These moments of rupture and repair underscore the therapist's responsibility to remain flexible, attuned, and open to co-creating a space for the child's experience of ending. Ultimately, the "democratic goodbye" is not only an ethical practice but also a therapeutic one, allowing for a respectful, attuned conclusion to the therapeutic journey. This approach honors the child's voice, fostering empowerment, resilience, and healing.
Abstract: This article examines how the therapist's pregnancy, an inevitable and embodied self-disclosure, reshapes the analytic field and reveals the group processes inherent in individual therapy. The visible transformation of the therapist introduces a profound relational shift, activating transference, countertransference, projection, and shared unconscious meanings that reverberate beyond the dyad. When the pregnancy requires a transition to another therapist, the treatment evolves into a multiperson field that illuminates how even individual therapy unfolds within an interwoven network of internal and external figures—real, imagined, and transgenerational—challenging traditional notions of analytic neutrality. The article argues that such embodied disruptions can foster symbolic growth and reorganization, calling for a "group turn" in relational psychoanalysis that embraces complexity, multiplicity, intersubjectivity, and the living presence of the analyst as integral to the therapeutic process.
Abstract: According to Plato's Allegory of the Cave in his work The Republic , hostages perceive reality only as the shadows cast on a wall behind them, unaware of the world beyond. Similarly, in the analytic setting, patients may remain captive to internalized fantasies and distorted perceptions. This article explores the case of Katerina, a 28-year-old woman struggling with loneliness and social isolation. Growing up with a despotic, tyrannical mother, she experienced her home as a cave-prison and carried this dynamic into the therapeutic relationship. Through the new turn in relational psychoanalysis, dyadic therapy can be viewed as a "large-group" process in which both therapist and analysand represent multiple internalized others, so in this way, we were interacting in a world/room of multiple group attachments. The main challenge in Katerina's treatment was to protect the therapeutic bond from the internalized mother who continued to dominate her psychic life. Katerina was forbidden to express anger toward her parents, unable to recognize the oppression this entailed. Through the emergence of anger within the analytic dyad, both patient and analyst sought to identify and transform internalized bad objects. For the analyst, the task was to resist responding tyrannically to Katerina's projections, avoiding projective identification while acknowledging the unconscious invitation to reenact it. The question persisted: Could I truly see Katerina as herself, despite the intrusion of the tyrannical mother within the therapeutic space? Have we finally managed to find ourselves in a shared, democratically co-created, egalitarian space, or are we trapped in the cave of our projections?
Abstract: This article is the second in a planned, three-part series that explores the utility of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) in therapy. It introduces collaborative role-playing integrative therapy (CRIT), a transtheoretical framework for utilizing TTRPGs in group therapy. Much like Yalom's common factors approach, this model identifies nine dialectical therapeutic factors that illustrate how TTRPGs foster interpersonal growth and psychological flexibility. These nine dialectical factors are self and system, intent and impact, play and work, reality and imagination, vulnerability and safety, ambition and equanimity, spontaneity and structure, generality and specificity, and here and now and there and then. As a novel therapeutic model, CRIT offers a rich landscape for future research and application, expanding the potential of TTRPGs as a transformative group therapy modality.
Abstract: Starting from the postmodern, constructionist hypothesis of the intersubjective and cultural construction of reality, this article provides a brief review of findings of existential therapy, terror management theory, group therapy according to Irvin Yalom, relational psychoanalytic therapy as developed by the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy (IRGP), and attachment theory. These concern manifestation aspects of existential anxiety, emerging from the transition from an early to a more mature stage of therapy under pressure of the absence of one therapist in combined individual and group therapy. The narrative dialectical analysis of material was chosen, material which resulted from my individual and group sessions during a five-month absence of my cotherapist due to pregnancy and delivery and immediately after the return of the new mother-therapist to the group. The secure bond with the institution that is co-constructed through multiobjective relationships in personal therapy and the supervision of therapists at the IRGP and the co-construction of a consistently supportive cotherapeutic relationship created the safe space to reflect on and engage with my existential anxiety and helped me in turn, initially alone and later with the return of my cotherapist, to contain and limit the aggression of the group members. To that end, the group as a whole moves into a more depressive position, and the existential anxieties of death, aging, abandonment, loneliness, freedom, and members’ meaning are communicated and connected with their personal stories and the stories of their families of origin as they intertwine with the wider narratives of Greek reality. Thus new stories that heal are co-constructed.
Abstract: All group therapists in private practice face an important decision: What will happen to their groups after they die? Shockingly few studies have addressed the effects of the death of a group therapist on group members. Indeed, in past generations, older group therapists were known for "dying in the saddle," leaving group members unprepared and without leadership. For many group members, the leader's ill-planned exodus reawakens trauma related to abandonment and loss. This article explores how to better prepare group members for the permanent loss of a group leader due to death or retirement. Interventions include disclosure, preparing the group, assigning group communicators, and creating a professional will—a legal document that outlines the group leader's wishes and plans for the group in the event of their death or retirement.
Abstract: Rates of only children are rising in many countries throughout the world, including the United States. The experience of an only child needs to be better understood to support these clients in group therapy and to help them integrate into a world they have never personally experienced—that of interacting with siblings. By examining unique aspects of the only-child experience, I hope to aid group leaders in becoming culturally competent with this growing population.
Abstract: This article investigates the paradoxical dynamics of tyranny and democracy in group psychotherapy, focusing on how authority, freedom, and containment are continuously negotiated within intersubjective processes. Grounded in relational psychoanalysis and group analytic theory, it argues that the therapist’s stance—whether expressed through silence, neutrality, or active intervention—is never received as neutral but is constantly shaped and transformed by the group’s unconscious dynamics. Clinical material from a long-term therapeutic group demonstrates how democratic intentions were at times experienced as withdrawal or abandonment, while requests for containment revealed an unconscious longing for directive authority. These tensions illuminate the workings of the unthought known, in which preverbal and inherited emotional truths influence both collective projections and the therapist’s countertransference. Drawing on Bion’s concept of containment, Foulkes’s conductor model, Winnicott’s notion of holding, and Benjamin’s analytic third, the article conceptualizes authority as a fluid, co-constructed function that oscillates between receptivity and decisiveness, conditioned by unconscious fears of intrusion, domination, and misattunement. By integrating perspectives from relational psychoanalysis with group theories from Yalom, Lewin, Bateman, and Karterud, the article proposes that the task of the therapist is not to resolve or stabilize the polarity between tyranny and democracy but to sustain a space where these contradictions may be lived, symbolized, and transformed. Moments of impasse—charged with fantasies of punishment, avoidance, or failure—can then be reconfigured into opportunities for mutual recognition. Ultimately, freedom in group psychotherapy is framed not as freedom from power but as freedom within power: the capacity to reflect on, endure, and transform its enactments and disruptions within the analytic field.
Abstract: This article follows a candidate’s first year of seeing clients during training at the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy in Athens, Greece, focusing on her shift in perceiving the analytic frame from a restrictive structure to a containing and holding environment. Initially, lenient implementation of the frame—stemming from feelings of restriction and self-doubt—was associated with multiple client dropouts. An intervention by the institute’s director, which imposed a stricter adherence to the frame, catalyzed personal and professional change. Through two detailed clinical cases, the article contrasts the impact of a relaxed versus a solid frame: In one case, permissiveness impeded the exploration of envy, doubt, and aggression; in the other, a consistent frame facilitated their expression, strengthening the therapeutic alliance. The discussion extends beyond clinical technique to examine institutional culture, contrasting democratic and authoritarian operations in psychoanalytic training. A democratic institutional environment, valuing plurality, meritocracy, and open dialogue, played a pivotal role in reshaping the candidate’s relationship with authority and in reducing projections of her own power conflicts into the frame. The article also reflects on historical authoritarian tendencies in psychoanalytic institutes, the shared responsibility of all members to sustain democratic functioning, and the candidate’s recognition that power in therapy—when it is earned, respectful, and self-reflective—can be protective rather than oppressive. By integrating personal experience, clinical illustration, and institutional critique, the article contributes to the dialogue on authority, frame, and democratic practice in relational psychoanalysis.
Abstract: This address explores the often overlooked dimension of institutional literacy in relational psychoanalysis, situating it within the broader context of group dynamics and the social unconscious. Beginning with mythic and historical illustrations—from the fratricidal tragedy of Eteocles and Polynices to contemporary geopolitical crises—it argues that psychoanalytic institutions, like analytic dyads, are subject to unconscious repetitions of trauma, rivalry, and disavowal. The central claim is that the inability to recognize institutional dynamics—succession anxieties, ideological rigidity, and legacy conflicts—renders psychoanalytic communities vulnerable to fragmentation and ethical incoherence. Drawing from the concept of the “institutional unconscious,” the lecture critiques the prevailing intersubjective paradigm for its neglect of the analytic field’s collective and political dimensions. While relational psychoanalysis has expanded the analytic third, it still tends to privilege the dyad and undertheorize the systemic transmissions of trauma within institutions. Instead, the speaker calls for a theoretical and structural shift that includes large-group phenomena—sibling transferences, group-as-a-whole dynamics, and the psychic life of institutions—as essential to psychoanalytic training and practice. By invoking myths such as those of Pentheus and Dionysus, the talk illustrates how institutional rigidity and disavowed affect can result in catastrophe rather than transformation. Institutional literacy, then, is not merely an intellectual exercise but a clinical and ethical imperative. Only by metabolizing difference and engaging with unconscious structures at the institutional level can psychoanalysis truly offer a space for healing and innovation—both for its practitioners and for the communities they serve.
In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court banned race-based affirmative action (AA) in college admissions, reshaping college access for underrepresented students. AA is historically controversial, and social media platforms enable discussions of AA that traverse physical and social barriers. My dissertation explores these social media discussions of AA, taking a qualitative, cross-platform approach to investigate how socio-technical properties of platforms shape social media-based AA discussions and their impacts, especially for underrepresented college applicants. I aim to make empirical, theoretical, and design contributions to promote informed, mindful, and deliberative discussions of contentious, identity-related topics on social media.
Browsing social media feeds in bed can reduce relationship quality, disrupt sleep, increase anxiety, and cause physical discomfort. To provoke creative discussion around these issues, this paper presents a demonstration of a refreshing alternative. “Weight of Scrolling” is an interactive installation that successfully reimagines social media scrolling through a tangible embodied media interface that fosters positive collaborative engagement. Participants are invited to lay down together and collectively, physically manipulate a large-scale cotton fabric scroll of simulated social media updates.
Interactive content in online spaces is often meant to inform a broad audience regarding issues of societal interest. Recently, combating misinformation has emerged as another task requiring interventions to reach broad audiences. We are engaged in two efforts to investigate how lay users leverage social media to inform and engage a broader audience and the characteristics of the resulting user-generated discourse. We found that tailoring content for broader audiences can be laborious and the impact of the efforts is neither guaranteed nor immediately apparent. Our future work will focus on approaches to help lay users mitigate these problems.
Recently, there is a growing trend of using generative AI systems and tools for fostering and protecting online collaborative communities. Yet, existing AI tools may introduce new risks and even harm to diverse communities’ online safety. How to better maximize the novel opportunities of AI and mitigate its emerging risks and harm for our future online safety is a critically needed discussion for the HCI community. Featuring experts from both industry and academia, the goal for this panel is to promote interdisciplinary, community-wide discussions and collective reflections on important questions and considerations at the unique intersection of AI and online communities, including but not limited to: how the design of AI systems may discourage existing online harm but also invite new online harm in various online spaces; how different populations, cultures, and communities may perceive and experience AI’s new roles for their online safety; and what new strategies, principles, and directions can be envisioned and identified to better design future AI technologies to protect rather than harm various online communities.
The assistance of AI plays a significant role in non-native English speakers’ (NNES) formal writing. To investigate the impact of AI on cover letter writing, we designed a survey-embedded experiment. In this study, participants read and evaluated the hireability and writing quality of cover letters created by 4 types of authors respectively: NNES-edited, NNES-written, AI-edited, and AI-written. We ultimately received 118 valid responses from native English Speakers (NES). The results indicated that (1) AI-edited cover letters perform significantly better than other three types of cover letters, but (2) The editing of NNES made the performance of AI-written cover letter worse. Our research provides insights into how artificial intelligence (AI) impacts NNESs with regards to cover letter writing, a critical part of the job application process. This outcome allows us to conclude that NNES would greatly benefit from using AI as an assistive writing tool during their job search.
The massive datasets used to train AI models frequently contain offensive and harmful entries that are only caught during the system’s later performance. The data workers who curate such datasets are experts in datasets’ contents, but silenced by horrible labor conditions and lack of respect by their employers. In my dissertation, I study how to build 1) workplaces, 2) workflows, and 3) tools to elicit and embrace data workers’ observations in dataset development. My goals are creating datasets safe to use to train AI systems and developing a more pro-social data labor paradigm.
This extrapolation explores the evolution of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and envisions its future integration with artificial intelligence (AI). As we transition from traditional organizational systems to sophisticated digital ecosystems, the concept of a ’second brain’ has emerged, exemplified by tools like Evernote and Notion. However, the integration of AI promises to transform this concept into an active personal companion. This AI-driven system would access multiple data streams, creating a rich, interconnected knowledge base that offers personalized insights and decision support. The paper discusses the potential design of such an AI companion. Unlike current tools that excel at organizing information, this AI companion would actively engage with data from various aspects of a user’s life, creating a dynamic, personalized knowledge overview. While the potential benefits are significant, the paper also addresses critical considerations, including privacy concerns, ethical implications, skill requirements for effective use, and the need to balance human intuition with machine intelligence. The discussion emphasizes the importance of maintaining user autonomy and critical thinking skills while leveraging AI capabilities. As we enter "The Intelligence Age," this extrapolation provides a foundation for further research and discussion on the responsible development and implementation of AI companions as advanced cognitive tools, aiming to augment human intelligence rather than replace it.
Community social service organizations are indispensable for supporting vulnerable populations with multifaceted challenges, such as housing instability and food insecurity, particularly in high-poverty areas where access to essential resources is limited. Effective information and knowledge sharing enables these organizations to offer timely and comprehensive services to these groups. Despite increasing research on social services and emerging technologies, little is known about how knowledge is shared in community-based social service settings or how technology can enhance these complex processes. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted at four community organizations in an underserved community in the Midwest of the United States. Through observations and thematic analysis, we identify key stakeholders that participate in knowledge sharing, including staff and service users, and examine their roles in developing Communities of Practice (CoP). Our study reveals the dynamics of knowledge sharing and highlights opportunities for leveraging technology to support CoP within community social services. These findings contribute to discussions on designing socio-technical systems for improving information sharing in resource-constrained environments.
100% of us will die. Meanwhile, each of us creates more and more online accounts and data throughout our lives than ever before. Although online accounts and data must increasingly be integrated with our end-of-life planning practices, that integration has been slow. Inventory-based data planning approaches recently developed by legal firms and industry players show promise in providing support. However, these approaches are still largely focused on planning for financial assets like online bank accounts. It is unclear if these approaches address the deeper human-centered needs, such as digital legacy. To imagine new approaches for end-of-life planning that account for emerging social-technical needs, this dissertation asks: How might social computing researchers and practitioners design more effective approaches for end-of-life data planning that can holistically account for human factors such as digital legacy?
