The Psychoanalytic Activist

Section IX Board of Directors, Letter to Membership

Written by

The Editorial Board

This is a letter to membership from the Board of Directors of Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility (Section IX), a section of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology, Division 39 of the American Psychological Association. It does not represent the position of the American Psychological Association or any of its other Divisions or subunits.

[Originally sent via email: March 17, 2025]

To the membership of Section IX (Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility):

We hope to accomplish several tasks in this letter. First, we write to acknowledge the overwhelming speed with which the Trump administration is ripping apart the structures set in place to protect every marginalized community we can think of. We provide some high-profile examples of where we have seen these destructive dynamics within our own psychoanalytic community, and where we have seen heartening responses and resistance to these dynamics. Next, we provide information about various projects we have going on in the hopes that you will join us and co-create a space for community, action and respite. Finally, we share resources so that networks of support and collaboration can be developed, and pathways for resistance can be located and joined.

We are writing to all of you from a country that is in the midst of a fascist coup. The definition of fascism  typically focuses on the exploitation of economic crisis by the far right, which manufactures the consent of the corporate class, religious conservatives, and the economic elite with an ideology of nationalism and the use of political violence to form a dictatorial state. Examples were Franco’s Spain, Nazi Germany, and 1960’s Indonesia. The particular form that fascism is taking here is the implementation of Project 2025. The U.S. version has some differences. We can look to Gramsci, who always talked about the exploitation of social and cultural factors in creating a fascist hegemony of the state. Other authors to learn from in this moment are Robert Paxton and Joan Braune and Alberto Toscano

It is important to understand that this country was built on colonialism as we understand that we occupy many nations’ lands. Stolen land, stolen labor. Although fascism is never sudden (and we have been watching it emerge in force around the world over the past decade), the swiftness with which the Trump administration’s violence is manifesting in our day-to-day lives has been shocking. From the consolidation of policy-making with brute force, the stunning disregard for public opinion, the cutting of funding and elimination of programs that impact millions, the utter indifference to Mother Earth and the disasters that will come from this indifference, the targeting of marginalized and vulnerable communities (and, shockingly, of individuals), the proliferation of pseudoscientific health communications. These are outgrowths of Project 2025, a comprehensive fascist plan to dismantle the federal government’s programmatic and legal protections for marginalized communities within the first 180 days of the presidency. 

Manifestations of Fascism in Psychoanalytic Communities and Clinical Practice

Various psychoanalytic institutions and organizations are taking actions that either contribute to or counter the cruelty of this administration; we want to summarize several instances here to highlight the impact of our action or inaction in times like these. It’s important to note that while we’ve chosen to select high profile examples from our larger community, they are intended to highlight emerging institutional trends and impulses for us to be alert to, engage intelligently and courageously with, and remain in community around. As you read, apply the trends and impulses to your own communities and institutions and consider your role in how things are unfolding. Because of their ongoing relevance in our community, we focus on the following areas of concern: transness and trans-affirming care, the conflation of Anti-Zionist activism with anti-semitism, the criminalization of migration at a time of increased climate catastrophe, and international aggression. 

The Proliferation of Anti-Trans Ideologies and Policies

The most immediate example of this has been the controversial postponement of Avgi Saketopoulou’s talk at ICP-LA. Since there was no mention of a future date for the talk, it has been for all intents and purposes cancelled. In response, 26 (and counting) analytic institutions/orgs sponsored her talk, demonstrating multi-institutional concern for the topic that she will be discussing, namely affirmative therapeutic care for trans youth.

We see another immediate and salient example on our listservs, where our colleagues indulge in the phobic denial of the very existence of trans-ness and the platforming of organizations whose ideologies lead to praxes grounded in control, regulation, and conversion.

Many of us bravely conduct gender-affirming treatments with our trans clients, firmly rooted in psychoanalytic theory. Our work is courageous because our field is implicated in the historical pathologization of trans-ness and because harm continues to be perpetuated as our institutions try to either figure out where they stand or race to catch up with those who are pulling the field forward. Many of us are able to work this way because we are intimate witnesses to our trans patients’ suffering and remarkable resilience in the face of rapidly eroding civil rights, as well as their gratitude and relief when they are given access to appropriate care.

As the current administration attempts to expunge transgender identity from administrative, legal, and civil processes, from monument signs, from clinical and educational spaces, and even from loving homes, our patients are experiencing a barrage of attacks from all sides; health insurance companies are withholding hormonal, surgical and affirmative mental health care; travel between states is dangerous and patients are moving to safer democracies; relationships with parents and other mentors are threatened; physical and psychological bullying on social media has increased; public exposure to insult, discrimination, and violence is forcing people to return to the closet. 

It is essential that we acknowledge the resurgence of transphobia in the social unconscious, that we avoid platforming institutions/organizations that peddle in conversion therapy, and that we withhold from debating the existence of trans-ness and the legitimacy of trans-care on our listservs. The above are not simply “different opinions,” they are political prejudices veiled as intellectual queries. Gender-affirming care and transgender existence is not a “both sides” issue. Those who hold “different opinions” about trans-ness should seek education and training from trans-affirmative sources. Indulging the above “different opinions” and engaging in the “both sides” debate about the existence of trans-ness contributes to the silencing and erasure. Likewise, silence in the face of this “debating” contributes to the erasure. And it is not just our patients who are impacted; these aggressions also target our trans supervisors, supervisees, and colleagues, sometimes causing irreparable harm.

Transphobic violence is an extension of fascist attempts to regulate and control marginalized bodies, and to seal off the anxiety that arises from encountering the messiness of gender and sexuality by making assertions and developing policies about the nature of gender that do not align with biological nor sociological reality. Attacks on bodily autonomy are escalating daily, as abortion access continues to become more and more restricted. For clinicians who are seeking opportunities to address this in your work, we want to amplify the rich content of the Studies in Gender and Sexuality special issue from 2023 (published in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision), which is grounded in critical reflections on positionality, bodily autonomy, and solidarity.

Silencing Palestinian Solidarity Activism & the Escalation of International Aggression

The criminalization, silencing, and personal attacks directed toward anti-Zionist activism and powerful voices in our field have been disgraceful, to say the least. Over 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by the IDF, including family lineages being wiped out, Palestinian medical and healthcare providers have been murdered and abducted, and continued settler encroachment in the West Bank. Nonetheless, there has been continued silence in most psychoanalytic institutes who were otherwise quick to respond to the attacks on October 7, 2023. The ongoing Nakba and ethnic cleansing of Palestine is ignored. There has been no apology for the attacks on Lara Sheehi and other activists in our community, nor has there been a direct apology from the IPA in regard to their board-approved restatement given the ongoing atrocities.

It is our responsibility to name the genocide and to expose the constant weaponization of anti-semitism, in an upside down world where we see the Anti-Defamation League defending Nazi salutes while participating in the criminalization of those who stand for an end to the apartheid state of Israel. As millions of Jewish people have taken to the streets all over the world to say “not in my name,” these attacks have increased and we see them on our listservs. We, the Board of Section 9, also received many accusations of anti-semitism (and threats) as a result of our letter in Support of Palestine, written and published on December 2, 2023.

The weaponization of anti-semitism is a very distinct strategy named by the architects of Project 2025 as Project Esther. Project Esther is an attempt to create government policy that any criticism of Israel is considered anti-semitism, anti-American and support for terrorism. This is a plan to dismantle the Palestinian solidarity movement and is part of a broader criminalization of dissent regarding Palestine. According to Brooke Lober and the Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Committee, “Project Esther doesn’t protect Jews from hate; it weaponizes Jewish identity to criminalize dissent and silence Palestinian voices. Falsely claiming to combat antisemitism, it recycles antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories, redirecting them against Palestine solidarity activists while providing cover for the very Christian nationalist groups that pose genuine threats to Jewish communities.”It is important for us to track this as it develops and could become law. Currently, several universities are under federal investigation. Relatedly, the actions of President Trump continue to impose scarcity as well as aggression and escalation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Syria and Ukraine. It is essential to hold a psychoanalytic perspective when observing and analyzing political processes that impact our lives as well as the lives of our clients. 

As individuals with a psychoanalytic lens, we implore institutes and psychoanalytic communities in the U.S. to follow the leadership of the APA’s Division 48 (Peace Psychology) in continuing to amplify efforts to end war rather than allowing political leaders’ escalatory efforts to go unchecked on the international stage. We want to uplift efforts to think and talk about practicing psychoanalysis under conditions of war and occupation, and the ongoing brave and necessary work of the USA-Palestine Mental Health Network. We also want to recognize the labor, community-building, and organizing conducted by the collective Psychologists for Justice in Palestine. We thank those who speak up and write about Palestine in our community, risking the damning accusation of anti-semitism.

The Ongoing Criminalization of Migration

The Trump administration’s rapid escalation of ongoing punitive responses to migration is deeply troubling. It behooves us as a profession to continue mobilizing in response to attacks on our immigrant neighbors, especially given that we hold a skillset (clinical assessment) that is in high demand in immigration law contexts. Xenophobia and violent collective processes of othering are phenomena that require a response in the consulting room and in the community. 

An example of the convergence of multiple manifestations of fascism is the unjust kidnapping and detention of a Columbia University alumni Mahmoud Khalil, who was taken from his family and home by federal agents and flown to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. The Trump administration is trying to deport him and revoke his green card. This is a chilling sign of repression and a major threat to the First Amendment, with particularly troubling implications for immigrant students and trainees within our psychoanalytic community. 

We encourage our membership to consider getting trained by Physicians for Human Rights or the Asylum Medicine Training Initiative to provide asylum evaluations in your local area for migrants seeking safety and legal protections during an incredibly unstable global political moment. Case For Here offers mechanisms for connecting volunteer clinicians capable of providing expert testimony to those in need of this support.

Offerings from the Section

Our Section would like to continue building community across time and space. We invite you to continue sharing resources and tools on our listserv, and we also want to highlight several of the other resources we are cultivating together.

We encourage and support our membership as you continue doing the work and projects that may be at risk of being disrupted because of the current crises. It is possible to do more than one thing, and abandoning ongoing projects completely is the opposite of activism. We invite you to share your projects with us using the listserv, as well!

  • The Psychoanalytic Activist is our online publication, and the current editorial board is seeking submissions in response to the question: “What does it mean to be a psychoanalytic activist in this political moment?” The editors have posted their own response to this question, which can be read here.
  • Members of our section’s Education & Training committee (Mamta Dadlani, Chaim Rochester, Charla Malamed, and Tara Lasheen) are developing a series of virtual events that are responsive to the current moment. These include opportunities for consulting, writing, reading, and publishing together as well as a series of panels that invite action and highlight the links between psychoanalysis, facism, the dynamics of conflict, violence, and activism. Email Mamta Dadlani if interested in presenting your work or being a discussant.  
  • Our section is well-represented at our upcoming Division 39 virtual conference, “Bodies in Praxis.” We hope to see you there. 
  • Section 9 has joined the coalition of organizations sponsoring Avgi’s talk. Please register for Avgi Saketopoulou’s talk titled “Against Transantagonisms” (still scheduled for April 26 at 9:30am PST) here. 

Resourcing Ourselves to Respond to Fascism

All of this, one thing on top of another. The climate in the country is one of shock and awe used to create an inability to respond. We want to resist this and to talk with those of you who are also wanting to find communities of resistance. It is more important than ever that we create communities of support, resistance, and mutual aid. They want us dis-armed. We arm ourselves with love and resistance and arms outstretched. 

We also have many examples to draw from that exemplify powerful resistance and direct action, coming from outside of our community:

The strategic work of resisting fascism is work that can and should be psychoanalytically informed. We encourage members of our community to connect locally and transnationally to continue organizing for social justice. A tool that may be useful for you or your patients is this zine from abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba titled “Making a Plan,” which invites concrete thinking and planning about where and how individuals might contribute to liberatory struggles. We also encourage you to engage with the social change ecosystem map from Deepa Iyer, which underscores the multitude of roles that various individuals with different skills can play in social change movement work. 

Other resources for generative reading and learning:

On a personal note, we want to tell you that it’s okay to take a moment to breathe. It’s normal to have feelings of powerlessness. And yet, it’s important to remember that we are in community and that being in community means that we are not alone; when you need to take a breather, someone else steps in, and when they need to step back, you can step in. By being together in this way, empowerment can be grown and shared.

In solidarity,

The Board of Section IX