PSYCHOANALYSIS
I began my training in psychoanalysis in 2003, a few years after receiving my MFA. In my family, there was no space for words that could address the effect of intergenerational wounds, only a cyclical acting out. Freud’s Rembering, Repeating and Working Through in particular, spoke to me.
I studied at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis in New York City, a path that took 14 yeas. The training ran parallel to my art and teaching. I had a small clinical practice for 7 years. The work was transformative and deeply rewarding.
Teaching at Bennington College, I developed a syllabus that brought my experience and knowledge of psychoanalysis crossed with photography. I continue to teach this intersection of psychoanalysis with art making at the SMFA at Tufts. I offer workshops on dream interpretation for art makers and friends outside of the institution, with the goal of enabling an awareness of the unconscious, an integration of the self, and the development of our personal symbols and their meaning in our work as artists.
COURSE DESCRIPTION for IMAGE, NARRATIVE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
Image, Narrative and Psychoanalysis explores storytelling in connection to the role of our unconscious to symbolism and the imagery we make. We will reflect on the unconscious as housing memories that structure our narrative, and the relationship between these narratives and our art.