Before joining the clinical faculty at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center I spent nearly twenty years as a professor at NYU. My writing and teaching have focused on breakdowns in communication — the causes, the consequences. My first book, The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork (Zone Books, 2012), was a historical and psychological investigation into our experiences of bureaucracy, especially when things go wrong (“a bright and sparkling study … provocative, original, and a very good read” — The New York Review of Books; “eccentric” – The New York Times). I’m currently working on a book for Random House about the ways people drive each other crazy (gaslighting, mind games, double binds, passive aggression, etc.). There’s a conversation about the new project here.
Over the years I’ve also held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar; the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; and the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. I helped build the Feminist Theory Archive at Brown and the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis in Brooklyn. I’m a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities, and serve on its board of directors. Three of my graduate students went on to academic careers, two became analysts.
I’m represented by Alia Hanna Habib at The Gernert Company.