Alongside my clinical practice I’ve had a long career in the humanities, including nearly twenty years on the faculty of NYU. Originally trained as a historian, I was interested in why the world is the way it is. Over time, as I retrained as a psychoanalyst, I became more interested in why we are the ways we are. I now write and teach about both. My first book, The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork (Zone Books, 2012), was a historical 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 everyday ways people drive each other crazy (gaslighting, mind games, double binds, passive aggression, etc. — there’s a conversation about it here).
Over the years I’ve also been visiting faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; 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 (Harvard, New School, and UC Berkeley); two became analysts.
I’m represented by Alia Hanna Habib at The Gernert Company.