CMPS Annual Conference
The debate within psychoanalysis about the role of the sociopolitical in the treatment room exemplifies what defines the practice in the first place: the study of blind spots. The hidden “self” gradually manifests, becoming less alien to the other and less other to the alien. Narcissistic wishes both confront and meet the needs of society, but how does the individual reconcile narcissistic wishes with society’s claims? This conference proposes situating the unconscious in the sociocultural and the sociocultural in the unconscious — through an investigation of fantasies of otherness (as characterized by the factors that interfere with narcissistic gratification) and othering (as defined by the pathologizing of the narcissistic aims).