NPSI upcoming events

NPSI June Scientific Meeting (06/17/2026)

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 02:00:00 GMT

“A Peculiar People:

Mormonism, Drag Performance, and Erotic Non-Belonging”

Danny Gellersen, LICSW

In this presentation Danny Gellersen examines the psychic impact of religious cultural inheritance and queer sexual identity—an intersection rarely addressed directly in the psychoanalytic literature. Drawing from a decade-long analytic treatment, they explore how Mormonism, belief, and religious residue persist as uncanny, affectively charged presences within the transference and countertransference.

Using Freud’s concept of the uncanny, José Esteban Muñoz’s disidentification theory, and Laplanche’s theory of après-coup, Gellersen traces how early theological inscriptions are reanimated in adult erotic life, dissociation, and experiences of non-belonging. Through clinical vignettes, dream material, and personal reflection, they consider how drag performance operates both as metaphor and praxis—destabilizing compulsive normativity while reclaiming erotic vitality.

Positioning the analytic relationship alongside the drag stage, Gellersen’s presentation invites psychoanalytic colleagues to consider how religious inheritance and sexual identity shape the analytic field in ways that have remained largely untheorized.

Learning Objectives

After this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Identify how religious and cultural inheritances may manifest as “uncanny” residues within transference and countertransference dynamics.

2. Apply Freud’s concept of the uncanny and Laplanche’s theory of après-coup to clinical material involving belief, depersonalization, and queer identity.

3. Evaluate how performance, disidentification, embodiment, and experiences of non-belonging can function as generative sites of erotic vitality within the analytic relationship.

About the Presenter

Danny Gellersen, LICSW is a licensed clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in private practice in Seattle, Washington and in New York State. They are a graduate of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies National Training Program in New York City and reside full-time in Seattle, where they are on the faculty of the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and chair the Distinguished Speaker Series for the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study. Their work and studies as an artist, writer, educator, and student of realist classical drawing, Mormonism, queer theory, and drag performance are deeply intertwined with their clinical work.

About the Moderator

Caron Harrang, LICSW, FIPA, BCPsa is a board-certified psychoanalyst with a full-time private practice in Seattle, Washington. She is an IPA training and supervising psychoanalyst on the faculty of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and teaches throughout North America. Her recent publications include co-editor and chapter author of the Gradiva Award–winning Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (2021); “Introduction. Truth and Lies: Psychoanalytic Perspectives” (2023); “On Grotstein’s ‘Truth’ in Bion’s Theory of ‘O’” (2023); Nancy C. Winters, Caron Harrang, and Stefanie Sedlacek, “Transformations in O Online: Group Process in the Virtual Realm” (2024); “Earthquakes in the Analytic Field: A Post-Bionian View of Negative Therapeutic Reaction” (2025); and “Binocular Vision as a Function of the Analytic Field” (in press). For additional information, see www.caronharrang.com.

NPSI September Scientific Meeting - save the date (09/16/2026)

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 02:00:00 GMT

SAVE THE DATE

NPSI September Scientific Meeting

[Title TBD]

Presenter: Jeffrey Eaton

Moderator: Caron Harrang

NPSI November Scientific Meeting - save the date (11/18/2026)

Thu, 19 Nov 2026 03:00:00 GMT

SAVE THE DATE

“Psychoanalysis and the Israel-Palestine War:

Perspectives on Our Relevance”

Presenter: Harriet Wolfe

Moderator: Nancy C. Winters

NPSI December Scientific Meeting - save the date (12/16/2026)

Thu, 17 Dec 2026 03:00:00 GMT

SAVE THE DATE

NPSI December Scientific Meeting

Presenter: Mary Brady

Moderator: Caron Harrang

NPSI January Scientific Meeting (01/23/2027)

Sat, 23 Jan 2027 17:00:00 GMT

“Gender in the Subjunctive Mood:

Temporality and the Question of Evidence"

Oren Gozlan, C. Psych, ABPP, FIPA

In this timely and thought-provoking presentation, Oren Gozlan takes up contemporary debates around gender-affirming care to interrogate a pressing question for psychoanalysis today: what is meant by “evidence,” and what work does it perform in the analytic field?

Drawing on his concept of the subjunctive mood, Gozlan explores how evidentiary discourse can subtly reorganize analytic listening—authorizing caution, rendering responsibility legible, and positioning clinical work for scrutiny beyond the consulting room. He distinguishes between the ontic demands of documentation—decision letters, refusals, and retrospective justification—and the ontological stakes of psychoanalysis, where questions of recognition, bodily suffering (for both analyst and analysand), and transference must be discovered within the unfolding analytic process itself.

Against the apparent neutrality of statements such as “the evidence shows,” Gozlan highlights how these sorts of formulations may prematurely close inquiry while shaping clinical action. Psychoanalytic evidence, he argues, belongs to a different temporality, one that emerges gradually through repetition, revision, transference, and afterwardsness.

The subjunctive mood names both an ethical and a clinical stance—one that sustains uncertainty in the analytic encounter without collapsing into withdrawal or foreclosing possibility. In this way, gender becomes not only a topic of debate, but a privileged site for rethinking time, knowing, and ethical responsibility in psychoanalysis.

Learning Objectives:

After attending this scientific meeting, participants will be able to:

Distinguish ontic from ontological stakes in psychoanalytic work with gender.
Identify how evidentiary discourse can reorganize analytic listening.
Apply the subjunctive mood as an ethic of clinical uncertainty.

About the Presenter

Oren Gozlan, C. Psych, ABPP, FIPA, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in Toronto, Canada, and a member of the Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He is the author of Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning: A Lacanian Approach (winner of the American Academy & Board of Psychoanalysis annual book prize, 2015), and recipient of the Symonds Prize (2016), Ralph Roughton Award (2022), and Miguel Prados Prize (2023). His edited volume Critical Debates in the Transsexual Studies Field: In Transition (Routledge) was a runner-up for the 2019 Gradiva Award. His recent books include Gender with Sexuality: Situations of Psychoanalytic Learning and Gender: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge).

About the Moderator

Caron Harrang, LICSW, FIPA, BCPsa is a board-certified psychoanalyst with a full-time private practice in Seattle, Washington. She is an IPA training and supervising psychoanalyst on the faculty of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and teaches throughout North America. Her recent publications include co-editor and chapter author of the Gradiva Award–winning Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (2021); “Introduction. Truth and Lies: Psychoanalytic Perspectives” (2023); “On Grotstein’s ‘Truth’ in Bion’s Theory of ‘O’” (2023); Nancy C. Winters, Caron Harrang, and Stefanie Sedlacek, “Transformations in O Online: Group Process in the Virtual Realm” (2024); “Earthquakes in the Analytic Field: A Post-Bionian View of Negative Therapeutic Reaction” (2025); and “Binocular Vision as a Function of the Analytic Field” (2026). For additional information, see www.caronharrang.com.

Zoom Information

A Zoom link will be emailed to registrants the day prior to the event at the email address used to register. If you have not received the Zoom link several hours prior to the event, please check your other email folders (including spam, junk, and trash). Please also consider adding "admin@npsi.us.com" to your email contacts to ensure receipt of the Zoom link.

NPSI February Scientific Meeting - save the date (02/17/2027)

Thu, 18 Feb 2027 03:00:00 GMT

SAVE THE DATE

NPSI February Scientific Meeting

Presenter: Drew Tillotson

Moderator: TBD

NPSI March Scientific Meeting - save the date (03/17/2027)

Thu, 18 Mar 2027 02:00:00 GMT

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NPSI March Scientific Meeting

Presenter: Afsaneh Alisobhani

Moderator: Nancy C. Winters

NPSI April Scientific Meeting - Save the Date (04/24/2027)

Sat, 24 Apr 2027 16:00:00 GMT

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NPSI April Scientific Meeting

Presenter: TBD

Moderator: TBD

NPSI May Scientific Meeting - save the date (05/19/2027)

Thu, 20 May 2027 02:00:00 GMT

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NPSI May Scientific Meeting

Presenter: Michael Diamond

Moderator: Drew Tillotson

NPSI June Scientific Meeting - save the date (06/16/2027)

Thu, 17 Jun 2027 02:00:00 GMT

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NPSI June Scientific Meeting

Presenter: Judy K. Eekhoff

Moderator: Caron Harrang

NPSI September Scientific Meeting - Save the Date (09/18/2027)

Sat, 18 Sep 2027 16:00:00 GMT

SAVE THE DATE

NPSI September Scientific Meeting

Presenter: TBD

Moderator: TBD

NPSI October Scientific Meeting - save the date (10/20/2027)

Thu, 21 Oct 2027 02:00:00 GMT

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NPSI October Scientific Meeting

Presenter: Samantha Good

Moderator: Caron Harrang

NPSI November Scientific Meeting - Save the Date (11/17/2027)

Thu, 18 Nov 2027 03:00:00 GMT

SAVE THE DATE

NPSI November Scientific Meeting

Presenter: TBD

Moderator: TBD