Click cover to download ROOM 2.24 or previous issues

Editorials ROOM-1019-Cover

STAYING THE COURSE by Hattie Myers

We have lost our grip on any shared sense of reality. Post-Truth philosophers provide cold comfort, telling us we haven’t really lost anything; we have, in fact, gained understanding that reality has never been there to grip. And the deconstructivists…

Read more
Essays A joung man standing on a yellow and red background edited with a motion effect

NEOLIBERAL GASLIGHTING by Scott Graybow

The term “analytic action” assumes new complexity when we use it to enhance meaningful discourse about our unsettling and turbulent political reality. It opens doors to the possibility of kindling a deeper connection to parts of our psychoanalytic heritage, such…

Read more
Art © Sophie Sandberg. Temporary graffiti made with chalk by Sophie Sandberg in New York City for the art street action @Catcallofnyc to stop harassment

CATCALLS OF NYC by Sophie Sandberg

Catcalls of NYC is a grassroots initiative and collective that uses public chalk art to raise awareness about gender-based street harassment. We solicit stories of harassment and their locations in New York City. Then, we go to those locations, write…

Read more
Essays Photograph of a wave of black water

TOXIC DRIP by Charles Rizzuto

Think back, if you will, to the halcyon days of the Reagan regime, with the Great Communicator’s elaborate economic agenda he called “trickle-down economics.” The alleged benefits never trickled down to most of us, and we know now that the…

Read more
Essays © Mafe Izaguirre Digital numbers in color red showing as a giant clock on east river counting down days left in president trump's term

STILL HERE by William W. Harris

Well, it has been a little over a year, and he’s still here. I have stopped binge-watching TV, but he is still infecting my life. How can I ignore the Greenland saga or tune out the furious tears in response…

Read more
Poems Moving sky during the afternoon

POWER FAILURE by Eugene Mahon

Eugene Mahon, MD, is a training and supervising psychoanalyst at Columbia Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research. He has published three books —A Psychoanalytic Odyssey, Rensal the Redbit, and Boneshop of the Heart—and numerous articles on psychoanalysis. He practices in…

Read more
Essays Black hands in a prayer

SO I LISTEN by Abraham Velazquez, Jr.

I remember my first time being at The Brotherhood/Sister Sol (Bro/Sis) and participating in their writing program, The Lyrical Circle. It was held in the space where we would be sharing and creating art for years to come. We met…

Read more
Poems Black young woman with a jean jacket

SACRED by Abraham Velazquez, Jr.

Abraham Velazquez Jr. is a youth worker at the Brotherhood/Sister Sol (Bro/Sis), an organization in Harlem that provides comprehensive, holistic, and long-term support services to youth who range in age from eight to twenty-two. He is also a cofounder of…

Read more
Essays Blurred photograph of a person from the back with a red sweater

ON EDGE by Michael A. Diamond

All of us work at the boundary. In fact, we work and live at multiple boundaries. We belong to numerous systems and relational networks. The idea of boundary is a metaphor for where and when we come into contact with…

Read more
Art © Artist Patrick Webb's paint titled Red

INTIMACIES by Patrick Webb

Anna Fishzon navigates one of the most recent groups of work by Patrick Webb: Intimacies. Placing us in the hands of Punchinello — the main character in Webb’s scenes — Fishzon guides the conversation through the communion of two souls:…

Read more
Essays Judson Window, Wikimedia

A WINDOW IN by Elizabeth C. Evert

As a magazine at the intersection of the psychological and the political, Room has published a number of articles that aim to explore the cultural divides in the US and beyond. In this vein, Jacob Smith has written a piece…

Read more
Essays Singapore, Giant trees by the Bay Futuristic gardens of Singapore

HOPE, DESPAIR, AND UTOPIA by Isaac Tylim

The 9/11 terrorist attack punctured America’s innocence, inflicting massive trauma on people across the country. Almost without delay, psychoanalysts felt compelled to shed their mantle of neutrality to better assist survivors, first responders, and those who were vicariously affected by…

Read more
Fiction andrei-lazarev-iKn1YMqg0bA-unsplash

TOOTHACHE by Joshua Maserow

The Analyst stares into the steam of his green tea. Some of the more proactive flakes escape a tear in the frail nylon sachet, wending to the surface, a morning Rorschach for no one to interpret. The first of his…

Read more