ROOM A sketchbook for Analytic Action

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 five patients for the day is out in the waiting room, flicking through one of the old copies of the LRB fanned out on the scuffed coffee table with splintered legs. After all, the Analyst wanted to make and maintain the right impression — urbane, intellectual, and playful were three adjectives he hoped crossed some folks’ minds some of the time.

Poems

TRANSFERENCES by Jane Lazarre

Jane Lazarre’s most recent book is The Communist and the Communist’s Daughter, a memoir. Her first memoir, The Mother Knot, was recently published in Spain as El Nudo Materno. Other works include Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons, and the novels Inheritance and Worlds Beyond My Control. She has just completed a collection of poems, Breaking Light.

Poems

THERE GOES by Polly Weissman

Polly Weissman is a mostly nonfiction writer who takes facts more seriously than is currently fashionable. She has published books for children and contributed to many textbooks. She is currently working on a novel about someone who keeps getting it wrong.

Editorials

DEMOCRACY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: MINDING THE GAP by Hattie Myers

Democracy, psychoanalysis, and Room share a powerful connection. They were created to contain and facilitate the many voices that comprise (and conflict with) our polities, ourselves, and, in the case of Room, the space between ourselves and our societies. This is not coincidental. As Jill Gentile explains in her book Feminine Law, Free Speech, and the Voice of Desire, there is a resonance between the method of free association underlying the work of psychoanalysis and the right of free speech which is the bedrock of democracy.

Roundtables

DISPATCHES 6.19: ROOM ROUNDTABLE

This special edition of Room 6.19 Roundtable will be held in London on July 26 at the International Psychoanalytic Association Conference.

Essays

THE CULTURING OF PSYCHOANALYSIS by Karim G. Dajani

From my very first contact with psychoanalysis, a fascination in the theory and practice took hold of me. But becoming a psychoanalyst was a bit unimaginable. How would a lower-middle-class Palestinian immigrant navigate such a life goal? How could I possibly pay for years of analysis and navigate an environment I perceived as potentially hostile to me? I really did not know, but the calling did not subside.

Essays

PRESIDENTIAL STATES OF MIND by Frank Putnam

In addition to the political controversies that they ignite, the contents of presidential tweets are subject to diverse statistical analyses as evidenced by postings on the internet.

Essays

FRIENDLESS IN PALM BEACH by Sheldon Bach

Two years ago, an article in the New York Times¹ about Donald Trump’s “friends” made me want to collect the little we know about such friendships, some or all of which may apply to Trump himself.

Essays

A FAMILY ROMANCE by Jeri Isaacson

In mythology, in fairy tales, and in psychoanalysis, losing one’s sight often indicates that a disaster has occurred, an event so unbearable that it is no longer possible to look at it. Yet in the ongoing scourge that is the Trump administration, Trump cannot bear that we look away from the disaster.

Poems

CLYTEMNESTRA by Sara Mansfield Taber

Sara Mansfield Taber is the author of Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter, the writer’s guide Chance Particulars: A Writer’s Field Notebook, and two books of literary journalism. Her poetry, essays, travel, and opinion pieces have appeared in literary magazines such as The American Scholar and newspapers such as the Washington Post. A psychologist and social worker, she has taught creative nonfiction writing for twenty years.