Supporting our members, offering outstanding psychoanalytic training to mental health professionals, and educating the general public about psychoanalysis since 1999.

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Scientific Meetings:

NPSI Scientific Meetings provide a dynamic and engaging forum for exploring contemporary psychoanalysis. While emphasizing British object relations theory—including the work of Winnicott, Bion, and post-Bionian developments—these meetings also feature a broad range of psychoanalytic perspectives that are relevant to contemporary clinical practice. Each month during the academic year, a psychoanalyst—either from NPSI or invited from another IPA Component Society—presents an original paper, with occasional special presentations added to the schedule. Sessions are recorded and made available for purchase through NPSI’s video library, extending access to members and the broader professional community. Meetings are moderated by one of the Continuing Education Committee co-chairs: Caron Harrang, Drew Tillotson, or Nancy Winters.

Designed to foster thoughtful exchange and deeper understanding of psychoanalytic processes, these online meetings provide ample time for discussion of the presenter’s material. Open to NPSI members and all interested mental health professionals worldwide, NPSI Scientific Meetings offer an excellent opportunity to engage with leading-edge psychoanalytic ideas and to connect with colleagues across both local and international psychoanalytic communities.

Upcoming Scientific Meetings

  • NPSI May Scientific Meeting - Save The Date

    • 05/20/2026
    • 7:00 PM
    • via Zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI May Scientific Meeting


    "How Do We Know What We Know?  Recognizing Secrets in the Body"


    Presenter: Kathryn Zerbe

    Moderator:  Nancy Winters

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  • NPSI May Scientific Meeting

    • 05/20/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    “How Do We Know What We Didn't Know?

    Recognizing Secrets in the Body"



    Kathryn Zerbe, MD, FIPA

    The impact of secrets on body and mind has received relatively little attention in psychoanalysis, despite their ubiquity in clinical practice. Growing evidence suggests that secrets are often sensed in the bodies of both clinician and patient. In this presentation, Kathryn Zerbe explores how secrets can be and often have been “hidden, but in plain sight” for decades, such that they may be “known and yet not known” by both patient and clinician. This information can exert subtle, unconscious effects on the treatment process and may manifest through somatic countertransference responses. Zerbe examines how secrets can be effectively recognized and addressed in the treatment, particularly when they are manifested within the body. By linking psychodynamic principles with evolving knowledge from neuroscience and cognitive science, she shows how clinicians can more effectively attune to these secrets within the dyad and take preventive steps to maintain their own wellbeing.


    Learning Objectives:

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


    1. Recognize the unanticipated impact that a warded off secret (e.g., "what we know but may not know") has on the patient's and therapist's body.

    2. Demonstrate and use somatic/embodied countertransference as an additional source of recognition of warded off secrets.

    3. Use three concepts emerging from contemporary psychoanalysis, cognitive science, and neuroscience research that can assist the well-being of both patient and clinician.

    About the Presenter

    Kathryn J. Zerbe, MD, FIPA is currently a Training and Supervising Analyst of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Oregon Health & Science University. Before moving to Portland in 2001, she served in numerous clinical and administrative roles at the Menninger Clinic and was a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis. Dr. Zerbe has published over 100 chapters, papers and reviews and 5 books, including her most recent book: Secrets in Psychotherapy: Stories that Inform Clinical Work (2025, Routledge). She speaks nationally and internationally on topics such as the mind/body relationship, eating disorders and addictive economies, and the impact of secrets on the body and mind of clinician and patient. Dr. Zerbe received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Eating Disorders Association in 2011 and in 2022 gave the G. Phillip Wilson Lecture for contributions to mind/body medicine. She practices in Portland.

    About the Moderator

    Nancy C. Winters, MD, FIPA practices in Portland, Oregon. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst on the faculty of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute and the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health & Science University. Recent publications and presentations include: Co-editor and chapter author of Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (2022, Routledge); “Autoimmunity and its Expression in the Analytic Situation: Contemporary Reflections on Our Inherent Self-Destructiveness” (2022); “A Home to the Lie: The Contemporary (Per)Version of Truth” (2023); “Transformations in O Online: Group Process in the Virtual Realm” (2024); and recent presentations: “The Liar and the Truth-Teller: An Analytic Dialogue” (Lisbon, 2025), and “Freud’s ‘Open Wound’ of Melancholia: Psychic Inflammation and Self-Healing” (Seattle, 2026).

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  • NPSI June Scientific Meeting

    • 06/17/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • via Zoom
    Register

    “A Peculiar People:

    Mormonism, Drag Performance, and Erotic Non-Belonging”



    Danny Gellersen, LICSW, FIPA

    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, FIPA, is a licensed clinical social worker and psychoanalyst with a private practice in Seattle, Washington and New York State. They are a graduate of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, National Training Program in New York City, and resides in Seattle full-time, where they teach on the faculties of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and chairs the Distinguished Speaker Series for the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study. Their practice and studies as an artist, writer, educator, and student of realist classical drawing, Mormonism, queer theory, and drag performance are greatly intertwined with their clinical werk.


    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.

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  • NPSI September Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 09/16/2026
    • 7:00 PM
    • via Zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI September Scientific Meeting


    [Title TBD]


    Presenter: Jeffrey Eaton

    Moderator:  Caron Harrang

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  • NPSI November Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 11/18/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    “Psychoanalysis and the Israel-Palestine War:

    Perspectives on Our Relevance”

    Presenter:  Harriet Wolfe

    Moderator:  Nancy C. Winters



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  • NPSI December Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 12/16/2026
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI December Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  Mary Brady

    Moderator:  Caron Harrang





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  • NPSI January Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 01/23/2027
    • 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI January Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  Oren Gozlan

    Moderator:  Caron Harrang



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  • NPSI February Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 02/17/2027
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI February Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  Drew Tillotson

    Moderator:  TBD



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  • NPSI March Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 03/17/2027
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI March Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  Afsaneh Alisobhani

    Moderator:  Nancy C. Winters




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  • NPSI April Scientific Meeting - Save the Date

    • 04/24/2027
    • 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI April Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  TBD

    Moderator:  TBD


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  • NPSI May Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 05/19/2027
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI May Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  Michael Diamond

    Moderator:  Drew Tillotson




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  • NPSI June Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 06/16/2027
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI June Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  Judy K. Eekhoff

    Moderator:  Caron Harrang




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  • NPSI September Scientific Meeting - Save the Date

    • 09/18/2027
    • 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI September Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  TBD

    Moderator:  TBD


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  • NPSI October Scientific Meeting - save the date

    • 10/20/2027
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM
    • zoom

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI October Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  Samantha Good

    Moderator:  Caron Harrang




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  • NPSI November Scientific Meeting - Save the Date

    • 11/17/2027
    • 7:00 PM - 8:45 PM

    SAVE THE DATE

    NPSI November Scientific Meeting

    Presenter:  TBD

    Moderator:  TBD


    Show details


Our Mission

Our mission is to

  1. Deliver premier psychoanalytic education and training for individuals aspiring to become psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists, with a dedicated focus on British Object Relations theory, the work of Wilfred Bion, and contemporary Post-Bionian clinical practice;
  2. Foster the ongoing professional growth and development of our analyst members, candidates, and community members through rigorous scholarship, mentorship, and collegial exchange;
  3. Advance regional, national, and international understanding of mental life by contributing original thought and research to the evolving field of psychoanalysis; and
  4. Promote emotional health, creativity, and well-being for those we serve through the ethical and compassionate practice of psychoanalysis.


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Tel: 206.930.2886

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