Advancing Psychotherapy for the Next Generation
This Forum Live event celebrated the launch of PsiAN’s first book, Advancing Psychotherapy for the Next Generation: Humanizing Mental Health Policy and Practice! This book brings together a global community of mental health professionals to offer an impassioned defense of relationship-based depth psychotherapy. With a distinguished international group of authors and a clear focus on determining a future direction for psychotherapy, this book is essential reading for all psychotherapists.
Contributors include Farhad Dalal, Susan G. Lazar, Meiram Bendat, Oksana Yakushko, Allan Scholom, Enrico Gnaulati, John Thor Cornelius, Nancy McWilliams, Kirk Schneider, Santiago Delboy, Linda Michaels, Todd Essig, Usha Tummala-Narra, Erika Schmidt, and William Meyer.
This event included a panel discussion and Q & A featuring some of the book’s contributors and their areas of expertise: Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D., Todd Essig Ph.D., Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D., Usha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D., Allan Scholom, Ph.D., and Enrico Gnaulati, Ph.D.
Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D. teaches at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology and has a private practice in Lambertville, NJ. She is author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (1994; rev. ed. 2011), Psychoanalytic Case Formulation (1999), and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2004), all with Guilford Press. She has edited or contributed to several other books, and is Associate Editor of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (2006, Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2017). She is a former president of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association and is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology. A graduate of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, Dr. McWilliams is also affiliated with the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey.
Todd Essig Ph.D. is Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute and a member of PsiAN’s Advisory Board. Widely known as a pioneer in the innovative uses of mental health technologies, he publishes and lectures widely. He has served on editorial boards for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and JAPA and recently co-edited with Gillian Isaacs Russell a special issue of Psychoanalytic Perspectives on psychoanalysis and technology. In the aftermath of 9/11 he was Board Chair for the NY Disaster Counseling Coalition (NYDCC) providing free mental health care to first responders and their families. Since March 2020 he has been Co-Chair of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Covid-19 Advisory Team, and has been awarded Distinguished Service awards by APsaA and the NY State Psychological Association for his efforts. He wrote “Managing Mental Wealth” for Forbes where he covered the intersection of technology, psychology, and culture. His practice is in New York City where he treats individuals and couples, almost all of whom (used to) come to his office.
Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and leading spokesperson for contemporary existential-humanistic psychology. Dr. Schneider is the current president of the Existential-Humanistic Institute (EHI), Council Member of the American Psychological Association (APA), past president (2015-2016) of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32) of the APA, recent past editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (2005-2012), and adjunct faculty member at Saybrook University and Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Schneider is also an Honorary Member of the Society for Existential Analysis and the East European Association for Existential Therapy. A Fellow of the APA, Dr. Schneider has published over 200 articles, interviews and chapters and has authored or edited 13 books including The Spirituality of Awe, The Polarized Mind, Awakening to Awe, The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, Existential-Humanistic therapy, Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy, and the Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy. Dr. Schneider’s work has been featured in Scientific American, the New York Times, Psychology Today and many other health and psychology outlets.
Usha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and the Director of Community-Based Education at the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute and Research Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. Her research and scholarship focus on immigration, trauma, race, and culturally-informed psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She is also in Independent Practice, and works primarily with survivors of trauma from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. Dr. Tummala-Narra is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and the Asian American Journal of Psychology. She serves on the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality of the American Psychoanalytic Association. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy (2016) and the editor of Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance (2021), both published by the American Psychological Association Books.
Allan Scholom, Ph.D. is President of the Section of Psychoanalysts of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the APA, on the Core Faculty and Board of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, and on the Faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work. He has served as President of the Chicago Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology, First Vice Chairperson of the Chicago Community Mental Health Board, Founder and Chairperson of the Illinois Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, and Mental Health Policy Advisor to Illinois US Senator Adlai Stevenson, Jr. Dr. Scholom has published and presented widely on the interface between psychoanalysis and politics, primarily regarding mental/health care issues. He has taught classes and led workshops on Psychoanalysis and Politics. Dr. Scholom is in the private practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
Enrico Gnaulati, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist based in Pasadena, California, and Affiliate Professor of Psychology at Seattle University. He has published numerous journal and magazine articles and his work has been featured on Spectrum News, Al Jazeera America, China Global Television Network, KPCC Los Angeles, KPFK, Los Angeles, KPBS, San Diego, WBUR, Boston, KPFA Berkeley, Wisconsin Public Radio, Public Radio Tulsa, and online at the Atlantic, Salon, and Psychology Today, as well as reviewed in Maclean's, Pacific Standard, the Huffington Post, The Australian, Prevention and the New Yorker. As a blogger for Mad in America and PsychAlive, board member for the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), and through his writings and advocacy efforts he is considered a nationally recognized reformer of mental health practice and policy. His books include: Back to Normal: Why Ordinary Childhood Behavior is Mistaken for ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (Beacon Press, 2013), Saving Talk Therapy: How Health Insurers, Big Pharma, and Slanted Science are Ruining Good Mental Health Care (Beacon Press, 2018), and Emotion-Regulating Play Therapy with ADHD Children: Staying with Playing (Jason Aronson, 2008). His latest books are Flourishing Love: A Secular Guide to Lasting Intimate Relationships (Phoenix Publishing House, 2023) and Peacemaking with Preschoolers: Conflict Resolution to Promote Emotional Mastery and Harmonious Classrooms, (GoodMedia Press, 2023).