Forum Live: Therapists on Social Media
On April 29, 2022, PsiAN held its third “Forum Live” webinar. Forum Live presents panel discussions, interviews, and the like — live, free, and open to the public. The live audience can submit questions and comments, a selection of which will be aired. All Forum Live events are recorded, with the video appearing here on the PsiAN Forum soon after.
The webinar on April 29 represented PsiAN’s interest in finding ways to communicate effectively to the public. The dominance of social media as the means by which people learn about all things mental health is inescapable. The challenge for many professionals (particularly those working from frameworks emphasizing depth, insight, and relationship) in talking about issues related to mental health online is that we are often trying to introduce a more complex, nuanced narrative to the public than they may be familiar with. If we are interested in complicating and deconstructing familiar soundbites like “Manualized Treatment X is the Most Evidenced Based” and “Depression is Caused by a Chemical Imbalance,” is it possible to do so on social media – notorious for its tendency to pull for the most polarizing and simplistic ways of discussing issues?
In this Forum Live event, panelists represent a broad range of clinical experience and backgrounds, but they have in common a mastery of using 140 characters to tweet about impossibly complex topics: psychoanalytic theory and practice, the philosophy of psychiatry, the history of debates about the nature and causes of mental distress, the role of the therapeutic relationship, what makes a mental health treatment meaningful, and how people change. They also occasionally post really great memes.
Our panelists:
Dr. Emily Anhalt is a psychologist and the CoFounder and Chief Clinical Officer of Coa, your gym for mental health. As a psychoanalytic psychologist, she has spent the past decade working clinically with entrepreneurs, and conducted extensive research about how people can improve their mental and emotional fitness. She has spoken around the world about proactive mental health and emotional fitness, and has collaborated with some of the fastest-growing technology companies and VC firms in the world, including Google, Asana, Github, Unilever, and Bloomberg.
Awais Aftab, MD is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. He leads the popular interview series "Conversations in Critical Psychiatry" for Psychiatric Times and he has been actively involved in initiatives to educate psychiatrists and trainees on the intersection of philosophy and psychiatry. He can be found on twitter @awaisaftab.
Kristian Kemtrup is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in San Francisco. He is also a lecturer in the philosophy department at San Francisco State University, where he teaches courses on The Philosophy of Film, the Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics, and Critical Thinking. He is active on Twitter, writing about the status of mental health diagnoses, differences between different therapeutic modalities, and the importance of psychoanalytic ideas for all of psychotherapy.
Dr. Jayce Long is a licensed psychologist in California who works within a group practice conducting individual outpatient psychotherapy for adults. Additionally, he is a group psychotherapist at PCH Treatment Center, an intensive outpatient setting. Dr. Long has training in contemporary psychodynamic treatment, drawing from relational psychoanalysis, object relations and attachment theories, and mentalization-based treatment (MBT). Pertinent to this event, he enjoys quoting his favorite authors on Twitter (@JayceLong) and making psychoanalytic concepts lucid via images on Instagram (@DareBeingWith).
Dr. Aimee Martinez works in private practice in West Hollywood, California. She is currently an advanced candidate in process of becoming a certified Psychoanalyst and is the President of the Candidate’s Association at the New Center for Psychoanalysis. Her press contributions and collaborations can be seen online at Buzz Feed, Psychoanalysis Unplugged for Psychology Today, Forbes, Bustle, Psych Central, Elite Daily, Huffington Post, the Zoe Project. Aimee is also the co-chair for the American Psychoanalytic Associations Committee on Public Information. In addition to her private practice, Dr. Martinez is Core Faculty member at The Wright Institute Los Angeles.
Nathan Rice, LCSW, is a certified psychoanalyst, clinical supervisor and analytic instructor with a private practice in New York City. In the past he has provided supportive therapy to individuals living with severe and persistent mental illness, psychoanalytic treatment to young adults at a psychoanalytic institute, and individual and group therapy at an addiction treatment center where he worked with individuals dealing with out-of-control sexual behavior and trauma. He is interested in the convergence, divergence and dialectic tension among psychoanalytic theories and uses Twitter to promote nuanced and paradoxical approaches to psychotherapy and living.