Artificial intelligence is beginning to appear in the analytic space—not only as a topic but, at times, as something that can become part of the patient's psychic reality. Analysts may need to adopt a sustained, clinically grounded stance toward this phenomenon—one that recognizes initial defensive reactions and preconceptions, yet is not determined by them. Drawing on clinical observations, it explores how patients' use of large language models as digital confidants can shape transference: from easing the articulation of thoughts held behind the "second censorship," to producing insights that are dissociated from affect. The focus is not on whether AI produces valid interpretations, but on how the analyst receives and metabolizes AI-mediated communications within the transference–countertransference field. Feelings such as rivalry, irritation or protectiveness may offer valuable analytic data, reflecting both the analyst's vulnerabilities and the patient's unconscious enactments. In some treatments, AI may be positioned as a third figure in the analytic dyad, evoking triangular tensions and bringing latent conflicts to the surface. These moments can provide clinically relevant information about internal object relations. Such material should be taken seriously and engaged with as part of the analytic process, rather than being avoided or downplayed—consciously or unconsciously—by the analyst.
Relational psychoanalyst Adrienne Harris discusses the future of psychoanalysis and the responsibilities of the current generation toward those who follow. She argues that the primary task is to authorize the next generation of analysts to find their own voice — to write, teach, and engage publicly with the pressing issues of the day, including race, migration, climate, and political freedom. Harris reflects on the changing relationship between psychoanalysis and communication, emphasizing the need for analysts to continuously reinvent the ways they reach broader audiences. The interview also touches on the historical fate of Otto Fenichel, whose intellectual and political ideas were suppressed by the climate of McCarthyism after his emigration to the United States — a cautionary tale about what happens when political conditions close down free thought. Harris draws a parallel to the present, noting similar pressures on free speech in the current political environment. This is the second part of a two-part interview conducted in Prague during the 2nd Fenichel's Conference: Psychic Change (October 2017).
Can psychoanalysts be public intellectuals — write for newspapers, join protests — without compromising their clinical stance? Adrienne Harris, a leading figure in Relational psychoanalysis, thinks they not only can, but should. In this conversation, she dismantles the classical ideals of neutrality and anonymity as untenable fictions in a two-person psychology, proposing 'safety' as a more honest description of what the analyst actually provides. More interesting, though, is the question of whether psychoanalytic concepts belong in social and political analysis. Harris thinks they do, but not by simply scaling up individual psychology to explain collective phenomena. Phobic hatred, for instance, may be useful for understanding racism — but not without sociology, history, and political theory alongside it. She is less convincing on neuropsychoanalysis, where her position amounts to a cautious 'yes, but': engage with neuroscience, yet beware of premature translation. First part of a two-part interview recorded in Prague during the 2nd Fenichel's Conference: Psychic Change, October 2017.
David Bell, Past President of the British Psychoanalytical Society and consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic, reflects on the place of psychoanalysis in public and political life. In this interview, conducted in Prague during the 2nd Fenichel's Conference: Psychic Change (October 2017), Bell argues that the classical ideal of analytic neutrality is strictly a matter of the consulting room. Outside it, an analyst is a citizen like anyone else, and political silence is itself a form of participation — or, as Hanna Segal put it, 'the real crime.' Drawing on Kleinian thinking, Bell examines how mechanisms such as projection and the hatred of vulnerability and dependence shape contemporary social phenomena: racism, the rise of the far right, the contempt directed at migrants, and the erosion of welfare institutions. He traces a line from Segal's work on the denial of the nuclear threat in the 1970s and 80s to present-day political dynamics, showing how psychoanalysis can illuminate what he calls the 'soil inside the human being' that allows destructive tendencies to take root. At the same time, Bell is careful to resist reductionism. Psychoanalysis does not have the answer to social and political questions, but it brings a unique understanding of unconscious life to the table — alongside economists, historians, and sociologists. He points to the Frankfurt School as a model for this kind of interdisciplinary engagement, and reflects on concrete instances where British psychoanalysts contributed to public policy, including the decriminalization of homosexuality and the abolition of the death penalty.