Karen Dougherty

This is the first in a highly watchable four-part series of educational videos from the Freud Museum in London about psychoanalysis. Yes, it's weird. But that's a good thing.

This is a link to an enjoyable interview I did with GenW magazine offering career advice to young women who are interested in training as a psychotherapist. I'm always open to mentoring young people who are as passionate as I am about this work.

I live in a city with two psychoanalytic institutes.  I trained for two years in the newer, “contemporary” institute before switching to the older, “conservative” one. I've now completed all the training requirements at the Toronto Institute and have never regretted the change.  In this paper, published two years ago in "The Candidate Journal," I explain what motivated my decision, the challenges in its execution, and how it has affected me.  I explore the meaning of such a move, how switching institutes might be read and held by the psychoanalytic community, what sibling rivalries may have been stirred up, and whether it might be possible to leverage the experience and my “place” as a subje

This exceptional BBC radio series, called "In Therapy," powerfully conveys a sense of how therapy works. Every psychotherapist has a unique style. Susie Orbach's gentle empathy comes across well. The patients are played by actors to protect confidentiality.

This lecture, by Adam Phillips, is from a paper entitled, "Against Self-Criticism." We would rarely speak to another person the way we speak to ourselves. In true Adam Phillips style, he articulates something we don't quite know we know. Here is a pithy excerpt: "But the self-critical part of ourselves, the part that Freud calls the super-ego, has some striking deficiencies: it is remarkably narrow-minded; it has an unusually impoverished vocabulary; and it is, like all propagandists, relentlessly repetitive. It is cruelly intimidating – Lacan writes of "the obscene super-ego" – and it never brings us any news about ourselves. There are only ever two or three things we endlessly accuse ourse

One of the world's great writers/thinkers doing what he does best:

An excellent article from the Guardian on the "Therapy Wars," and why CBT doesn't offer deep and lasting change.

I came across this blog recently following "the daily trials of a highly sensitive person." Lisandra writes, "I am a highly sensitive person. I created my blog OneSensitiveDayAtATime.com to connect highly sensitive young adults attempting to understand this trait. I received my Master's of Public Health Degree due to my love of research and desire to question the world around me. I enjoy connecting with individuals of the same mindset to improve the human condition." Recommended for the sensitive introvert who would like to understand themselves better. It's not easy being an emotional sponge - but with effort and understanding, this trait can be reined in and harnessed to help others.

People have been challenging psychoanalysis since its inception. Freud wanted people to consider it a science, but many, myself included, consider it more of an art and a way of thinking. While I'm not a fan of the neuroscience rhetoric, I do think there are some good evidence-based studies coming out that support its efficacy as a treatment method for various mental health issues. This video, by a California based psychoanalyst, makes a case using some excellent data.