Psychoanalytic Practice and Training Unbound: The Wider Ethical Context (In-Person Registration)

Francisco J. González, MD is Personal & Supervising Analyst, Community Psychoanalysis Supervising Analyst, and Faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC), where he also helped found and serves as Co-Director of the Community Psychoanalysis Track. He is a visiting faculty member of the Community Psychoanalysis Concentration at BPSI. He is on the faculty of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and a Supervising Analyst at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. He has been the recipient of the Symonds Award, the Ralph E. Roughton Paper Award, and co-recipient of the JAPA Award for the Best Published Paper 2019 and was named a 2023 Distinguished Psychoanalytic Educator by IFPE. He serves on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, JAPA, and Parapraxis, and on the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis. He practices privately in San Francisco and Oakland and in the public domain at Instituto Familiar de la Raza in San Francisco.

Peiwei Li, PhD is an independent scholar and a licensed psychologist with a training in counseling psychology and critical inquiry methodology. She is currently in her third year in both the Advanced Training Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and the Community Psychoanalysis Concentration at BPSI. Her scholarship and clinical practice lie in the borderland of critical psychology and social inquiry, pertaining to self development, transnational experiences, emancipatory interest, consciousness-raising, and the potential for liberatory actions. She is particularly interested in the notion of power, as manifested across the intra/interpersonal, communal, cultural, and structural spheres, as well as the praxis of dialogue, recognition, and solidarity. She has a full-time private practice in Cambridge. 

John Meigs, PsyD, LADC is a licensed clinical psychologist and alcohol and drug counselor. He is an assistant professor at William James College and a teaching associate (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Meigs is also the director of the substance use and addictions emphasis at William James College. He is in his fourth year of psychoanalytic training at BPSI and in his third year of the Community Psychoanalysis Concentration at BPSI. Dr. Meigs has a private practice in Brookline where he primarily sees patients with substance use and other co-occurring disorders. 

Akyla Joseph, LMHC is a licensed mental health clinician and is currently a first-year student in a Counseling and Supervision PhD program and in her third year of the Community Psychoanalysis Concentration at BPSI. Akyla has experience working in inpatient psychiatry, partial hospitalization, college counseling, and a non-profit organization supporting people with experience in commercial sex exploitation. She has also worked in community mental health settings providing trauma-informed in-home therapy to families throughout the greater Boston area. Akyla specializes in working with underserved populations such as 1st and 2nd generation immigrants and the military community.

Zsuzsanna Varhelyi, PhD, MSW was born in Budapest, Hungary, during the communist era, and moved to the US to earn a PhD in History at Columbia University. Since 2001, she has been teaching at Boston University’s Department of Classical Studies, covering Roman history, with a current research focus on selfhood and trauma in the Roman world. She also teaches a very popular undergraduate course called "What is a good life?”. Due to her interests in trauma and the psychic, she completed a MSW with trauma specialization in 2019 and now, as an LCSW, she maintains a small practice working with students facing various challenges through BU’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation. Zsuzsa is in her second year in the Community Psychoanalysis Concentration at BPSI.

Paola M. Contreras, PsyD is a psychoanalyst and psychologist who focuses on the connections of psychoanalysis with the social and community. Her career began with work in communities affected by the Guatemalan Civil War, including training as a psychologist and participation in a Lacanian study group in Guatemala. She continued her training in the U.S., where she is now an Associate Professor at William James College and directs the Human Trafficking Community Research Hub. At BPSI, she co-directs the Community Psychoanalysis Concentration, co-chairs the Community Division, and co-instructs a class on Jean Laplanche’s work. She also has a private practice in Cambridge, MA.

Alistair McKnight, PsyD, LMHC is a psychoanalyst and a faculty member at BPSI and the Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Institute of New England (PCFINE). He is an Editorial Board Member for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Quarterly. At BPSI, he co-instructs a class on Jean Laplanche’s work. He has a private practice in Cambridge, MA. 

Amy Fleischer, LICSW is a clinical social worker who received her certificate in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at BPSI. She now enjoys teaching on the psychotherapy faculty of BPSI and is a Clinical Instructor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. Amy has also been an Associate Professor at Smith College School For Social Work. Amy is the Chair of the Committee on Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Programs for the American Psychoanalytic Association. For the past 7 years she has Co-Chaired the annual Alan Pollock Psychotherapy Conference on The Nature of the Transference at BPSI. She has a private practice in Norwich, Vermont.