36: Hate, Help, and Housing: Psychoanalysis and Social Work feat. Brian Ngo-Smith

Ordinary Unhappiness

Abby and Patrick welcome psychoanalyst and clinical social worker Brian Ngo-Smith, President of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW). Focusing on his paper “This Couch Has Bed Bugs: On the Homelessness of Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalysis of Homelessness,” they talk about psychotherapy with unhoused clients and tensions between the priorities of psychoanalysis versus social work, the desire to help, and our society’s hatred of dependence. Turning to D.W. Winnicott’s ideas about hate in countertransference, they explore how unacknowledged hatred by caregivers for their patients manifests not only interpersonally but also in institutional behaviors and broader social policy. They also discuss Brian’s recent work on the eros of care, including a paper entitled “Porosity and Preoccupation: Queer Thoughts on Psychoanalytic Care,” which he will deliver as the Gertrude and Ernst Ticho Memorial Lecture at the National Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in New York this February.
Articles discussed include:
D.W. Winnicott’s classic essay, “Hate in the Counter-Transference,” available here: Thttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3330380/pdf/348.pdf
Brian Ngo-Smith, “This Couch Has Bed Bugs: On the Homelessness of Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalysis of Homelessness,” Clinical Social Work Journal 46:1, March 2018.
Brian Ngo-Smith, “Porosity and Preoccupation: Queer Thoughts on Psychoanalytic Care,” to be delivered at the 2024 National Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in New York on February 10th from 2-4pm.
Brian’s website is here: www.ngosmiththerapy.com
Have you noticed that Freud is back? Got questions about psychoanalysis? Or maybe you’ve traversed the fantasy and lived to tell the tale? Leave us a voicemail! 484 775-0107
A podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. New episodes on Saturdays. Follow us on social media:
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Twitter: @UnhappinessPod
Instagram: @OrdinaryUnhappiness
Patreon: patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness
Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/2MIIYnbyLqriV3vrpUTxxO
Provided by Fruits Music