Our Mission

Section V, the Section for Applied Clinical Psychoanalysis, was established within the Division of Psychoanalysis (Division 39) of the American Psychological Association to represent and foster diversity and pluralism in psychoanalysis through a varied program of professional activities.

We think that any psychotherapy practice which recognizes the unconscious (that is, meaning and motivation which are outside of awareness), honors the importance of the developmental history of the individual, and makes use of an exploration of the relationship between therapist and patient, is psychoanalytic. However, we also believe that psychoanalytic theory and practice, defined in this way, have a useful role in settings other than the traditional two-person practice of psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychologists work in many settings outside their consulting rooms: schools, hospitals, courtrooms, and community meetings of various kinds. They bring psychoanalytic thought and practice to their professional work in those settings in important and interesting ways.  The Section is dedicated to both studying and enhancing psychoanalytic theory and practice that address this wider field of work. We are also committed to the reciprocal process whereby work in these wider settings may provide new and important insights into our basic understanding of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice.

The timeless image of the Sphinx represents our Section.  The Sphinx is not the one who knows but the one who provides the condition for new knowledge.  This is the spirit of The Sphinx as a site of inquiry, a site where psychoanalytic quests can take place.  Psychoanalysis should be a discipline of inquiry not orthodoxy of belief. Our work, on both the theoretical and the clinical levels, is distinguished by the questions asked more than by the provisional answers found. The Section’s invited panels, essay contests, Facebook page, and this website are informed by this open exchange.

We see psychoanalytically informed practice as a vital protection against the assaults on inner life and individual spirit that have come as a consequence of the industrialization of health care and of psychotherapy in particular.  We believe that the ethical spirit of clinical psychoanalysis can be expressed in, and extended to, a wide variety of settings.

Being a psychoanalyst is less a matter of curriculum vitae and practice setting, than of worldview. It is our mission to defend and to extend this worldview.