Psychoanalysis and Addiction

In this episode, psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels ( Getting Real About Sex Addiction , An Analyst in Training ), talks about a 1990 paper by analyst Emmanuel Ghent about surrender, submission, and masochism, and relates its themes to the theories of Freud, Klein, and Winnicott, plus surrealistic devices in cinema, and humor.  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great liter...

Graeme Daniels, psychoanalyst and author ( Getting Real About Sex Addiction , An Analyst in Training ), discusses the problem of double bind communication, especially within short-term iterations of addiction treatment: the privileging of guilt-inducement interventions over attention to underlying fears, feelings of shame.  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is...

Psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels, lead author of Getting Real About Sex Addiction , describes the history of the disease concept of addiction, originally aimed singularly at alcoholism, and remarks on its positive and negative consequences: namely, its potential to obscure exploration of in-depth and relational meanings within addictive phenomena Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding g...

Graeme Daniels, author of An Analyst in Training , welcomes fellow psychotherapist Mark Lederer as a guest to discuss the emerging role of AI in the practice of psychotherapy. Graeme and Mark discuss psychoanalytic theory, the philosophical implications of using AI in psychotherapy given how it appears to function currently. The discussion poses questions like, would an AI companion call out react...

Author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels continues his reading of his 2019 book, The Psychology of Tommy , about the famous rock opera. This reading covers the mid-section and finale of the piece, explicating Tommy's schizoid and narcissistic rise and fall, his failed efforts at messianism with a drug-addled following, and his dejected yet accepting defeat.  Leadership Lessons From The Great B...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels continues his reading of passages from his 2019 book, The Psychology of Tommy . In this installment, passages reflect upon the pivotal trauma within the opera's plot, then the adaptive (and not) unfolding of Tommy's affliction via psychosomatic or conversion symptoms, as well as the plainer expression of play. Also, click here to read a review of G...

In this 3rd episode about Tommy the rock opera, author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels reads from his book, The Psychology of Tommy , covering passages that describe the pivotal plot point of the opera's opening act, which relates themes of insecure narratives, implicit (or unconscious) memory, and the trauma of silenced witnessing As a bonus, check out this review of Graeme's book from...

In this episode, author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels reads from his 2019 book, The Psychology of Tommy , about the famous 1969 rock opera, providing a social surround of its era, including the backdrop of post-WWII Britain, plus of an overview of relevant attachment theory that have informed interpretations of Tommy .  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is b...

In this episode, Graeme Daniels, author and psychoanalyst, marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of an academic paper about the rock opera Tommy, by reading the first chapter from his book The Psychology of Tommy , published in 2019.  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is better than trying to read and understand (yet)... Listen on: Apple Podcasts  ...

Author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels ( An Analyst in Training: Psychoanalytic Candidacy Amid Covid and Other Distractions ), goes beyond the basics in this rumination upon the concept of informed consent: a legal and ethical premise which decrees that the patient has the right to know what the treatment is such that they can consent to it. But what actually can be shared? Leadership Lessons Fro...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels discusses his latest book, An Analyst in Training: Psychoanalytic Candidacy Amid Covid and Other Distractions , comparing its themes to those embedded in cherished novels from the 20th century: Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , and Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature i...

In this episode, author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels reflects on his recent trip to Europe, in which he traveled safely yet not without disruption, and parlays observations into a discussion of Freudian and Lacanian ideas: those of repetition compulsion, "fort-da", the surprise of the "real", and the jouissance within symptoms.  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Under...

Author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels welcomes guest Eric Miller to talk about psychoanalytic training amid the Covid crisis, controversies relating to DEI, and the dawning of the AI revolution, as written about in Graeme's latest book, An Analyst in Training , published by Bloomsbury.  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is better than trying to read and...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels reflects on his appearance at this year's American Psychoanalytic Association (Apsa) national meeting in San Francisco: his receiving the 2026 Lee Jaffe award for his paper, "Treatment of a recovering alcoholic with substitute addictions", and his presentation of that paper alongside discussant Dr. Lance Dodes Leadership Lessons From The Great...

Author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels talks in this episode about program accreditation, training and educational standards in the field of professional psychology, the publishing of ideas--the fraught, much-marketed idea of "expertise"--and gives consumer tips on what to look for seeking mental health treatment Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels profiles a 2019 analytic paper by Graeme Taylor entitled "Creativity and Perversion: waiting for the muse", about a man beset with addictive paraphilia and a thwarting of creative impulse. Daniels observes how such an insight-oriented, in-depth treatment such as this would struggle to co-exist alongside the zeitgeist of infidelity treatment models...

In this episode, Graeme Daniels, author and psychoanalyst, discusses Covid and DEI impacts on psychoanalytic training, reading passages from his book, An Analyst in Training , published this year by Bloomsbury. Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is better than trying to read and understand (yet)... Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

In this episode, author and psychoanalyst Graeme Daniels discusses issues relating to confidentiality, diagnosis, assessment of attachment and personality deficits in the context of addiction or infidelity treatment, plus how so-called team approaches can mismanage confidentiality boundaries to confound treatment goals Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is bette...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels continues his rumination on adolescence. In this episode, he reads passages from his book, An Analyst in Training , published this year by Bloomsbury, and from the novel, Catcher in the Rye , whose protagonist, Holden Caulfield, features as part of a motif in Graeme's non-fiction. Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is...

In this episode, Graeme Daniels, author and psychoanalyst, ruminates on working with adolescents, being an adolescent, and just plain thinking about adolescence through the prisms of art and psychoanalysis: conjuring rock and roll, D.W. Winnicott, Shakespeare, surfing on an open sea, or else being disrupted by the sounds of grinding lead.  Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding grea...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme discusses 3 types of guilt: conscious guilt, as it is commonly invoked in conventional social circles as well as standard addiction treatment models; unconscious guilt, based on Freudian theory, and defensive use of guilt against underlying feelings of shame. Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is better than trying to read and und...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels welcomes two guests, colleagues Joe Farley and Lara Weyland, to discuss psychoanalytic training both before and after the Covid crisis: each discusses personal decisions, the pathways from early training experiences to the discovery of what draws therapists into in-depth psychoanalysis Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels invokes 1984 , Jean Lamarck, Marshall McLuhan, D.W. Winnicott, among others, in this rumination upon the technological enhancement of/intrusion upon domestic life. Comments congeal upon a review of the book, Mother Media: hot and cold parenting in the 20th century , by Hannah Zeavin. Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is b...

Psychoanalyst and author Graeme Daniels reads from and comment upon his award-winning paper, "Treatment of a Recovering Alcoholic with Substitute Addictions" Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is better than trying to read and understand (yet)... Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Graeme Daniels, psychoanalyst and author, discusses his paper entitled "Treatment of a Recovering Alcoholic with Substitute Addictions", which won the 2025 Lee Jaffe prize as awarded by the American Psychoanalytic Association Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Understanding great literature is better than trying to read and understand (yet)... Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotif...