Can We Talk?

This weekend will explore the obstacles that stand in our way when we try to talk together about difficult topics. When strong pent-up emotions rise to the surface, whether anger, fear, grief, anxiety or rage, we easily get overheated, defensive or shut down. We turn away, defeated, shamed or vengeful. At this moment in history, it can often seem like we are losing ourselves and our ability to reach one another in meaningful ways, caught in the current of unprocessed individual and global grief. Whether racism, classism, gender, political leanings or moral positions, we can often get mired in miscommunications and retreat to our own stances, unheard and unhearing. This weekend we will focus our attention on opening up the difficult conversations.

Coordinators:  Anne Adelman, Ph.D. and Melanie Hatter

Anne J. Adelman, Ph.D is a clinical psychologist and Supervising and Training analyst at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis, where she is the Dean of Students, and a recipient of that institute’s award for excellence in teaching in 2019. She is also a Teaching Analyst at the Contemporary Freudian Society. As Co-Editor of JAPA Review of Books, she launched a feature column called “Why I Write,” inviting analysts to reflect on the experience of writing. Dr. Adelman is also a co-chair of the New Directions in Writing Program and is co-author and editor of four books, along with several published papers and chapters. Dr. Adelman maintains a private practice in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Melanie S. Hatter is the author of Malawi’s Sisters, which was selected by Edwidge Danticat as the winner of the inaugural Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and was published by Four Way Books in 2019. Her debut novel, The Color of My Soul, won the 2011 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize, and Let No One Weep for Me, Stories of Love and Loss was released in 2015. Melanie began her career as a journalist and has more than 20 years of experience in corporate and nonprofit communications and marketing. She works with N Street Village, the largest provider of services for women experiencing homelessness in Washington, D.C. In addition, she serves on the boards of the Washington Review of Books, the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and Gamma Xi Phi professional arts fraternity.

GUEST FACULTY:

David Cooper, Ph.D. is a past co-chair of New Directions. He is also a past-president of the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis and co-founder and past co-chair of the Center’s Diversities Committee. He is on the faculty of the Washington Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute, and he has a private practice in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Tope Folarin is a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington DC. He serves as Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Lannan Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at Georgetown University. He is the recipient of the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Whiting Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other awards. His reviews, essays and cultural criticism have been featured in The Atlantic, The Baffler, BBC, The Drift, High Country News, Lithub, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Vulture, The Washington Post and elsewhere.Tope serves as a board member of the Avalon Theater in Washington DC, the Vice President of the Board of the Pen/Faulkner Foundation, and as a member of the President’s Council of Pathfinder. He was educated at Morehouse College and the University of Oxford, where he earned two Masters degrees as a Rhodes Scholar. His debut novel, A Particular Kind of Black Man, was published by Simon & Schuster.

Anton Hart, PhD, FABP, FIPA is Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty of the William Alanson White Institute. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Psychology and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He has published articles and book chapters on a variety of subjects including psychoanalytic safety and mutuality, issues of racial, sexual and other diversities, and psychoanalytic pedagogy. He is a member of the group, Black Psychoanalysts Speak and, also, Co-produced and was featured in the documentary film of the same name. He teaches at The New School for Social Research, The Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York Presbyterian Hospital, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies National Training Program, the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia, the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, and the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. He served as Co-Chair of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis. He is completing a book for Routledge entitled, Beyond Oaths or Codes: Toward a Relational Psychoanalytic Ethics. He is in full-time private practice of psychoanalysis, individual and couple psychotherapy, psychotherapy supervision and consultation, and organizational consultation, in New York.

Cheryl Head She/Her. Introvert, solver of puzzles, righter of fictional wrongs. Author of the Charlie Mack Motown Mystery series: Anthony Award Nominee; Lambda Literary Award Finalist; IPPY Silver Medal; Goldie Award; Next Generation Indie Award Finalist. Inductee-Saints & Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame. Recipient-the Alice B Reader’s Appreciation Medal.