2025-2026 program year statement

ANXPRESSIONS is a wordplay that brings together anxiety and depression, not just as opposites, but as dialectically entangled states—each concealing the other within. This group explores the paradoxes at the heart of psychoanalytic thought and practice, where seemingly opposing forces—pain and pleasure, mourning and melancholy, self and other—are deeply interconnected. We invite you into a year of exploration that does not resolve contradictions, but sits with them, plays with them, and reflects through them.

There is a style of analysis that veers into what might be called “gotchanalysis”—where interpretive insight is used less to facilitate understanding and more to catch the patient in a kind of analytic “gotcha.” The therapist might say, “That’s not just an aggressive impulse—that’s clearly tinged with sexual libido. I mean, why do we even say ‘motherf***er,’ after all?” Or perhaps, “That’s not just hate—you actually long for their love.” This kind of interpretation risks oversimplifying the complexity of human emotion and relation. In teaching anxpressions, we must be mindful of the balance: the danger lies not just in saying too much or too little, but in the paradox of saying too little by saying too much. The question becomes: how do we speak just enough to spark the patient’s own analytic process? After all, isn’t the goal to support them in becoming their own analyst?

In one of our gatherings last year, we explored how psychoanalysis has evolved from a one-person psychology, to a one-and-a-half-person psychology, and now to a fully two-person model. Today, we acknowledge that we bring not only our presence but also our unconscious into the analytic space. Our interpretations are not neutral—they’re shaped by our own blind spots, projections, and unconscious histories. But if we accept this, the question becomes: So what? Where do we go from here?

Rather than racing to the “end” of psychoanalysis’ developmental arc, we turn back toward its origins. Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle offers a key: the “beyond” is not ahead of us, but paradoxically already within us. The pleasure principle’s limits are found precisely in the pain we compulsively repeat—the “pleasurably painful,” or the “painfully pleasurable.” Similarly, Freud’s writings on mourning and melancholia point to how the “shadow of the object” is not simply lost—but is cast upon the ego itself. In other words, the other is not only out there—but also within.

This year, ANXPRESSIONS will focus on exploring this “otherness within”: the shadow that is the ego, the unconscious that lives within consciousness, and the absence that is fundamental to presence. We believe the unconscious is not buried or hidden somewhere deep beneath—it is always already here, working in and through our words, thoughts, and acts. It is knowing that we refuse to know—a contradiction at the heart of being itself.

We aim to create space for collective inquiry into how these opposites play out in clinical work, theory, and life—whether in personality, cultural background, belief systems, or analytic technique. Through discussion groups, post-workshop Q&A sessions, and informal mentorships, we’ll engage in introspection through playful projections. This will be a space not just for theoretical deep dives, but for embodiment, dialogue, and shared reflection.

Let’s explore the dialectics of being together—in our ANXPRESSIONS.

Blane Brazier, LPC

President to the Dallas Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology