This volume brings psychoanalytic thinking and practice directly into the social forces that shape our lives, covering intergenerational trauma, cultural difference, divisive ideologies, environmental degradation, and entrenched social hierarchies.

Through clinical case studies from leading thinkers in the field, the contributors each show how analysts work in social and collective spaces to dissolve dissociative barriers, address relational ruptures, and cross-translate across polarizing tensions of difference. Enlisting capacities for collaborative meaning-making and interpersonal recognition, and drawing on empathy, imagination, and emotional expansion, the authors demonstrate how psychoanalytic practice can foster healing in communities navigating complex social and political challenges.

Essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and mental health professionals, this volume also guides students and scholars in applying psychoanalytic presence to urgent contemporary challenges, including social fragmentation, political polarization, and ecological crisis.