Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series
FREE TO ALL
Elizabeth Danto, PhD
The Urge Toward Unity: On the Origins of Community Psychoanalysis
Friday October 9, 2026
7-9pm (CST)
ZOOM
About the Presentation: Sigmund Freud’s 1918 writing on poor people’s right to equitable psychoanalytic treatment – emphasizing that “such treatment shall be free” – present a different and often neglected picture of the history of psychoanalytic theory .
This illustrated account of the free psychoanalytic clinics draws on archival and oral history research to show that psychoanalysis was a modernist movement, as progressive as the era’s music and architecture. Once Freud outlined the social obligations of psychoanalysis, free clinics emerged throughout Europe as practical applications of an intellectual tradition of human liberation. The community clinics pioneered treatment and training methodologies still used - and still debated – today. These innovations stemmed from a more political, less well-known Freud whose engagement with Social Democracy places psychoanalysis within the history of social reform.
Elizabeth Ann Danto, PhD, is professor of social welfare Emeritus, Hunter College of City University of New York. She is an international lecturer, curator, researcher and writer. In addition to her prize-winning book, “Freud’s Free Clinics – Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918-1938” (Columbia University Press 2005), Dr. Danto’s other books include “Historical Research (Oxford University Press 2008), “Freud/Tiffany” (Routledge 2017), a collection of essays and archival photographs of Anna Freud and her partner, Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, and “Theory Has Its Pleasures - the Work of Anna Freud" (Editora Perspectiva 2024). She curated the Freud Museum London’s exhibit on the Hietzing School and, for the Freud Centennial in Budapest, the short film titled “Anna Freud – The ‘Conscience of Society.” With these books and numerous articles, Dr. Danto’s work has become a standard reference in psychology, clinical social work, progressive psychoanalysis and the social history of mental health services.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
1. To be familiar with Sigmund Freud’s 1918 speech on the “conscience of society” (see readings) and able to communicate Freud’s intention to others;
2. To apply lessons learned from the early history of psychoanalysis to today’s practice in community psychoanalysis.
This is an All Level Presentation
Fees
Free
Continuing Education
NO CEU credits
References/Suggested Readings
Sigmund Freud (1918/19) “Lines of Advance in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy” in J. Strachey (ed. and trans.) The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 17:167), The Hogarth Press
Maggie Doherty (April 2025) “The Social Turn in Psychoanalysis” Harper’s
Presented by
The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis & The Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis