co-sponsored by: The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute
French Psychoanalysis
Presenter: Rachel Boué-Widawsky, PhD
Interviewed by: Suzanne Rosenfeld, MD
Thursday, October 23, 2025, at 7:00 – 9:00 PM Central time
In person at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute,
8 S. Michigan Ave./7th Floor
or by Zoom
Rachel Boué-Widawsky, PhD, is a certified psychoanalyst in private practice in New York. She is the Director of Respecialization Program and Faculty at IPTAR (Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research). Former University Professor of Literature, she is a Kristeva scholar. She is the Editor of the Foreign Books Reviews of JAPA (Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association) and Associate Editor of IJP (International Journal of Psychoanalysis). Author of The “Here and Now” of French Psychoanalysis: Conversations with Contemporary Psychoanalysts, Routledge (2024), she has also published numerous articles on French psychoanalysis. Her most recent contributions are “Perversion, Sublimation and Ethic” The American Imago (2024), “Maternal Eroticism or the Necessary Risk of Madness”, (2020) in Eroticism, Developmental, Cultural and Clinical realms, edited by S.Akhtar, “Maternal Eroticism and the Journey of a Concept in Julia Kristeva ’s work”, published in The Philosophy of Julia Kristeva, in the collection of The Library of the Living Philosopher (2020). She is also the author of several books in French on literary criticism.
Suzanne Rosenfeld MD is a graduate of Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University and of the University of Chicago Hospitals in Psychiatry. She teaches psychoanalytic candidates as a graduate and faculty member at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute and visiting faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. In addition to teaching psychoanalytical assessment and a clinical seminar on technique, her major interest has always been the practice of clinical psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychosomatics. Her parallel interests in continental psychoanalysis, French culture/language, interpretation of contemporary European cinema and the visual arts, are connected to her clinical and theoretical thinking and practice.
She was awarded a talent and competent visa for ten years by the French government for a project contributing to the dissemination of Anglophone psychoanalytic theory in France and French analytical ideas in N America. She is a longtime member of an Anglophone study group in the Paris Psychoanalytical Society with whom she has presented internationally. In recent years, she was a reviewer for the IJP on French psychosomatics and telephone psychoanalysis.
Description:
The Here and Now of French Psychoanalysis (2024), by Rachel Boué-Widawsky, provides an overview of the contemporary psychoanalytic landscape in France. Rachel Boué-Widawsky will discuss with Suzanne Rosenfeld the tenets of French psychoanalysis and its use of the Freudian legacy. These two analysts will replicate the conversational format of the book which is a series of interviews with 17 French analysts. In dialogue Boué-Widawsky and Rosenfeld will focus on some of the book's themes namely "What is contemporary French analysis?" and its distinctiveness; and, how do French analysts address contemporary social and cultural issues in their thinking and practice (identity, gender, racial, even reproductive issues and the impact of the pandemic for example). In this brief introduction to Boué-Widaswky's book the audience will have a chance to appreciate a little "the panorama of French voices on the French psychoanalytic scene today," beyond that of the familiar Lacan and Laplanche.
Approximate breakdown of time:
First Hour: presentation
Second Hour: discussion with audience
Learning Objectives
After attending this session, participants should be able to:
- Participants will be able to name two defining features of contemporary French analysis.
- Participants will be able to explain some differences and similarities of French analysis with aspects of American psychoanalysis.
- Participants will be able to describe the connection of the tenets of French psychoanalysis to Freudian constructs.
Continuing Education Credits are offered exclusively to Society members in all membership categories and those intending to join.
The presenters, Rachel Boué-Widawsky, PhD and Suzanne Rosenfeld, MD, and the organizer, Lisa Karaitis, PsyD, have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to report.
Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program.
ACCME Accreditation Statement: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA) and the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
AMA Credit Designation Statement: The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Disclosure Statement: The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME's identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.
Accreditation Information for Professionals Other Than Physicians. The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content, in relation to accreditation for CE credits for non-physicians. CPI is licensed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to sponsor continuing education credits for (license numbers in parentheses): Social Workers (159.000122), Professional Counselors (197.000202), Marriage and Family Therapy Therapists (168.00204), and Clinical Psychologists (268.000091).
Eligible professionals will receive 2.0 continuing education credits for attending the entire program. To receive these credits an evaluation form must be completed online. Learners must claim the amount of time spent in the educational activity and that will be the amount of credit they will earn.
