New Books in Psychoanalysis

Tracy Morgan is a psychoanalyst in private practice in NYC seeing individuals, couples and groups. She is a member of the faculty at CMPS, a founding member of Das Unbehagen and the founding editor of the award winning podcast New Books in Psychoanalysis.

She has published on a variety of subjects ranging from Gay and African American history, social movement theory, and psychoanalysis. Her most recent publication, Must We Drown in the Wake? Notes on Addressing Racism at Psychoanalytic Institutes was recently published in the journal Group. And the essay was nominated for a Gradiva Award for best article in the field in 2025.

Ashis Roy, PhD, is a psychoanalyst and scholar affiliated with the Indian Psychoanalytical Society (Kolkata) and the International Psychoanalytical Association (London). His clinical practice serves adults, young adults, and couples, informed by over a decade of pedagogical and institutional leadership. Previously, as a faculty member at the Centre of Psychotherapy and Clinical Research, Ambedkar University, Dr. Roy was instrumental in institutional development and the clinical training of psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Currently, he serves on the faculty of the China-American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA). His research resides at the intersection of clinical praxis and cultural psychoanalysis, with a specialized focus on the application of psychoanalytic frameworks to Asian and South Asian sociocultural contexts. An active contributor to international scholarly dialogue, he hosts psychoanalytic segments for the New Books Network. Dr. Roy is the author of the book Intimacy in Alienation: A Psychoanalytic Study of Hindu-Muslim Relationships (Yoda Press, 2024), which examines the psychodynamic complexities of inter-communal intimacy.
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When it comes to love why do we find things so difficult? Drawing on over forty years of candid and surprising conversations with his patients, Stephen Grosz asks, what gets in the way of our falling in love? And what must we do to stay there?In the intimate space of the consulting room, we meet the woman who can't post her wedding invitations but then, decades later, can't decide whether to get divorced; the friendship group that explodes when an adulterous affair begins; and the man whose partner's death is almost too much to bear.As an analyst, Grosz's unerring ability is to locate what ails the heartsick. As a writer, he elegantly shows how we can deploy the agonies of love as tools for understanding.The labour of love is the work of a lifetime but in finally learning to see ourselves and our world clearly, we find we are truly ready to love one another.

Stephen Grosz is a practicing psychoanalyst - he has worked with patients for more than forty years. Born in America, he was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Oxford University, and now lives in London. His Number One Sunday Times bestseller, The Examined Life, has been translated into more than thirty languages.

Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at [email protected]. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).
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In this episode of the New Books Network, I sat down with the contributors of Psychoanalytic Explorations into the Primal Relationship in Japan and India (Routledge, 2025) to discuss the profound psychic textures of the East.

Moving away from the traditional Eurocentric focus on the Oedipal complex, this volume investigates the "primal relationship"—the foundational bond between mother and infant—and how it is uniquely structured within the cultural contexts of Japan and India. The authors challenge the universality of Western clinical models, proposing instead that the maternal matrix in these societies offers a different roadmap for understanding the self, intimacy, and dependency.

Osamu Kitayama is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Japan Psychoanalytic Society, Professor Emeritus at Kyushu University, and President of Hakuoh University. He served as President of the Japan Psychoanalytic Society from 2016–2019 and con tinues to work with patients in private practice. He has authored numerous articles on culturally oriented psychoanalysis and books.Jhuma Basak is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Indian Psychoanalytical Society. She has published on culture and gender. Over the past 20 years, she has pre sented at IPA Congresses along with the first Keynote from Asia-Pacific, 4th IPA-region at the 53rd IPA Congress (International Journal of Psychoanalysis). A past Co-chair of COWAP Asia-Pacific, she co-edited Psychoanalytic and Socio-Cultural Perspectives on Women in India: Violence, Safety and Survival (2021).Ashis Roy, PhD, is a psychoanalyst (IPS Kolkata/IPA London) and faculty member at the China-American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA). With an extensive background in clinical training and institutional building at Ambedkar University Delhi, his work emphasizes the dialogue between clinical practice and Asian cultural dynamics. He is a host for the New Books Network and the author of the recently released book, Intimate Hindu-Muslim Relationships: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Self and the Other (2024).
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Echoes of Trauma: Meaning and Identity in Psychoanalysis (American Psychological Association, 2025) intricately weaves psychoanalytic and developmental theory to explain how we become who we are, and how we might grow beyond the places we get stuck.In recent decades psychological research and practice has focused heavily on cognitive domains, with far less attention paid to the nonverbal systems through which people register essential meanings. This has led many clinicians to seek disembodied and often mechanistic solutions to clients’ problems. But these approaches fail to recognize hidden sources of trauma, which can be difficult to access through conscious reflection. As the source of a trauma recedes further into the past and remains unexplored and unmourned, the effect can become a lingering adversity that masquerades as destiny―and this worldview can even be passed along through subsequent generations.In this volume, Marilyn Charles argues for a more embodied, less mechanistic view of human development. To understand a client’s problem at a particular moment in time, we must understand the history that has given rise to it, some of which the client may be able to tell us directly, but some that we must intuit from signs and symptoms because not all history can be recalled consciously. After drawing on psychoanalytic and developmental theory to ground her model, Charles uses clinical vignettes and comparisons with her own life to illustrate how we might facilitate our clients’ development.Development is never final. It is an ongoing, lifelong process that can get off-track. Using the theory and techniques in this book, therapists can help clients find and integrate the missing pieces of their life story.

Your host for this episode, Ben Greenberg, PsyD is a psychoanalytic psychologist and founding director of both the Center for Dynamic Practice (CFDP) in Santa Fe, NM and Southwestern Alliance for Psychoanalytic Psychology (SWAPP). A disabled former symphony French hornist and musical pedagogue, Ben has published several scientific papers among other written media, and is currently working on several manuscripts.
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Why do certain women become icons of evil? Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Joanna Bourke offers the first comparative, non-sensationalist account of five of the most reviled women in the modern Anglophone world: Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Aileen Wuornos, Karla Homolka and Karla Faye Tucker. It examines their lives, crimes and cultural reception in the UK, USA and Canada, asking how violence committed by women is understood, judged and remembered. Going beyond moral outrage or tabloid headlines, the book explores how concepts of 'evil' are shaped by history, belief systems and social context. Through historical and ethical reflections, it offers a deeper, more critical engagement with female violence, and considers how society should respond to those who commit acts of unimaginable harm.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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