Northern Rockies Psychoanalytic Institute & Society

What is psychoanalysis?  Invented by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis originally proved curative of certain neuroses that had resisted other forms of treatment.  It continues today, as a mode of treatment for a broad range of disorders, and as a method of inquiry into pathogenically unrecognized – even refused – elements that disrupt cultural and familial life.  It seeks their expression so as to develop capacities that will allow us to locate the censored – that very censored crucial for survival as a global collective on a finite planet.

Northern Rockies Psychoanalytic Institute & Society (NRPI) is nearing the end of its first decade, the only psychoanalytic institute in the United States north of Colorado and between Minneapolis and Seattle.  We formally opened our doors with the aim of training psychoanalysts in a region where very few people even knew what psychoanalysis is, and we wanted to attempt to bring to this beautiful country what is unique and indispensable about both the intellectual discipline and the form of cure that is psychoanalysis.

In our growing pains, we have grappled with the struggle of competing schools of thought within our discipline, finding ourselves distinctly Freudian while also deeply incorporating the theoretical schools of Lacan; Klein; the British Independent Group; American object relations theory, Modern Psychoanalysis; and the contemporary works of Christopher Bollas, Michael Eigen and Jeffrey Eaton.   Although we cannot be said to be integrating Jungian theory, Paul Watsky has lectured here on two occasions.  Other conference lecturers have included Leo Rangell, Paul Geltner, Christopher Bollas, Jeffrey Eaton, Charles Turk, Anthony Molino, and Barton Evans.

We recently have formally instituted our Center for Cultural Critique and Intervention (CCCI), which aims to bring the insights and capacities of a psychoanalytic praxis to the problems of collective life.  To that end, we have begun a uniquely psychoanalytic approach to group disputes, and started an outreach program to the local and regional community to bring the censored – crucial ideas which, to our peril, have no place in the public’s mind – into public discourse.  The outreach includes traditional, formal presentations or lectures and discussion as well as a film discussion and critique program.