SANDOR RADO LECTURE-The Unknown, the Unmet, and the Unlived: Strangers and Strangeness Within Us
presenting
the sixty-sixth annual
SANDOR RADO LECTURE
Salman Akhtar, MD
The Unknown, the Unmet, and the Unlived: Strangers and Strangeness Within Us
and
Presentation of the
George E. Daniels Merit Award
presented by Eric Marcus, MD
to
Ellen Rees, MD
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
8:00 PM
Columbia University Butler Library, Room 203
535 West 114th Street
or via Zoom
This presentation will elucidate the contents of the dynamic unconscious. Starting from Freud’s 1915 triad of (i) the repressed (primarily or defensively), (ii) the primal phantasies, and (iii) the instinctual representatives, through later added unconscious elements of structural model (including the ego-spun fantasies) to the more modern subterranean receptive functions of the mind, the contents of the dynamic unconscious will be termed as THE UKNOWN. To this agreed-upon category, two new groupings shall be added, which will be designated as THE UNMET and THE UNLIVED, respectively. The nature of these will be elucidated, and the subtle technical differences in the handling of these three aspects of the dynamic unconscious will be touched upon.
Salman Akhtar, MD, is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Jefferson Medical College, a psychiatrist at Jefferson University Hospital, and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Salman Akhtar has authored, edited, or co-edited more than 300 publications, including 100 academic books. He received the Sigourney Award in 2012.
An internationally recognized psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, writer, and poet, he authored such notable works as Immigration and Identity (1999), Freud along the Ganges (2005), and Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2009). He has published seven volumes of poetry and serves as the scholar in residence at the InterAct Theatre Company. He maintains a clinical practice in Philadelphia.