Institute Symposium – When the Analytic Field Becomes a Minefield: Analyzing in the Post-9/11 Era

 Institute Symposium
Wednesday October 28th, 2026 1pm to 2:14pm CT

When the Analytic Field Becomes a Minefield: Analyzing in the Post-9/11 Era
Aisha Abbasi, MD

The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 75(1), 108–120

How do world events shape what happens between analyst and patient? In this symposium, Dr. Aisha Abbasi will discuss her paper on practicing psychoanalysis in the years after 9/11, and on how differences in identity, culture, and religion can come to the surface in treatment during times of fear and division.

Drawing on her clinical experience, Dr. Abbasi will explore what these moments ask of the analyst, and why honest self‑reflection is essential to helping patients reach parts of themselves they might otherwise keep hidden.

Aisha Abbasi is a dedicated psychoanalyst whose clinical practice spans both in-person and remote work across Oregon (Portland), California, Washington, New York, Michigan, and Florida. She was educated as an analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute (MPI), where she served as a Training and Supervising Analyst until 2023.  She’s a Geographic Rule Training and Supervising Analyst at the Florida Psychoanalytic Center (FPC) and a member of its National Faculty. She’s also a Supervising Analyst and a Consultant for the Developmental Pathways Program at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (SPSI), and a Consulting Supervisor at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute ( BPSI). 

Dr. Abbasi is the Vice -President of the Board of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly,  a member of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Center,  and the Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society (TBPS), and a co-facilitator role for the Group for Analysts of South Asian Origin ( ASAO). 

The author of The Rupture of Serenity: External Intrusions and Psychoanalytic Technique and co-editor of Privacy: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms, Dr. Abbasi has served on the editorial boards of several psychoanalytic journals. She’s also a published poet in her native language Urdu, and a number of her poems have been translated into English.

Her recent publications include a paper titled Reflections on Three Decades of being a South-Asian American Analyst (published in JAPA in late 2025) and a book chapter “Homesickness, Nostalgia, and the Development of a Stable Internalized Home” which was published in the book Attics and Basements: The Evocative, Expressive and Embracing Functions of Homes and Other Human Dwellings (Karnac, 2026). 

Educational Objectives:

1. Explain how the analyst’s honest self‑reflection about their own reactions to external events can deepen the analytic work and help patients access concealed feelings.
2. Describe how external events such as terrorist attacks and political conflict can intensify patients’ transference reactions to an analyst’s ethnic, religious, or cultural identity.

The presenter has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to report.