A Hearing Voices Network (HVN) inspired group - incorporating a fundamental belief that there are many ways to understand the experience of hearing voices and other unusual or extreme states.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Coming into contact with psychiatric systems can be an experience that leads to stigma and isolation. But what are commonly perceived as symptoms can be understood as forms of knowledge. This is a group to cultivate that knowledge—to discuss values and beliefs, fear and paranoia, seeing and hearing and noticing things that others do not—and to talk about what has happened, what can happen after, and anything else.

In-person on Monday, from 7:15pm - 9:00pm.

A Hearing Voices Network (HVN) inspired group - incorporating a fundamental belief that there are many ways to understand the experience of hearing voices and other unusual or extreme states.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Coming into contact with psychiatric systems can be an experience that leads to stigma and isolation. But what are commonly perceived as symptoms can be understood as forms of knowledge. This is a group to cultivate that knowledge—to discuss values and beliefs, fear and paranoia, seeing and hearing and noticing things that others do not—and to talk about what has happened, what can happen after, and anything else.

In-person on Monday, from 7:15pm - 9:00pm.

If you’re new to this space, please sign up here! Workers in the institutions of community mental health are especially invited, but all are welcome.

The Working Group on Community Mental Health has been meeting at the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis each month since October 2024 as a place for community mental health workers to reflect on our experience. We analyze features of our own workplaces and features of the system in which we work, for the purposes of doing better work and imagining a better system. We come together with a shared belief that the community mental health system is both critically important and pathologically dysfunctional. Under the current system both workers and patients suffer — frequently in interrelated ways. One of the important sources of dysfunction that affects workers and patients is the fractured nature of the system, a product of many historical forces including austerity and privatization. For that reason and others, our group consists of supportive housing workers, case managers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, peer counselors, art therapists, shelter workers, social practitioners that work for nonprofit day programs, housing programs, public and private hospitals, EMS, street outreach teams, mobile crisis teams, LGBTQ clinics, nonprofit and city-run shelters, FQHCs, ACT and IMT teams, settlement houses and early childhood education programs. We welcome anyone whose work is related to the systems set up to help, support or manage people living with serious mental illnesses.

Sometimes we read and discuss the readings, sometimes people bring their own institutional case studies for group analysis, sometimes we play a “game” or otherwise simulate or investigate how our specific institutions have the same problems, have opposite problems, have related problems, share problems, pass problems around and around in a circle, how they make problems for each other or become each other’s  problems.

The group is facilitated by Chris Landry, Chloe Murtagh and Jesse Newberg. The group typically meets on the last Wednesday of the month at 6:30pm.

A Hearing Voices Network (HVN) inspired group - incorporating a fundamental belief that there are many ways to understand the experience of hearing voices and other unusual or extreme states.

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Coming into contact with psychiatric systems can be an experience that leads to stigma and isolation. But what are commonly perceived as symptoms can be understood as forms of knowledge. This is a group to cultivate that knowledge—to discuss values and beliefs, fear and paranoia, seeing and hearing and noticing things that others do not—and to talk about what has happened, what can happen after, and anything else.

In-person on Monday, from 7:15pm - 9:00pm.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
September 15 — October 6, 2026 (4 consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality places sexuality at the heart of psychic development. Insisting on a sexual drive with a perverse core, Freud’s theory affirmed the existence of sexuality in children while rejecting its ostensible foundations in heteronormative love and biological reproduction. First published in 1905, the Three Essays underwent repeated revisions, as Freud added and rewrote full paragraphs to share new findings and reply to critics (who found many of his ideas, in particular that of infantile sexuality, ludicrous). Was it the unruly nature of sexuality itself that led Freud to return compulsively to Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality? Did he know that psychoanalysis, the field he founded, would never stop wrestling with his ideas about the centrality of sex and sexuality to human behavior?

In this course, we will read Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in an attempt to make sense of both the text itself and the very idea of sexuality as a force that is both constructive and destructive. Sense may fail us, but we will learn, through close readings and an attention to contradictions, about the Oedipus Complex, the anal and oral developmental stages, universal bisexuality, sadism, masochism, and perversion. We will examine Freud’s views on female sexuality and homosexuality, engaging major critiques by feminist and gender theorists. Finally, we will distinguish between sex and sexuality and ask how Freud’s ideas may throw light on contemporary debates on trans desire, trad wives, and gender neutral bathrooms.

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
September 15 — October 6, 2026 (4 consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality places sexuality at the heart of psychic development. Insisting on a sexual drive with a perverse core, Freud’s theory affirmed the existence of sexuality in children while rejecting its ostensible foundations in heteronormative love and biological reproduction. First published in 1905, the Three Essays underwent repeated revisions, as Freud added and rewrote full paragraphs to share new findings and reply to critics (who found many of his ideas, in particular that of infantile sexuality, ludicrous). Was it the unruly nature of sexuality itself that led Freud to return compulsively to Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality? Did he know that psychoanalysis, the field he founded, would never stop wrestling with his ideas about the centrality of sex and sexuality to human behavior?

In this course, we will read Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in an attempt to make sense of both the text itself and the very idea of sexuality as a force that is both constructive and destructive. Sense may fail us, but we will learn, through close readings and an attention to contradictions, about the Oedipus Complex, the anal and oral developmental stages, universal bisexuality, sadism, masochism, and perversion. We will examine Freud’s views on female sexuality and homosexuality, engaging major critiques by feminist and gender theorists. Finally, we will distinguish between sex and sexuality and ask how Freud’s ideas may throw light on contemporary debates on trans desire, trad wives, and gender neutral bathrooms.

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
September 15 — October 6, 2026 (4 consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality places sexuality at the heart of psychic development. Insisting on a sexual drive with a perverse core, Freud’s theory affirmed the existence of sexuality in children while rejecting its ostensible foundations in heteronormative love and biological reproduction. First published in 1905, the Three Essays underwent repeated revisions, as Freud added and rewrote full paragraphs to share new findings and reply to critics (who found many of his ideas, in particular that of infantile sexuality, ludicrous). Was it the unruly nature of sexuality itself that led Freud to return compulsively to Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality? Did he know that psychoanalysis, the field he founded, would never stop wrestling with his ideas about the centrality of sex and sexuality to human behavior?

In this course, we will read Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in an attempt to make sense of both the text itself and the very idea of sexuality as a force that is both constructive and destructive. Sense may fail us, but we will learn, through close readings and an attention to contradictions, about the Oedipus Complex, the anal and oral developmental stages, universal bisexuality, sadism, masochism, and perversion. We will examine Freud’s views on female sexuality and homosexuality, engaging major critiques by feminist and gender theorists. Finally, we will distinguish between sex and sexuality and ask how Freud’s ideas may throw light on contemporary debates on trans desire, trad wives, and gender neutral bathrooms.

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

If you’re new to this space, please sign up here! Workers in the institutions of community mental health are especially invited, but all are welcome.

The Working Group on Community Mental Health has been meeting at the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis each month since October 2024 as a place for community mental health workers to reflect on our experience. We analyze features of our own workplaces and features of the system in which we work, for the purposes of doing better work and imagining a better system. We come together with a shared belief that the community mental health system is both critically important and pathologically dysfunctional. Under the current system both workers and patients suffer — frequently in interrelated ways. One of the important sources of dysfunction that affects workers and patients is the fractured nature of the system, a product of many historical forces including austerity and privatization. For that reason and others, our group consists of supportive housing workers, case managers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, peer counselors, art therapists, shelter workers, social practitioners that work for nonprofit day programs, housing programs, public and private hospitals, EMS, street outreach teams, mobile crisis teams, LGBTQ clinics, nonprofit and city-run shelters, FQHCs, ACT and IMT teams, settlement houses and early childhood education programs. We welcome anyone whose work is related to the systems set up to help, support or manage people living with serious mental illnesses.

Sometimes we read and discuss the readings, sometimes people bring their own institutional case studies for group analysis, sometimes we play a “game” or otherwise simulate or investigate how our specific institutions have the same problems, have opposite problems, have related problems, share problems, pass problems around and around in a circle, how they make problems for each other or become each other’s  problems.

The group is facilitated by Chris Landry, Chloe Murtagh and Jesse Newberg. The group typically meets on the last Wednesday of the month at 6:30pm.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
September 15 — October 6, 2026 (4 consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality places sexuality at the heart of psychic development. Insisting on a sexual drive with a perverse core, Freud’s theory affirmed the existence of sexuality in children while rejecting its ostensible foundations in heteronormative love and biological reproduction. First published in 1905, the Three Essays underwent repeated revisions, as Freud added and rewrote full paragraphs to share new findings and reply to critics (who found many of his ideas, in particular that of infantile sexuality, ludicrous). Was it the unruly nature of sexuality itself that led Freud to return compulsively to Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality? Did he know that psychoanalysis, the field he founded, would never stop wrestling with his ideas about the centrality of sex and sexuality to human behavior?

In this course, we will read Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in an attempt to make sense of both the text itself and the very idea of sexuality as a force that is both constructive and destructive. Sense may fail us, but we will learn, through close readings and an attention to contradictions, about the Oedipus Complex, the anal and oral developmental stages, universal bisexuality, sadism, masochism, and perversion. We will examine Freud’s views on female sexuality and homosexuality, engaging major critiques by feminist and gender theorists. Finally, we will distinguish between sex and sexuality and ask how Freud’s ideas may throw light on contemporary debates on trans desire, trad wives, and gender neutral bathrooms.

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
November 17 — December 15, 2026 (4 non-consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

What does it mean to describe one’s drive to write as a lifelong struggle against loneliness and forgetfulness? Annie Ernaux, whose “courage and clinical acuity” in writing earned her the Nobel prize in 2022, takes the matter of her own working-class milieu as the stuff of literature: her factory worker parents, their lives on either side of WWII, her personal experience of illegal abortion, the ungovernable vicissitudes of sexual desire, illicit affairs, marriage, and divorce. Setting herself apart from earlier writers with comparable drives yet very different class affiliations—Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf—Ernaux’s perspicacious voice proceeds from within a specific gendered and classed experience, one that necessarily complicates the literary first-person and consequently makes, for Ernaux, writing a profoundly political activity. How can we read Ernaux’s singular body of work with and apart from the writers who inspired it—Proust, Woolf, Roland Barthes—and as itself an inspiration to the burgeoning genre of contemporary autofiction?

In this course, we will read widely across Ernaux’s work—including A Man’s Place, A Woman’s Story, Shame, Happening, and The Young Man—in order to ask, both broadly and in textual detail: What can we make of the “clinical acuity” attributed to her style? How does her writing seek to translate affect into language? What, if any, is the relationship between gender and genre (in French, the same word)? How does widespread acclaim contribute to the canonization of working-class and feminine experience—and to what end? Does Ernaux’s writing live up to her own claim that “when the unspeakable is brought to light, it’s political”?

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
November 17 — December 15, 2026 (4 non-consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

What does it mean to describe one’s drive to write as a lifelong struggle against loneliness and forgetfulness? Annie Ernaux, whose “courage and clinical acuity” in writing earned her the Nobel prize in 2022, takes the matter of her own working-class milieu as the stuff of literature: her factory worker parents, their lives on either side of WWII, her personal experience of illegal abortion, the ungovernable vicissitudes of sexual desire, illicit affairs, marriage, and divorce. Setting herself apart from earlier writers with comparable drives yet very different class affiliations—Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf—Ernaux’s perspicacious voice proceeds from within a specific gendered and classed experience, one that necessarily complicates the literary first-person and consequently makes, for Ernaux, writing a profoundly political activity. How can we read Ernaux’s singular body of work with and apart from the writers who inspired it—Proust, Woolf, Roland Barthes—and as itself an inspiration to the burgeoning genre of contemporary autofiction?

In this course, we will read widely across Ernaux’s work—including A Man’s Place, A Woman’s Story, Shame, Happening, and The Young Man—in order to ask, both broadly and in textual detail: What can we make of the “clinical acuity” attributed to her style? How does her writing seek to translate affect into language? What, if any, is the relationship between gender and genre (in French, the same word)? How does widespread acclaim contribute to the canonization of working-class and feminine experience—and to what end? Does Ernaux’s writing live up to her own claim that “when the unspeakable is brought to light, it’s political”?

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
November 17 — December 15, 2026 (4 non-consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

What does it mean to describe one’s drive to write as a lifelong struggle against loneliness and forgetfulness? Annie Ernaux, whose “courage and clinical acuity” in writing earned her the Nobel prize in 2022, takes the matter of her own working-class milieu as the stuff of literature: her factory worker parents, their lives on either side of WWII, her personal experience of illegal abortion, the ungovernable vicissitudes of sexual desire, illicit affairs, marriage, and divorce. Setting herself apart from earlier writers with comparable drives yet very different class affiliations—Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf—Ernaux’s perspicacious voice proceeds from within a specific gendered and classed experience, one that necessarily complicates the literary first-person and consequently makes, for Ernaux, writing a profoundly political activity. How can we read Ernaux’s singular body of work with and apart from the writers who inspired it—Proust, Woolf, Roland Barthes—and as itself an inspiration to the burgeoning genre of contemporary autofiction?

In this course, we will read widely across Ernaux’s work—including A Man’s Place, A Woman’s Story, Shame, Happening, and The Young Man—in order to ask, both broadly and in textual detail: What can we make of the “clinical acuity” attributed to her style? How does her writing seek to translate affect into language? What, if any, is the relationship between gender and genre (in French, the same word)? How does widespread acclaim contribute to the canonization of working-class and feminine experience—and to what end? Does Ernaux’s writing live up to her own claim that “when the unspeakable is brought to light, it’s political”?

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.

Enroll here!

Course Schedule
November 17 — December 15, 2026 (4 non-consecutive weeks)
Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Instructor: Danielle Drori

What does it mean to describe one’s drive to write as a lifelong struggle against loneliness and forgetfulness? Annie Ernaux, whose “courage and clinical acuity” in writing earned her the Nobel prize in 2022, takes the matter of her own working-class milieu as the stuff of literature: her factory worker parents, their lives on either side of WWII, her personal experience of illegal abortion, the ungovernable vicissitudes of sexual desire, illicit affairs, marriage, and divorce. Setting herself apart from earlier writers with comparable drives yet very different class affiliations—Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf—Ernaux’s perspicacious voice proceeds from within a specific gendered and classed experience, one that necessarily complicates the literary first-person and consequently makes, for Ernaux, writing a profoundly political activity. How can we read Ernaux’s singular body of work with and apart from the writers who inspired it—Proust, Woolf, Roland Barthes—and as itself an inspiration to the burgeoning genre of contemporary autofiction?

In this course, we will read widely across Ernaux’s work—including A Man’s Place, A Woman’s Story, Shame, Happening, and The Young Man—in order to ask, both broadly and in textual detail: What can we make of the “clinical acuity” attributed to her style? How does her writing seek to translate affect into language? What, if any, is the relationship between gender and genre (in French, the same word)? How does widespread acclaim contribute to the canonization of working-class and feminine experience—and to what end? Does Ernaux’s writing live up to her own claim that “when the unspeakable is brought to light, it’s political”?

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is an interdisciplinary teaching and research institute that offers critical, community-based education in the humanities and social sciences. Holding courses both online and in-person (in New York City and beyond), we integrate rigorous but accessible scholarly study with the everyday lives of working adults and re-imagine scholarship for the 21st century.

A group for loved ones of individuals experiencing psychosis or extreme states. 

If you are interested in attending, please contact Siena Froment (siena@constellationsnyc.com).

Being in connection with someone experiencing psychosis or extreme states can be an isolating and distressing experience. Stigma can prevent us from reaching out for support and limit the possibility for change. This group is time to center experience and see what emerges. To talk about the suffering that exists between us — individually and collectively — as well as a path forward.

Using a dialogic and psychodynamic approach, this group places a strong emphasis on understanding oneself in connection to a loved one experiencing psychosis and extreme states. In learning to navigate the impact of the past, present, and future, group members will work toward practicing agency within their social network and beyond.

In-person on Thursday, from 6:30pm - 7:30pm — September 24th through December 17th.