Continuing our Institute’s November tradition, we convene our annual panel of analysts—Barry Williams, Frances Hatfield, and Larry Rayburn—to take stock of our national and collective moment. Has anything changed in the past year? The ramping up of the presidential elections is beginning, moving from its constant background to the front of our National Psyche. Is there anything different in this particular political moment? Can we detect psychic shifts, or are we caught in what Freud named a repetition compulsion, replaying the same story over and over? Asking these questions requires that we face ourselves, our own subjective positions—not just what is happening “out there” in the “world.”
In addressing the crises around the globe, we will attempt to hold a space and reflect on these questions, even as we work and hope for solutions and resolution of the many urgent problems we face.