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PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

This community psychoanalysis event aspires to co-create a reflective space with and for citizens to enable transformative thinking and psychosocial innovation. It seeks to do so using the Open Space Dream Field process which combines the social dreaming matrix and open space methodologies. These are powerful democratic processes that encourage collective discernment and sense-making in the group, and facilitate the emergence of all voices, curtailing the tendency for one subsystem to dominate. These processes foster the opening of minds to a variety of discourses and/or paradigms that may emerge, and reveal the unconscious dynamics present in communities.

PRESENTER

George Bermúdez, PhD, PsyD, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and an innovator in the field of social psychoanalysis. He is widely known for his pioneering use of social dreaming to explore the “social unconscious” and collective states of mind. His work centers on the psychological dimensions of systemic trauma, including racism, xenophobia, LGBTQ+ oppression, and the emerging anxieties of the climate crisis.

Dr. Bermúdez has been a keynote speaker for the American Group Psychotherapy Association and is deeply committed to democratizing psychoanalytic practice by developing participatory, community-based approaches to dialogue and healing. Through dream-sharing practices, group reflection, and public engagement, he creates spaces that bridge individual experience with social realities. His scholarship and teaching foreground psychoanalysis as a tool for collective transformation, with particular attention to multigenerational trauma, intersectional identities, and the impact of sociopolitical ruptures on the psyche.

REGISTRATION FEE

• Mental Health Professionals: $75

• CFS/Portugal Members: $60

• Graduate Student/Candidate: $45

• Community Mental Health: $25

• Artists, Academics, Activists: $25

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After attending this program, participants will be able to:

1. Explain how a psychoanalytic perspective can find a home in and through community, carving out a space for reflection and solidarity, especially during challenging social and political upheaval.

2. Describe the social dreaming matrix and open space process and their application to deliberative democracy.

3. Evaluate the experience of participating in a social dreaming matrix and open space process and their benefits to the building of a sense of community and democratic deliberation.

REFERENCES

• Bermúdez, G. (2025). Re-centering psychoanalysis: Toward a socio-centric psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 1–11.

• Bermúdez, G. (2022). Towards a socio-centric psychoanalysis contributing to deliberative democracy: Social dreaming, community psychoanalysis, and reflective citizenship. Division/Review: A Quarterly Psychoanalytic Forum, 28, 31-34.

• Bermúdez, G. (2019). Community psychoanalysis: A contribution to an emerging paradigm. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 39(4), 297-304.

• Bermúdez G. (2018). The social dreaming matrix as a container for the processing of implicit racial bias and collective racial trauma. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 68, 538-560.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Mental Health Professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, licensed professional counselors, e.g. LPs, LCATs, and pastoral counselors) and those with an interest in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic thinking and clinical applications.

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS
3.5 continuing education (CE) credits will be offered

NY Social Workers: The PTI-CFS is recognized by the NYS Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0087

NY Psychoanalysts: The PTI-CFS is recognized by the NYS Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0021.

NY Licensed Psychologists: The PTI-CFS is recognized by the NYS Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0017.

Psychologists: The Contemporary Freudian Society is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The CFS maintains responsibility for this program and its content. (DC, MD, and VA Psychologist licensing boards accept CE credits provided by an APA-approved Sponsor. All other psychologists should check with their licensing boards.)

DC, MD, and VA Social Workers: The Social Work Boards of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia will grant continuing education credits to social workers attending a program offered by an APA authorized sponsor.

CE credits will only be granted to participants who have documented attendance for the entire program and have completed the online evaluation form. No partial credit will be offered. It is the responsibility of the participants seeking CE credits to comply with these requirements. Upon completion of this program and the online evaluation form, participants will be granted CE credits.