Psychoanalysis | Art | Creativity (PAC) is an interdisciplinary and transinstitutional study group. Meeting monthly, its membership includes psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic scholars, members of academia, artists and neuroscientists. We engage in rigorous inquiry involving the relationship between psychoanalysis, the arts, creative pursuits within the sciences, and related psychosomatic and neurobiological correlates.
It is PAC’s mission to undertake an in-depth psychoanalytic exploration of the creative process through dialog across disciplines. At the same time, PAC serves as a knowledge base for professionals and researchers. A public forum and a platform for exchange, PAC bridges psychoanalysis and the arts.
Originally affiliated with the Institute of the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society, PAC has grown over the past eight years into an autonomous organization with a trans-institutional and interdisciplinary network. Today, members include the faculty of several psychoanalytic institutes in New York and around the world, as well as neurological institutes, academia and the arts.
Each academic year, the rigorous curriculum covers the connection between psychoanalysis and another topic. The range of topics spans the disciplines of art criticism, philosophy, history, neuroscience, and psychosomatic medicine.
Past Topics:
- 2010 / 2011
- Psychoanalysis and the Visual Arts
- 2011 / 2012
- Psychoanalysis and Literature
- 2012 / 2014
- Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience/Neurobiology and the Creative Processes in the Arts and Sciences
- 2014 / 2015
- Psychosomatic Medicine and Creativity (Mind/Body/Culture interactions)
- 2016 / 2017
- Dante’s Divine Comedy, approached from all preceding points of view
- 2017 / 2018
- Dante’s Divine Comedy, approached from all preceding points of view
- 2018 / 2019
- Psychoanalytic Explorations of Various Creative Personalities
- 2019 / 2020
- Exploration of Creativity Under Various Clinical Conditions
The specialized knowledge incubated in the group informs the clinical work of those PAC members who are licensed clinicians in their respective fields. PAC’s breadth of subjectmatter and depth of study allows these clinicians to draw on the latest multidisciplimary fndings on the challenges facing creative persons of all fields.