Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique:

Rethinking Our Foundations from Developmental Theory to Clinical Practice

Daniel Gaztambide, PsyD

Sunday, October 26, 2025

9:00am-1:00pm EST

Live Interactive via Zoom

Zoom Invite Will be Sent to Registrants on October 25, 2025

4 CEs offered for Counselors, Psychologists and Social Workers

Co-Sponsored with NJSCSW (New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Work)

CEs accepted by many states - check with your local boards.

Daniel Gaztambide, PsyD

Daniel José Gaztambide, PsyD, is assistant professor of psychology at Queens College, where he is the director of the Frantz Fanon Lab for Decolonial Psychology, and a faculty member at the Department of Critical Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of the books A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology, and the recent Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon’s Couch, which received a 2024 Gradiva Award for Best Book. He is in analytic training at the NYU Post-Doctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and is the recipient of multiple fellowships including a Mellon Foundation Fellowship and a Miranda Family Fellowship for his research on colonial mentality and the application of psychoanalytic treatment to diverse populations. His recent paper, “Standing against racial capitalism: Reconsidering psychology’s role in dismantling systemic racism,” was published in a recent special issue in American Psychologist on addressing racism in psychology. This work is an extension of his service as a Taskforce member at the APA’s Taskforce on Strategies for the Elimination of Racism, Discrimination, and Hate, for which he received a presidential citation for his work.

Workshop Description

Contemporary Psychoanalysis finds itself at a crossroads, with clinicians and scholars debating the centrality of attachment and the therapeutic relationship versus the relevance of culture, identity, and politics in psychoanalytic treatment. This "confusion of tongues," notable across psychoanalytic training, scholarship, and social media, has resulted in heated debates on the role of the cultural and political in psychotherapy. This presentation will bridge this gap between "the relational" and the "sociocultural" by reviewing theory, research, and practice from a decolonial psychoanalytic point of view. Drawing on Fanonian conceptions of development, traditional attachment and relational theory based accounts of development will be challenged and of necessity repositioned to better account for a broader conception of human subjectivity. This integrative, sociogenic theory of development posits two core unconscious systems with attendant motivations—a "horizontal" system of attachment, affiliation, and closeness, and a "vertical" system of status, hierarchy, and positionality. Using case illustrations and extant research, the presentation will outline how we can better listen to different dimensions of the patient's experience in ways that do not require us "choose" between the relational and "the political," but understand human subjectivity as organized by both. Implications for integrating these dimensions in case formulation and treatment will be discussed, with examples from the presenter's practice.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Describe the distinction between dyadic modes of attachment and alloparental/collectivistic modes of attachment.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the unconscious as textured by two social cognitive systems: One based in affiliation and attachment, the other based in status and hierarchy.
• Integrate the relational and sociocultural in case formulation and treatment.

Target Audience:  Suitable for Psychologists, Social Workers, Licensed Professional Counselors, Psychiatrists, Advanced Practice Nurses, Graduate Students, Marriage and Family Therapists.

Level of Sophistication: This is an introductory level post-graduate continuing education program suitable for all levels of training.

ADA accommodations available upon request (Required at least 14 days prior to course start date).

4 Continuing Education Credits

Counselors:

Counselors: CPPNJ has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6863. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. CPPNJ is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Psychologists:

Psychologists:  CPPNJ is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. CPPNJ maintains responsibility for this program and its contents.

NY Psychologists: Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0165. 

Social Workers:

Social Workers: Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0757.

The New Jersey Board of Social Work Examiners, and some other state boards, recognize CEs approved by the New York State Education Department.

COST: Members $100/$120 pre-registration by October 12 CPPNJ Candidates: $45; Students with ID: $15; Non-Members $160/$180 pre-registration by October 12.

Cancellations made prior to three days (72 hours) before the event will receive a full refund minus a $25 administrative fee.  Cancellations made less than 72 hours before the event will be given a refund of half of the registration fees. Refunds will NOT be granted for cancellation requests made on the day of the event.

There is no potential conflict of interest and/or commercial support for this CE event.



For more information or registration, please call 973-912-4432, visit us online at www.cppnj.org, contact us by email at cppnj@cppnj.org or at CPPNJ 235 Main St, Madison, NJ 07940