Publication Announcement by Billie Pivnick (USA)

The Work and Play of Democracy: Growing Relational Citizens

Pivnick, B. A., & Hassinger, J. A. (2026). The work and play of democracy: Growing relational citizens. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 23(2): e70043. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.70043

As predicted by psychoanalytic theorists who studied authoritarian political trends after World War II, the combination of reduced social connection and significant wealth inequality has once again driven a shift in sociocultural attitudes toward autocracy. Although psychoanalysis has little to offer regarding economic change, psychoanalysts do possess expertise that can be valuable in addressing social atomization and backlash against cultural shifts that threaten the health of our democratic institutions. This paper examines psychoanalytic perspectives on democracy and the relations among individuals and groups that are vital to maintaining this egalitarian form of citizenship. Democratic functioning depends on personality development in early life and on group participation during the school years, adolescence, and early adulthood. The authors define “relational citizenship” as the intersubjective experience of oneself as a generative citizen among citizens and illustrate the operations of this self-state through a vignette from their 2020 Psychoanalytic Community Collaboratory webinar that shows how groups and communities can foster mutuality to create leadership opportunities for collaborative tasks. While traditional Tavistock-based vertical models of group authority might see such interdependence as a deviation from the group task, this example demonstrates that revising notions about optimal group functioning can be beneficial in certain community settings. The authors also suggest that creating “third spaces” within existing communities can help reconnect social bonds broken by pandemic-related anxiety and communication distortions stemming from collective trauma, thus laying the foundation for rebuilding a sense of community.

Grievance, Grief, and Group Building in Community Psychoanalysis: Addressing the Needs of Asylum-Seeking Children and Students with Disabilities through Collaborative Consultation with Educators in a New York City Public School

Pivnick, B.A. (2026). Grievance, grief, and group building in community psychoanalysis: Addressing the needs of asylum-seeking children and students with disabilities through collaborative consultation with educators in a New York City Public School. In J. Dobrich (Ed.), Moving from grievance to hope in psychoanalysis: Applied case studies. Routledge.

This chapter explores the use of interpersonal psychoanalysis in community consultation by demonstrating how collaboration between the psychoanalytic clinicians of William Alanson White Institute’s Center for Public Mental Health (CPMH) and the educators of PS 15, a Brooklyn Public School, addressed the complex needs of asylum-seeking and special needs students after the COVID pandemic. From 2022 to 2025, the Schools as Refuge Project (SARP) focused on supporting teachers, paraprofessional staff, and school administrators in creating trauma-informed “listening partnerships,” a process that impacted every level of the school organization and, in parallel process, the board, faculty members, and candidates of the institute, as they shared knowledge, perspectives, and challenges. Contextualizing this project within the history of psychoanalysis, this paper highlights how using a framework derived from interpersonal, group, and systems perspectives can foster better individual and classroom functioning, while also helping to build community, despite the inevitable resistance and disappointments inherent in such work. By the end of the project, both communities had undergone a degree of transformation, demonstrating the potentially meaningful impact of investing in collaborative efforts to address sociocultural challenges, while also acknowledging the strains such work entails.

Billie A. Pivnick, Ph.D.
Brooklyn, NY, USA
Email Billie Pivnick