Peters' willingness to expose her own demons brings psychoanalysis to life from the beginning, in her tempestuous twenties, when her lover insisted that she get help for a recurring nightmare that often woke her screaming. As much as she relished her life in New York—at last living together with her lover, teaching at The City College, and organizing for the women's movement—the gradual discovery of the cause of those nightmares upended it. Through an agony of loss and craziness, she found her way to another life, but it wasn’t until her second—relational—analysis many years later that she fully experienced those hidden causes and could fully live her life.
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Dreams in the Intersubjective Encounter:
Experiences in Search of a Home
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TALK
Drawing from Untangling: A Memoir of Psychoanalysis, Joan reflects on the transformative power of the "analytic home." Through discussions of Alice Sommatis’ and Roberto Vargas Arreolo’s papers, she explores the role of dreams, metaphor, and silence in fostering connection, healing, and self-discovery in psychoanalysis. (Presentation at the International Association of Relational Psychiatrists and Psychoanalysts, IARPP, conference, June 2024, Merida, Mexico).
ESSAY
BAD DREAMS
(ARE MADE OF THIS)
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Based on the explorations of dreams from the two analyses Joan examines in Untangling, A Memoir of Psychoanalysis, this essay argues for the power and importance of dream interpretation in uncovering the secrets of the unconscious, even when the interpretations aren’t exactly right, as in two analyses and two different interpretations. Ultimately, Joan believes, they are, as Freud said, the “royal road” to understanding and freeing the spirit. (in Psychoanalytic Inquiry, February 2025, special issue on dreams).
Memoir & Psychoanalysis
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TALK
In this talk, Joan examines why, unlike therapy, psychoanalysis has remained such a private and hidden experience, largely absent from the public narrative, despite its transformative power and what it reveals about the hidden corners of the psyche. Using excerpts from her book, Untangling, she argues that’s its time has come. After all, she asks, what are we hiding? And Why? (Presentation at the American Psychoanalytic Association annual meeting, Feb. 7, 2025, San Francisco)
MORE BY JOAN K. PETERS:
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When Mothers Work
Drawing on the latest research and discussions with prominent psychologists, When Mothers Work explains our deep-seated resistance to mothering (and fathering) in new ways. With portraits of a dozen real families—corporate and blue collar, religious and secular, step- and single parents, urban and suburban—Peters illustrates the strategies that make this new family life succeed.
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Not Your Mother's Life
Not Your Mother's Life offers today's young women a vision for achieving the elusive work/life balance. Drawing on real-life examples, Peters shows how they can leverage economic power to create fulfilling careers, build supportive relationships, and reshape the work world to fit their needs—benefiting both women and men.
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Love, Honor, and Negotiate
In Love, Honor, and Negotiate, family therapist Betty Carter and co-author Joan K. Peters present a groundbreaking approach to modern marriage. Drawing on meaningful examples, they show how couples can adapt to real-world pressures while maintaining equality—especially when traditional roles resurface after children arrive. This common-sense guide offers strategies to help marriages thrive in today’s demanding world.
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Manny & Rose
Manny & Rose tells the story of the illness and death of Rose Herman, bringing new insight and understanding in the lives of her husband, seventy-four-year-old Manny, and daughter, Ellen, a child of the sixties.