The Psychoanalytic Center of California's

Continuing Education Committee

is pleased to present

Hope and the Machine:

Thriving in, Not Just Surviving,

the AI Revolution

featuring

Todd Essig, PhD

William Alanson White Institute

Co-Chair of APsA Council of Artificial Intelligence

Saturday, March 14, 2026

9:00 am to 12:15 pm (Pacific Standard Time)



CEUs: 3

Location: (online).

The conference will be held online via Zoom.

Program Description

Our presenter, Dr. Todd Essig, describes this seminar in the following way: 


Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence), especially chatbots, presents psychoanalysis with tremendous promise and significant peril. While some benefit tremendously from their AI relationships, others sink into delusion, and for most they threaten to flatten inner life, externalizing what has always been internal. Plus, so called “therapy-bots” are on the near horizon with both promise and peril. Overall, if you're not at least a little anxious about AI's transformations to self-experience, intimate relationships and professional life, you're not paying enough attention. But anxiety need not lead to denial, retreat, panic or paralysis. This workshop will explore a path toward active, informed, and hopeful engagement on the side of human needs, psychoanalytic values, and affirming life. We will see how hope, not fear, can drive our engagement. We will see how active participation combined with critical, contemplative, and deeply psychoanalytic engagement can secure not just survival but a thriving psychoanalysis for the AI age. 


Three dimensions of this AI-age psychoanalytic activism will be developed. First, why hope provides the essential foundation for AI-age psychoanalytic activism in our moment of accelerating technological transformation. Second, how to develop the procedural knowledge necessary for authentic psychoanalytic engagement with these technologies so one can move beyond abstract fantasies to embodied understanding. Finally, a new framework of "techno-subjunctivity" for understanding the unique qualities of chatbot intimacies will illustrate what it looks like to practice hopeful, AI-age psychoanalytic activism.

Program Schedule

Target Audience

MD's, Psychologists, LCSW's, MFT's, Registered Nurses, candidates and members of psychoanalytic institutes, and student clinicians who are interested in psychoanalysis.

Course Objectives

At the end of this activity, participants should be better able to:

1. Describe how hope in therapy can exist with AI therapy development;
2. Articulate basic procedural knowledge that can lead to authentic psychoanalytic engagement with AI technology;
3. List three features of the "techno-subjunctivity" framework.

Program Faculty

Todd Essig, Ph.D. is Faculty and a Training & Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute, Faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis, and an Advisory Board member of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN). Widely recognized as a pioneer in the innovative uses of mental health technologies, he publishes and lectures widely at the intersections of psychoanalysis and artificial intelligence and is a frequent media commentator, appearing most recently in The New York Times, Toronto Life, and the Suspicious Minds documentary. He founded and currently chairs the American Psychoanalytic Association’s President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI). Previously, he co-authored the International Psychoanalytical Association’s Task Force Report on telesessions in psychoanalytic education and chaired APsA’s Covid-19 Advisory Team. From 1993 to 2009, he was the founder and director of The Psychoanalytic Connection, which launched the first interactive online psychoanalytic continuing education courses. For a decade, until the pandemic, he wrote the Forbes column “Managing Mental Wealth,” exploring the intersections of technology, psychology, and culture. In his clinical practice, he treats individuals and couples.

Continuing Education Credit

The Psychoanalytic Center of California designates this live activity for a maximum of 3 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in this activity.



This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the California Medical Association (CMA)  through the Psychoanalytic Center of California. The Psychoanalytic Center of California  is accredited by the California Medical Association (CMA)   to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

As per the California Board of Psychology, psychologists may apply AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ earned by attendance at this CME accredited live activity toward their continuing education requirement for licensing. 

The Psychoanalytic Center of California is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) to sponsor continuing education for LMFT's and LCSW's (CAMFT Approved Provider # 135374). The Psychoanalytic Center of California maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content. This course meets the qualifications for 3 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. These learners must attend the entire course to claim credit; no partial credit is offered according to CAMFT requirements.

*Important note: Participants who plan to use the credits in another state should check with their licensing jurisdiction to see if the credits from an ACCME or CAMFT provider will be accepted.

Claiming Credit: Participants will receive a certificate of attendance at the event, which can be used toward licensing requirements. Credit is offered for actual instruction time and does not include breaks.

Refunds/Cancellations: Refunds, less a $10 administrative fee, will be made if cancellation notification is phoned or postmarked three (3) business days in advance of this program. There will be no refunds on requests received after the refund deadline. Full refunds are made in the event that PCC must cancel this program.

Returned Checks: A $25.00 service charge will be assessed for checks returned by the bank.

Grievances: While PCC goes to great lengths to assure fair treatment for all participants and attempts to anticipate problems, there will be occasional issues that come to the attention of the PCC staff which will require intervention and/or action on the part of the staff. Visit  www.p-c-c.org/ethics for PCC's procedural guidelines for handling such grievances.

Special Needs: Facilities are accessible to persons with disabilities. If you have a special need and plan to attend the conference, please contact the PCC Office by phone at (310) 478-4347 or via email at 0ffice@p-c-c.org. Special needs requests will be fulfilled if received one week prior to the event, which will ensure we have ample opportunity to meet your needs.

Commercial Support Disclosure: None of the planners for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

Financial Support Disclaimer: The planners and presenters for this event have no financial relationships to disclose.

Confidentiality:  By registering for this educational event, attendees agree to strictly maintain confidentiality of any clinical material shared and will not distribute or convey such confidential material outside of the conference. 

Program Planners

Continuing Education Committee: Leigh Tobias, PhD (chair); Jennifer Kunst, PhD (member and CME coordinator); Chris Minnick, MD (member and CME chair); Persila Conversano, PsyD and Stacey Nicklas, PsyD (members); Jason Snyder, LMFT and Yelena Kashtuyeva, LMFT (candidate members).

Registration

General admission: $125

Current PCC Candidates in-Seminar: FREE

PCC Post-Seminar Candidate Admission: $75

Current PCC PPP Student Admission: $75

Full time students and candidates from other institutes admission: $75