|
Please join us for the third in a series of four Pre-EBOR Scientific Meetings leading up to the Fourteenth International Evolving British Object Relations Conference: Live from Seattle – The Music of Psychoanalysis, taking place October 17–19, 2025 in Seattle, Washington (USA).
In this thought-provoking presentation, Anastasios Gaitanidis examines the musical dimensions of psychoanalytic work, revealing how pre-linguistic acoustic elements—rhythm, tone, and resonance—serve as therapeutic agents alongside verbal interpretation. He introduces the notion of an "acoustic unconscious"—a domain of unconscious process revealed through sound rather than repressed content.
Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s concept of the semiotic and illustrated through clinical vignettes, Gaitanidis demonstrates how attention to vocal nuance, breathing patterns, and rhythmic exchanges can access traumatic experience that lies beyond symbolic representation. Through rich clinical examples, Gaitanidis shows how musical attunement between analyst and patient can restore dissociated emotional capacities, suggesting a more expansive and embodied pathway toward therapeutic transformation.
Learning Objectives
After attending this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Recognize and Utilize Pre-linguistic Communication: Identify and engage therapeutically with the musical dimensions of patient communication, including vocal tone, rhythm, breath, and other acoustic features that convey emotional meaning beyond words.
- Understand the Acoustic Unconscious in Clinical Practice: Comprehend how unconscious material can emerge through rhythm and sound, learning to recognize when musical interventions may access trauma that resists symbolic articulation.
- Develop Musical Countertransference Awareness: Cultivate sensitivity to one’s own acoustic and rhythmic responses within the analytic relationship, using changes in vocal quality, breath, and embodied resonance as diagnostic and therapeutic tools.
Participation in this scientific meeting provides 1.75 continuing education credit hours.
About the Presenter
Anastasios Gaitanidis, PhD is a Relational Psychoanalyst working privately in London (UK). In addition to his clinical work as a psychoanalyst, Anastasios held appointments as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies and provided clinical and research supervision to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and counseling psychologists at Regent’s University London, University of Roehampton and Metanoia Training Institute. He currently holds the position of Visiting Professor for the professional doctorate in counseling psychology at Regent’s University London. Anastasios is also a prolific author who published a substantial body of academic work including journal articles and edited books over the years, with a recent book publication titled The Sublime in Everyday Life: Psychoanalytic and Aesthetic Perspectives (Routledge).
About the Moderator
Danny Roy Gellersen, LICSW, FIPA is a licensed clinical social worker and psychoanalyst with a full-time private practice in Seattle and New York. A graduate of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in NYC, he is an active member of Seattle’s psychoanalytic community, on the faculty of Northwestern Psychoanaltyic Society and Institute and serving as co-chair of the 2025 International Evolving British Object Relations (EBOR) conference. He also chairs the Distinguished Speaker Series for the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study. In addition to his clinical work, Danny is an educator and student of realist classical drawing, queer theory, and drag performance.
| 
