Out from Behind the Couch with Susan Siegeltuch online with CFS

Introduction by

A Central American mother and her teen suicidal daughter were evaluated forensically by two senior psychoanalysts, Gilbert Kliman, MD and Susan Siegeltuch, LCSW, FIPA. Both mother and daughter experienced multiple traumas in their country of origin as well as having their trauma reactivated by ICE and their time in detention. The interviews were conducted with psychoanalytically-informed thinking, awareness of transference and countertransference and empathic and humane listening.   Bearing witness to traumatized individuals and the atrocities they experienced has to be tolerated by the interviewers. This first-hand account of an asylum seeker and her daughter is a tribute to this mother’s resilience and the power of attachment. It is also a demonstration of how psychoanalysts can make a significant contribution to work outside one’s office.

Susan Siegeltuch, LCSW, FIPA is a psychoanalyst, psychotherapist and training psychoanalyst in Maplewood, NJ. She works with children of all ages, teens, adults and couples. She is a graduate of three programs of the CFS in adult psychoanalysis, child and adolescent psychoanalysis and Parent/Infant/ Toddler development and treatment. Susan has a particular interest in working with children of divorce, therapy with pre-schoolers and parent/child dyadic treatment. She currently participates in ongoing seminars in forensic evaluations and trauma with Dr. Gilbert Kliman and has a special interest in the impact of trauma on families and children. Susan is the Chair of the two-year CFS Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program and Co-Chair of the CFS Committee on Humanitarian Concerns. She is also a Senior Psychoanalyst in the Forensic Expert Witness Training and Services of the Harlem Psychoanalytic Family Institute.