The Impossible Profession
The Impossible Profession is a monthly podcast that brings together writers, theorists, and psychoanalytic clinicians to discuss psychoanalysis as a living clinical practice and as a lens for interpreting the wider world. Hosted by Richard B. Keys, an Aotearoa-based psychoanalyst-in-training and writer, each episode explores how psychoanalytic ideas shape both the consulting room and contemporary culture. Through conversations with guests from clinical and theoretical backgrounds, the show examines the profession's tensions, questions, and enduring relevance.
Episodes
Making a Scene with Avgi Saketopoulou
In this episode, Richard talks to psychoanalyst, author, and educator Avgi Saketopoulou about the silence of psychoanalytic institutions over the genocide in Gaza. We discuss the wave of disinvitations and the pleas of neutrality, what Avgi reads in that silence, and her turn from critique to construction in P-HOLE, the liberatory education project she co-founded as an alternative to the training
Fanon and Psychoanalysis with Derek Hook
For the return of the show, Richard talks to professor of psychology and psychoanalyst Derek Hook about his book, Fanon, Psychoanalysis, and Critical Decolonial Psychology. We discuss the various waves of reception of Frantz Fanon and the recent turn to his clinical writing, the notions of the psycho-political and the sociogenic unconscious — the idea that the unconscious is shaped by social and p
Why Psychosis Is Not So Crazy with Stijn Vanheule
In this episode, Richard talks to clinical psychologist, professor, and psychoanalyst Stijn Vanhuele about his recent book, Why Psychosis Is Not So Crazy. They discuss critiques of the prevailing biomedical model of psychosis and explore what psychoanalysis uniquely offers in understanding and treating it. Drawing on Lacan’s ideas, they delve into the concept of madness as an expression of human f
On Breathing with Jamieson Webster
In our inaugural episode, Richard talks to psychoanalyst, professor, and writer Jamieson Webster about her latest book, On Breathing. From the central theme of breath and breathlessness that orients Jamieson’s book, we discuss practising psychoanalysis under exceptional circumstances, Covid-19 and the climate crisis, questions of style in psychoanalytic writing, and even talk a little baby talk.
