Lives of the Unconscious. A Podcast on Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Episode 37: Male Perversion and Sexual Violence
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Support our project and get access to the scripts for all episodes: https://www.patreon.com/lives From catcalling and unsolicited “dick pics” to ...
Episode 36. What poverty does tu us. And what it has to do with our history.
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We are back with a new episode! "Behind what is referred to in psychoanalysis as fate neurosis or repetition compulsion often lurks the uncanny magne...
Episode 35. Envy. A hidden force within human relations
29 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Envy can arise wherever there exists inequality between people: in societies and families, between siblings, genders, and generations. “Envy is the ...
Episode 34. Dissociative Identity Disorder - Secret Lives
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The idea of split personality is fertile ground for stories of great imagination—while regrettably also inspiring and perpetuating numerous misunder...
Episode 33.The Phantom of Emptiness. On the Psychodynamics of White Depression.
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In contrast to “black depression,” white depression denotes an often inconspicuous, insidious affliction that can last a lifetime. Its distinguish...
Episode 32.The Pseudo-Community. Or: The Family behind the Rubber Fence
25 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“You’re free to do anything you want! But this man, of all people—you’ll never be happy with him.” Or: “Of course, if you don’t have tim...
Episode 31. A Lover's Bind: The Psychoanalysis of Romantic Relationships
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One couple fights over household responsibilities. Another is trapped in a cycle of jealousy and control. Still another strives for total harmony and ...
Episode 30: On the psychoanalysis of addictive disorders
16 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Addiction is one of the most widespread forms of mental illness. However, it is also burdened with many stigmas, and those suffering from it are often...
Episode 29: The Anorexic Dynamic. Or: Why eating disorders are not about the food
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“You are what you eat.” We are continuously negotiating our identity through food, setting the boundaries of the self. Inscribed into the symptoms...
Episode 28: Malignant Narcissism: A Reservoir of Hatred and Violence
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
History has certainly never failed to offer reasons and occasions to cause violence of all sorts; making it understandable how Freud arrived at the fo...
Episode 27: The Tragedy of Narcissism
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The diagnosis of “narcissism” appears to have come into vogue, not only in the field of clinical psychology. It is an inescapable diagnosis for ju...
Episode 26: Grief. The path through the realm of shadow.
22 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Grief is one of life’s inevitable experiences, for we live in a world that is fleeting. Processing loss is one of the most difficult mental processe...
Tales of Therapy—Alex. Part Three. The Night has an End.
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After the previous phases of therapy, in which Alex’s symptoms and later his own life story took center stage, the outbreak of the Corona crisis sen...
Tales of Therapy—Alex. Part Two. The Lost Self.
18 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alex, a man in his mid-thirties, comes to therapy with psychosomatic symptoms and anxiety attacks, for which initially there appears to be no explanat...
Tales of Therapy—Alex. Part One. Searching for Words
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This case study is about Alex, a man in his mid-thirties, who spent over four years in analysis, most of that time with three sessions a week. Alex ca...
Winter break
23 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We well be back in March with new episodes! See you soon Your Lives-of-the-Unconscious-Team Support us on Patreon and get the scripts to the episodes...
Episode 25: “O Parting, Fountain of all Words.” — Why progress is grounded in loss
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Attachment, love, always goes hand in hand with losses—thus happiness and sadness are also close relatives. In this episode we will hear more about ...
Episode 24: The Concepts of Contemporary Psychoanalysis
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Psychoanalysis is often equated with the work of Sigmund Freud. Contemporary modes of thought and therapeutic approaches such as relational psychoanal...
Episode 23: On the Psychoanalysis of Conspiracy Theories
27 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Conspiracy phantasma derive their power from affects, not from arguments. They cannot be understood by differentiating them from some supposedly reaso...
Episode 22: C.G. Jung and the Collective Unconscious
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“The school of C.G. Jung has played a controversial role in psychoanalysis. More than almost any other psychological school, it grants a greater rol...
Episode 21: The Long Shadow of Trauma – Transgenerational Transmission
31 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“A trauma does not disappear through silence; it cannot be silenced out of existence. It remains effective in fantasies, dreams, and experiences, bu...
Episode 20: Trauma – The wounded soul. Post-traumatic disorders.
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“It is important to emphasize that in every victim of trauma there is a desire for vitality and healing. Consciously and unconsciously, the injured ...
Episode 19: Trauma – The wounded soul. Early childhood trauma
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“What remains unresolved in the mind knows no time.” This episode is the first of a three-part series on the psychoanalysis of trauma. In the fir...
Summer break
08 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We wish you a relaxing summer! See you soon Your Lives-of-the-Unconscious-Team Visit our website: www.psy-cast.org or our youtube-channel: https:/...
Episode 18: Healing Through Understanding—How psychoanalysis works
01 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“And how is this supposed to work here?” This is the question that quite a few patients ask at the beginning of psychotherapy. How psychotherapy w...
Episode 17: Repression, Rationalization, Sublimation – The “mature” defense mechanisms.
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the course of a therapeutic session, a depressed patient talks about his work colleagues with whom he is working on a group project for his studi...
Episode 16: Denial, Splitting, Projection – The early defense mechanisms
03 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The division head of a company has called an important meeting. All employees are present at the agreed upon time, except for the boss. Only once an e...
Episode 15: Compulsion, Obsessiveness, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone has their rituals that they insist upon observing more or less fastidiously and, if interrupted, would react to sensitively. From adhering to...
Episode 14: The Oedipus Complex. Timeless or obsolete?
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When this term comes into play, all analytical alarm bells start going off: Oedipus Complex. This concept seems to epitomize everything disreputable i...
Episode 13: Borderline—A balancing act between psychological extremes
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Children are existentially reliant upon their primary caregivers concerning almost every sphere of life and, most of all, in relation to their need fo...
Episode 12: The architecture of personality. Structural disorders
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Not all depression is the same, nor all forms of anxiety. The very same symptom can have completely different meanings for different people and can re...
Episode 11: “How one becomes what one is.” – On the False Self
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We all wear masks from time to time: at work, in front of our friends, sometimes even—or perhaps especially—within our family and in front of our ...
Episode 10: Fear and Anxiety Disorders
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychological problems for which people seek out psychotherapy. At the same time, anxiety is a feeling tha...
Episode 9: Theater of Minds—On Dramaturgic Awareness
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The world is a stage—the couch too? So many scenes, sometimes even true dramas, play out in our minds. In everyday life we slip into the most divers...
Episode 8: Is Psychoanalysis Effective?
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is there evidence for the effectiveness of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic-based therapy methods? For which forms of illness is it suitable? In this...
Episode 7: Is Psychoanalysis Scientific?
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Psychoanalysis is an exotic resident in the house of science. A wide variety of disciplines have borrowed from it, from neuroscience to the social sci...
Episode 6: Mentalization. Or: "I am what I think you think I am."
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone has probably wondered to themselves: "Why did I just do that?" or even, "Why did my partner actually behave like that?" The ability to relate...
Episode 5: Attachment—Such stuff as souls are made on
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What constitutes our inner mental life is in large part based on our early relationship experiences. This principle of psychoanalytic thinking becomes...
Episode 4: “Two souls alas! are dwelling in my breast”—Psychic Conflicts
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Should I really do it—or should I rather not?" In many situations, we are at odds with ourselves, want to have our cake and eat it too, or are two ...
Episode 3: Repression
14 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"That’s something that I’ve done? I don’t to remember that at all!" The word repression has made a career for itself: even in our everyday langu...
Episode 2: Transference—Countertransference
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
They are among the central terms of psychoanalysis: transference and countertransference. While at the same time, they describe something that every p...
Episode 1: What is Psychoanalysis?
30 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Outdated and dusty? No other psychotherapeutic practice generates as many rumors as psychoanalysis. Generally, psychoanalysis is equated with a red co...