Conference Organizers

Marilyn Charles, PhD, ABPP is a staff psychologist, team leader, supervisor, and member of the therapy staff at the Austen Riggs Center.

Vivian Chan, DO, MS is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in the Berkshires, MA. She completed her psychiatry residency at Mount Sinai Morningside West and psychoanalytic fellowship at the Austen Riggs Center. Her commitment to scholarly learning about psychiatry, psychoanalysis and its intersection with culture has its origins in research, where she published many articles on academic medicine, mood disorders, and quality of life. She frequently speaks at psychoanalytic and psychosocial conferences, focusing on psychoanalytic theory and its intersection with our current culture and media. Her passion for group dynamics and education extends to her work as a consultant to small groups and a mentor and teacher for psychiatric residents and medical students. She serves on the board of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society.

Presenters

Bindu Methikalam, Ph.D.  is a licensed psychologist who has worked with undergraduate and graduate students in individual, couples, and group therapy. Her clinical interests include working with trauma victims, adjustment, anxiety, depression, family and relationship concerns as well as diversity related issues. Her research interests are in perfectionism, family expectations, multicultural issues, particularly, immigrant experiences, acculturation, and cultural identities. She is a member of the American Psychological Association and Asian American Psychological Association (Division of South Asian Americans; Division of Women).

Morteza Modares Gharavi PhD, LP, PsyA is a licensed psychologist in New York and a graduate psychoanalyst of the William Alanson White Institute, where he teaches and supervises in the Intensive Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Program (IPPP). He is also Supervising Psychologist at the Pratt Institute Counseling Center. Before relocating to the United States in 2021, he was an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Founding Director of the Clinical Psychology Department at Ibn Sina Psychiatric Hospital, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Iran, and the founder and director of the Mashhad branch of the Freudian Group of Tehran.

Michael O’Loughlin, PhD  is Professor in the College of Education and Health Sciences and in the Ph.D. and Psy.D. programs in Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University, New York. He has authored or edited many books. Since 2018 he has been coeditor of the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. He is editor of the book series, Psychoanalytic Interventions: Clinical Social, and Cultural Contexts for Bloomsbury. He is a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. He founded and directs the Adelphi Asylum Project. He has a private practice for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis on Long Island, NY.

Kritika Dwivedi, PsyD earned her doctoral degree at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology. Following her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Counseling and Psychological Services, Dr. Dwivedi joined Denver DBT & Psychotherapy as an adult DBT group co-facilitator as well as an individual and couples therapist. Dr. Dwivedi has also led weekly DBT groups for at-risk young women in a residential setting. In 2015, Dr. Dwivedi received a scholarship from Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association (APA). Since that time she has served as member on several different committees within the division and was recently appointed as the co-chair for the Multicultural Concerns Committee. Dr. Dwivedi has presented on psychology supervision at the APA national conference, the demands of doctoral training programs and supervision at the Division 39 yearly spring meetings, and dynamics of multicultural psychology training at the National Multicultural Conference and Summit.

Cynthia Chalker MSS, LCSW is a Black queer-identified clinical social worker and psychoanalyst who lives and works in New York. She completed her psychoanalytic training at Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. Her research interests include the intersection of race, culture and identity in psychoanalysis. She is an instructor at various psychoanalytic institutes and a guest presenter around the country and abroad.

Carrie Atikune, PsyD is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Portland, Oregon, where she works primarily with BIPOC, queer, and trans patients in psychotherapy and analysis. Her primary areas of interest are difference and otherness in psychoanalysis and Asian American experience. She is also the Director of Communications and Operations for the Consultation Liaison Network (CLN), a grassroots organization dedicated to psychoanalytic practitioners involved in DEIB work. She completed her analytic training at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. 

Cheryll Rothery, PsyD, ABPP is a Professor of Psychology in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Rothery served as Director of Clinical Training for 25 years and Chair of the Center for Professional Psychology for 12 years. She is a licensed and board-certified clinical psychologist and a Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology.

Dennis Debiak, PsyD is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He was the first chair of the Committee on Sexualities and Gender Identities (SGI), a two-term board Secretary and President of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology: Division 39 of APA. He is the Chair of the Marsha D. McCary Fund for Psychoanalysis. He is a founding board member and one of the first graduates of the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia (IRPP), where he serves as faculty, supervisor and analyst of candidates. He is also the Director of Philadelphia-based Insight For All (IFA), which provides pro bono psychoanalytic treatment to formerly unhoused individuals.

Hada Soria Escalante  is a professor and researcher at University of Monterrey. Director of the research lab: Psychoanalysis, subjectivity and culture (UDEM). Phd in psychology and psychoanalysis. Honorary mention with her project: Subjective positions before loss: mourning and impossible mourning. She is a psychoanalyst member of Espace Analytique (France). She is a member of the National System of Researchers of Mexico. Her research has been focused in psychoanalytic inquiry of loss, mourning and violence in Mexico, being the latest projects: Rethinking the relation between women and psychoanalysis: loss, mourning and the feminine (2019), Letters to the disappeared, mourning without a body (2018), Beyond mourning and melancholia (2016), Violence of death and mourning (2016), Sufrir al otro (2015).

Abby Kluchin, PhD is Associate Zacharias Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Ursinus College, where she also coordinates the Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies program. Abby is co-founder, Associate Director at Large, and Associate Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She also co-hosts the Ordinary Unhappiness podcast.