
The AI Pharmakon in Psychoanalytic Care: Ambivalence, Augmentation, and Psychoanalytic Futures - Todd Essig, PhD (Webinar live online)
2025 Grand Rounds Series
The AI revolution is here—and by “here,” I mean right here in our consulting rooms. Interactive self-help tools are now marketed as AI psychotherapy, and for many, they’ve become a viable treatment option. Augmentation technologies for clinicians are readily available, reshaping aspects of clinical practice in real time. Meanwhile, patients are forming relationships with AI entities that range from instrumentally useful, to emotionally resonant and companionable, to psychologically destabilizing—even destructive. This Grand Rounds will explore the clinical state of play amid these rapidly accelerating developments, with a focus on how psychoanalytic sensibilities can help us think, feel, and act in response.
Target Audience
______ Introductory ____x__ Intermediate ______ Advanced
Learning Objectives
Attendees will be able to identify differences between intersubjective relationships and relationships with AI entities
Attendees will be able to describe how AI can augment psychoanalytic care
Attendees will be able to list three ways AI is transforming psychoanalytic care
Todd Essig, PhD, is faculty and training and supervising psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute, adjunct clinical professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis, and member of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) Advisory Board. Widely known as a pioneer in the innovative uses of mental health technologies, his current areas of research, writing and teaching include the gains and losses of teletherapies and how emerging AI technologies are transforming self-experience and intimate relationships, including those at the center of providing psychoanalytic care. He created and currently co-chairs APsA’s Council on Artificial Intelligence. Previously he co-chaired APsA’s Covid-19 Advisory Team and was a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association's Task Force on Contemporary Education where he co-authored the “TF2 Report.” For 10 years, until the pandemic hit, he wrote "Managing Mental Wealth" for Forbes. Dr. Essig maintains a private practice in New York where he treats individuals and couples.
Austen Riggs Center Inc. adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. All those at Austen Riggs Center involved in the planning of this activity, including the presenter(s) listed above, report they have no relevant financial relationships with an ineligible company*.
The views and opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Austen Riggs Center.
* An ineligible company is any entity whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
Available Credit
- 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
ACCME - As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for a maximum of 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
- 1.00 APA
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for 1.00 continuing education credit(s) (CE) for psychology. Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibility for the content of the programs.
Austen Riggs Center, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0115.
- 1.00 ASWB-ACE
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organization, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Austen Riggs Center maintains responsibility for this. Social workers completing this Online live will receive 1.00 continuing education credit(s).
Austen Riggs Center, Inc is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0843.
- 1.00 Contact Hours/ ParticipationA certificate of attendance for all Learners.

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