Reserve a day to sit with others at the shore of our consciousness and take in the beauty of our world. Consider what values you cherish and wish to uphold as we create our future together.

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Pulling Out the Roots of Authoritarianism: Family, Government/Institutions, Religion

 

A COMMUNITY GATHERING FOR MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

 

WHEN:         Saturday, June 13th, 2026, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

WHERE:       St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Capitol Hill, SE

 

Featured Speakers

Jessica Benjamin, PhD: “The Cultural Synthesis of Patriarchy and Rationality”

Lynne Layton, PhD: “Defenses Against Truth Telling and Reparative Action”

Mauricio Cortina, MD: “Erich Fromm: Insights on Authoritarianism”

Richard Chefetz, MD: “Authoritarianism: an Assault on Human Dignity”

Kate Woodsome, journalist and founder of the Invisible Threads Lab: “Resilience and Self-Care”

 

REGISTER HERE: https://forms.gle/SUgyF9eZaN9YBtBz7

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Format and Vision

This in-person meeting will follow the general format of Pop-Up Zoom Community Meetings our small working group has hosted several times over the past 18 months in response to the governmental crisis. It will include plenary presentations, small group discussions, and informal networking during the lunch break.

The intent is to foster discussion, engage in controversy together, and generate greater understanding and creative effort. We do not expect to agree in our assessments of the current political moment. What the future holds remains open to the influence of how we ourselves think and act.

 

This is an independent project of our working group, unaffiliated with any professional institution. We offer it as a professional-level gathering both to look at where we are and to talk about where we are going as a community.

There are no fees for attendance. No CE credits will be offered.

 

Acknowledgments

We are grateful that Drs. Benjamin and Layton have accepted our invitation to speak here in Washington. These are arguably two of the more agile, generative, and vocal psychoanalytic thinkers of our times (see their profiles and sample published articles, relevant to the program, below).

 

We are also grateful for the opportunity to gather at the historic St. Mark's Church https://www.stmarks.net/. We especially thank the Directors of Christian Education and Michelle Morgan, Rector, for their support and for the use of the Parish Hall. Following our event, separate classroom experiences will be offered to church congregation members.

 

Registration

PLEASE NOTE: Since seating is limited to 125 and we wish to share this opportunity with interested clinicians at all stages of training and experience, we ask that you only register if you sincerely plan to attend.

Whereas the event is given free of charge, we trust that no one will sign up frivolously on that basis. Priority is given to members of the local DC/Maryland/Virginia community.

If you register but then find later that you cannot attend, please write to Rich Chefetz at r.a.chefetz@psychsense.net so that somebody on the waiting list can attend. Thank you.

 

REGISTER HERE: https://forms.gle/SUgyF9eZaN9YBtBz7

 

Directions

St. Mark's Episcopal Church is located at the corner of 3rd and A Streets, SE. It's in a residential neighborhood, just one block east of the Library of Congress.

IF YOU DRIVE: it's near I-395 and the SE-SW Freeway. For GPS the destination is 301 A Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003.

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Saturday parking is unrestricted and free on most nearby blocks. BEWARE, however, that we don’t know what competing local events may be scheduled for the same time. When this happens, parking can be a real trial. So carpooling, public transportation,  or taking Uber, Lyft, taxi, etc., may be preferable.

 

IF YOU TAKE METRORAIL: The Capitol South station (Blue/Orange/Silver lines) is closest to the church (10-minute walk). Also nearby are the Eastern Market (Blue/Orange/Silver - 15-minute walk) and the Union Station (Red line - 20-minute walk) stops.

 

Lunch

Please approach lunch as a time for screen-free conversation and connection! We invite you to bring your own lunch so you can sit together with other conference members, enjoy their company, and exchange ideas. St. Marks' has a number of benches and table/chair areas on both 3rd and A Streets where we can sit outside, weather permitting. The neighborhood is safe for walking, and the lively Eastern Market area is just a 10 to 15-minute walk away.

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If you need or want to buy lunch, you’ll find many affordable restaurants just 1-2 blocks south of the church on Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.

 

Schedule

 

9 a.m. Rich Chefetz/Intro

 

9:15-9:45 Lynne Layton: Defenses Against Truth Telling and Reparative Action

(and 15 minutes discussion)

 

10-10:30 Jessica Benjamin: The Cultural Synthesis of Patriarchy and Rationality

 

(and 15 minutes discussion, 15 minute break

 

11-11:30 Plenary with Lynne/Jessica/Mauricio/Rich

 

Lunch (on your own, and see above about sharing space and conversation since, finally, we're not online!)

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1-1:30 Mauricio Cortina, The Relevance of the Work of Erich Fromm

1:30-1:45 Rich Chefetz, Authoritarianism as an Assault on Dignity

1:45-2 break

 

2-2:50 small groups

2:50-3 break

 

3-3:30 Plenary

3:30-3:50 Kate Woodsome on resilience and guided imagery cool down

 

3:50 Final summation-Rich

 

Speaker Profiles

Jessica Benjamin, PhD: see her Wikipedia profile here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Benjamin

Video lecture: “Collective Violence and Social Traumata from a Psychoanalytic Perspective” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FyqIRk6JLI

 

Lynne Layton, PhD: is a writer, social activist, and a psychoanalyst member of the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She was on the organizing committee of the Grassroots Reparations Campaign from 2018 till 2025 and is on the core team of the Reparations Interfaith Coalition of Massachusetts. She has taught culture and psychoanalysis at her institute, at Harvard College, and at Pacifica Graduate Institute. From 2004-2017, she co-edited the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. She is an associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. She is the author of two books, Who's That Girl? Who's That Boy? Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory, and (with Marianna Leavy-Sperounis), Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes, winner of a 2021 book award from the American Academy and Board of Psychoanalysis. In 2024, she received the Hans Loewald award from the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education.

Podcast interview: “The Social Unconscious and Character Formation in Neoliberal Culture”   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb9fDS4OS7o

 

Kate Woodsome: is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, civic resilience architect and founder of the Invisible Threads Lab, which designs, tests, and scales interventions that strengthen the human capacities civic life depends on. While at The Washington Post, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with colleagues covering the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, where she viscerally experienced the connection between collective trauma, polarization, and democratic decline. This inspired her to leave traditional journalism to become a Resilience Toolkit facilitator and Georgetown University visiting scholar, working with neuroscientists, trauma and healing experts and systems thinkers to build media, training and strategies to "heal the nervous system of democracy." You can follow her writing at https://katewoodsome.substack.com/