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ForwardSeptember 18, 2025: 14th Anne W. Alonso, Ph.D., Lecture in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy - Permacrisis, Falling Out of the World, and Our Existential Moment
Permacrisis, Falling Out of the World, and Our Existential Moment
Description:
"Permacrisis: a term first used in the 1970s, by definition (OED online) means a “situation characterized by constant and significant turmoil or instability … one that is widespread across a society and caused by an ongoing series of events such as war, economic recession, a pandemic….”
Today we, too, experience a gnawing sense of the too-muchness of the world, a grinding, surreal, existential absurdity. I will reframe permacrisis as the relentless, unassimilable, traumatizing newness of the world that creates a “perma-strangeness” and, with this, a persistent, spiraling uncanniness in efforts to find and revise meaning and perspective. Bringing together psychoanalytic conceptions of the unconscious and the entwined, temporal-spatial dimensions of Being-in-the-World, this talk will explore our historical moment at the cusp of a precarious future. Indeed, we are at the cusp of a great battle for ownership of the future. Building on my previous work, 'Falling Out of the World' (Margulies, 2021), here we will explore existential dislocation, the uncanny, the loss of our taken-for-granted, everyday world—and the longing to find our way back home."
Target Audience
This program is intended for Psychiatrists, Psychologists, General and Family Practice Physicians, Psychiatric Nurses, Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, and Social Workers.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of the activity, participants will be able to:
- To analyze disruptions to the grounding of everyday existence, creating a sense of strangeness, the uncanny, a feeling of not-being-at-home in the world.
- To assess a continuum of the strange from existential authenticity to traumatic dissociation.
- To recognize how the experience of strangeness and afterwards intertwine and illuminate one another, and give us insight into our everyday world, how we live, and how we face the intolerable, the unsettling, and the new.
- To investigate “deferred action” (Nachträglichkeit or Après-coup) and its relationship to memory and awareness.
SPEAKER(S)
Alfred Margulies, M.D.
Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute
Alfred Margulies, M.D.
Alfred Margulies, M.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. At the Cambridge Health Alliance, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, he served as Director of Medical Student Education; Director of Out-Patient Services; Co-founder and Director of Education, the Program for Psychotherapy; and Associate Chair of the Department. He is a recipient of the Harvard Medical School Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching, the Cambridge Havens Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Distinguished Life Fellowship of the American Psychiatric Association, the 2013 Outstanding Psychiatrist Award for Clinical Psychiatry, Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, the 2019 Sabshin Teaching Award, American Psychoanalytic Association. He serves on the editorial boards of the J Am Psychoanalytic Assn and Int J Psychoanalysis and has twice been a plenary speaker at the APsA. This past quarter, he was the 2025 “Visiting Kohut Professor at the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought” the University of Chicago. Author of The Empathic Imagination, he is now working on Falling Out of the World: Shock, Strangeness—and Afterwards, reflecting his long interests in the construction of time, self, memory, meaning—and existential shock and dislocation, experiences that disrupt the coherence of worldview, and leave one falling.
Disclosures:
Available Credit
- 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of IHP and Massachusetts General Hospital. IHP is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
IHP designates this Enduring activity for a maximum of 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
- 1.00 Nursing Contact Hours
Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 13, sections 13, 14, 14A, 15 and 15D and Chapter 112, sections 74 through 81C authorize the Board of Registration in Nursing to regulate nursing practice and education.
This program meets the requirements of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing (244 CMR 5.00) for 1.00 contact hours of nursing continuing education credit. Advance practice nurses, please note: Educational activities which meet the requirements of the ACCME (such as this activity) count towards 50% of the nursing requirement for ANCC accreditation.
- 1.00 Social Workers
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, the MGH Institute of Health Professions is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, 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. MGH Institute of Health Professions maintains responsibility for this course. Social workers completing this course receive 1.00 clock hours for continuing education credits.
- 1.00 Participation
This course allows other providers to claim a Participation Certificate upon successful completion of this course.
Participation Certificates will specify the title, location, type of activity, date of activity, and number of AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ associated with the activity. Providers should check with their regulatory agencies to determine ways in which AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ may or may not fulfill continuing education requirements. Providers should also consider saving copies of brochures, agenda, and other supporting documents.
- 1.00 Psychologists CE Credit
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. MGH Institute of Health Professions designates this activity for 1.00 CE credit.
Accreditation
In support of improving patient care, MGH Institute of Health Professions is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
1.0 Physicians
MGH Institute of Health Professions designates this live activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits ™. Physicians should claim only credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in this activity.
1.0 Physician Associates/Assistants
AAPA Credit Designation Statement – Live
MGH Institute of Health Professions has been authorized by the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) to award AAPA Category 1 CME credit for activities planned in accordance with AAPA CME Criteria. This activity is designated for 1.0 AAPA Category 1 CME credits. PAs should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.
AAPA Credit Designation Statement – Enduring Materials
MGH Institute of Health Professions has been authorized by the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) to award AAPA Category 1 CME credit for activities planned in accordance with AAPA CME Criteria. This activity is designated for 1.0 AAPA Category 1 CME credits. Approval is valid until {Expiration Date). PAs should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.
1.0 Nursing
MGH Institute of Health Professions designates this activity for 1.0 contact hours for nurses. The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Board (AANPCB) accepts credit from organizations accredited by the ACCME and ANCC.
1.0 Pharmacists
This activity provides 1.0 contact hours of continuing education credit.
NOTE FOR PHARMACISTS: Upon closing of the electronic evaluation, IHP will upload the pharmacy-related continuing education information to the CPE Monitor within 60 days. Per ACPE rules, IHP does not have access nor the ability to upload credits requested after the evaluation closes. It is the responsibility of the pharmacist or pharmacy technician to provide the correct information [NABP ePID and DOB (in MMDD format)] in order to receive credit for participating in a CE activity.
1.0 Psychologists:
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. MGH Institute of Health Professions designates this activity for 1.0 CE credit.
1.0 Social Workers
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, MGH Institute of Health Professions is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, 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. MGH Institute of Health Professions maintains responsibility for this course. Social workers completing this course receive 1.0 clock hours for continuing education credits.
1.0 IPCE Credit
This activity was planned by and for the healthcare team, and learners will receive 1.0 Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) credit for learning and change.