I worked as a cab driver, a truck driver and a short-order cook before becoming a physician. I did a residency in internal medicine, planned to do a fellowship in hematology/oncology but took a year off to work full-time for the labor movement. The year turned into a decade, and when I returned to medicine it was to do a residency in psychiatry with the notion of becoming a psychoanalyst and in fact I earn my living as a psychoanalyst. My analytic training was at Columbia where I am a TA.

I have been lucky enough to teach widely at Columbia and elsewhere. At Columbia for several years I co-taught a development course (more precisely, I was the assistant to Susan Coates), similarly, for years, I co-taught the first year Technique course (i.e. I was the assistant to Helen Meyers) and, for 15 years I taught in and was co-chair of the yearlong Freud course.

Currently I am also on the faculty of ICLS, Columbia’s Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, where I teach a graduate seminar on Freud and seminar on Laplanche although that teaching is currently on hold.

Laplanche asked me to serve on the Conseil scientifique of Fondation Laplanche where I am primarily responsible for the translation of his work into English. This is a project that may well be finished before I find myself embraced in the bosom of Abraham.