On Transience

On Transience

Some of you are aware that I have a friend and colleague in Iran, a bright graduate student who I have been mentoring. When the Twelve Day War began and Zoom failed we used Instagram and email. Now, during this current war, when email and Instagram have failed us, and my words have failed me, I turned to AI music composition, to translate a section of Freud’s essay “On Transience” into Farsi, and the result was the video you can listen to here. If, like me you do not speak Farsi, Freud’s original excerpt is written below. I wonder what he would have made of all of this. I wonder what history will make of us. “My conversation with the poet took place in the summerbefore the war. A year later the war broke out and robbed theworld of its beauties. It destroyed not only the beauty of thecountrysides through which it passed and the works of art whichit met with on its path but it also shattered our pride in theachievements of our civilization, our admiration for manyphilosophers and artists and our hopes of a final triumph overthe differences between nations and races.It tarnished the loftyimpartiality of our science, it revealed our instincts in all theirnakedness and let loose the evil spirits within us which wethought had been tamed for ever by centuries of continuouseducation by the noblest minds. It made our country smallagain and made the rest of the world far remote. It robbed us ofvery much that we had loved, and showed us how ephemeralwere many things that we had regarded as changeless.We cannot be surprised that our libido, thus bereft of so manyof its objects, has clung with all the greater intensity to what isleft to us, that our love of our country, our affection for thosenearest us and our pride in what is common to us have suddenly grown stronger. But have those other possessions, whichwe have now lost, really ceased to have any worth for us becausethey have proved so perishable and so unresistant? To many ofus this seems to be so, but once more wrongly, in my view. Ibelieve that those who think thus, and seem ready to make apermanent renunciation because what was precious has provednot to be lasting, are simply in a state of mourning for what islost. Mourning, as we know, however painful it may be, comesto a spontaneous end. When it has renounced everything thathas been lost, then it has consumed itself, and our libido is oncemore free (in so far as we are still young and active) to replacethe lost objects by fresh ones equally or still more precious.It is to be hoped that the same will be true of the losses caused by thiswar...” Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions at mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe [https://mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Free Webinar On Video Games For You

Hi Folks, Here’s a webinar I did a while back on Video Games in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. It doesn’t get you any CEs, as I am trying to minimize how much I participate in the CE industry. Knowledge should be available to all, and although I do hire myself out and accept paid subscribers, I also try in parallel to offer people access to things regardless of if they can pay.If you want to hire me as a consultant I won’t say no, and if you purchase a paid subscription here I’ll say “Thank You.” But I’ll never hide stuff here behind paywalls, and I hope that it benefits you and the therapists, patients and gamers in your life. Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions at mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe [https://mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Playful Subversions Episode 8

In this episode, I sit down with integrative psychotherapist, yoga teacher, and poet Brittany Robertson, LICSW, whose work centers on embodiment, liberation, and deep relational healing for “the strong sensitive one.” Our conversation moves quickly from her professional bio into something far more personal, playful, and unexpected: how a mini-trampoline became an essential tool in her therapeutic life, self-regulation, and resistance to professional compliance. We explore the slow creep of disembodiment that so many therapists experience: the spell of seriousness, the pull of productivity, the dopamine hit of “getting to the next appointment,” and the ways early-career clinicians can confuse adrenaline for aliveness. Brittany names the cultural and institutional forces—capitalism, burnout, training norms—that can flatten clinicians and sever them from the playful parts of themselves. What emerges is a rich conversation about compliance vs. creativity (a theme dear to this podcast). We talk about how systems groom us to feel “adult” through commutes, checklists, and policing our own embodiment—and how therapists often mistake being dutiful for being effective. Brittany beautifully describes how trampolining helps her practice a different truth: that play, silliness, and bodily curiosity are not indulgences but pathways back to presence. She explains how the trampoline enables a kind of descending into the body—a gentle, respectful, non-urgent form of embodiment. Not a workout, not a performance, not progress. Just buoyancy, feedback, and the freedom to be “beautifully messy.” We even talk about the literal and metaphorical act of resisting gravity, and how the trampoline can function as a tiny rebellion against internalized compliance. By the end, the trampoline becomes less a wellness gadget and more a symbol of something wider: the ongoing project of reclaiming play, resisting urgency, and making therapy a place where embodiment and aliveness can actually happen. Get full access to Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions at mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe [https://mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Playful Subversions Episode 7

In this episode of Playful Subversions, I sit down with my longtime friend and colleague Catherine Beckett, LCSW, PhD, whose work spans grief counseling, hospice care, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Catherine also happens to be a 20-year veteran of Portland’s Comedy Sports improv troupe, which becomes the perfect starting point for a conversation about play, trust, and the creative roots of therapy. Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Catherine and I first met at Smith College back in grad school—back when she was rappelling out of dorm windows, which felt like a fitting metaphor for how she still approaches both life and therapy: daring, disciplined, and a little bit weird in the best way. In our talk, she describes how she moved from scripted theater to improv, drawn by its sustainability and community. What began as a creative outlet turned into one of the most profound trainings she’s ever had as a therapist. We explore the principles of improv—especially the “yes, and” mindset—as a model for clinical work. Catherine describes the structure of Comedy Sports: its clean, family-friendly humor, team dynamics, and even the way “fouls” are called for groaner jokes or crossing boundaries. I share my own reflections on how giving a scene partner the laugh rather than taking it mirrors something central to psychotherapy—the discipline of listening, giving space, and letting go of control. To bring the spirit of improv into the episode, Catherine and I actually play a round of “Alphabet,” building a scene one letter at a time. The results—featuring chili, peaches, and a relationship on the verge of meltdown—show just how spontaneous and co-created the process can be. After the laughter, we talk about what it’s like to work through the anxiety of not knowing what to say next, and how trust and vulnerability are at the heart of both improv and therapy. Catherine shares stories about performing while pregnant, bringing her son Dylan to shows, and watching him grow into an improviser himself. She also reflects on how performing comedy has helped her stay grounded and resist rigidity—both personally and politically. We connect the practice of improvisation to resisting authoritarianism: how learning to co-create, tolerate uncertainty, and trust others becomes a small but powerful act of defiance in a culture that demands control and compliance. What emerges is a portrait of improv as more than entertainment—it’s a training ground for emotional honesty, collaboration, and creativity in the face of fear. Catherine’s practice, like her performances, is rooted in that same spirit of curiosity and play: a belief that healing happens not in perfection, but in the willingness to take a risk, make a mess, and keep saying yes, and... Get full access to Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions at mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe [https://mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Playful Subversions Episode 6

In this Halloween episode, I welcome my friend and colleague Heather McGibbon, a psychodynamic therapist and cinema scholar whose unusual passion for horror and serial killers makes her the perfect guest for a spooky season conversation. We explore how horror functions both psychologically and culturally—as a container for our deepest fears, desires, and aggression. Heather shares how her fascination with horror began in childhood, when she realized the unsettling truth that she could hurt someone else without feeling their pain—an early moment of empathy formation mirrored in her lifelong intrigue with Michael Myers and the unfeeling violence of Halloween (1978). For her, horror’s formulaic genres—slasher films, true crime, and docudramas like Snapped—offer safe symbolic spaces to metabolize rage, grief, and the uncanny. We unpack Snapped, Oxygen Network’s long-running series about women who kill, and its strange mix of horror, parody, and voyeurism. Heather describes how its narration—judgmental, dramatic, even humorous—reveals the seams of genre, turning domestic frustration and class resentment into spectacle. We discuss how the show often mirrors gendered power dynamics: women, often working-class and white, lashing out against economic or relational confinement. Our conversation shifts from Snapped to cinematic horror, exploring why films like Halloween, The Witch, and Hereditary terrify and fascinate us. I share how Halloween’s sexual morality resonated with me as a queer adolescent during the AIDS epidemic—where sex itself felt deadly. We trace the recurring imagery of the witch, child-devouring mothers, and other archetypes as expressions of cultural anxiety about reproduction, power, and the feminine. As we laugh about watching Snapped as a couple’s activity and confess our horror thresholds, the discussion deepens into psychoanalytic territory: horror as a form of play, displacement, and even dissociation. In the end, what emerges is an understanding of horror not as mere entertainment but as a mirror of our inner conflicts—where the monstrous, the comic, and the real blur together. Get full access to Gamer Therapist: Playful Subversions at mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe [https://mikelanglois.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]