Dr. Yukari Yanagino is a psychoanalyst, who approaches psychoanalytic theory and practice while incorporating the issues of race, gender, and sexuality in a close, sensitive, and attentive manner.
AFFILIATIONS
Dr. Yanagino is a faculty member at the Psychoanalytic Association of New York (PANY) at New York University Medical School, one of the five distinguished psychoanalytic training institutes affiliated with the American Psychoanalytic Association; and an Associate Member at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR)–both of which are simultaneously affiliates of the governing international organization, the International Psychoanalytical Association, founded by Sigmund Freud in 1910. She also functions as a supervisor to staff-clinicians and student-interns at the Institute for Human Identity in New York City. In addition, she mentors and trains clinicians who are interested in integrating issues of race, gender, and sexuality in psychoanalytic theory internationally.
EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
Prior to completing psychoanalytic training at PANY, Dr. Yanagino earned a B.A. in Women’s Studies and an M.A. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City. She then received an MSW from New York University Silver School of Social Work in New York City. Finally, she integrated her interest in Psychoanalysis, Gender Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Structuralism and received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
PUBLIC SERVICE
Before she became interested in psychoanalysis, Dr. Yanagino developed and distributed HIV/AIDS prevention and education material through grassroots activism and social justice work. She was one of the founders and board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV and AIDS (APICHA) during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early ’90’s.
Dr. Yanagino co-wrote APICHA’s preliminary prevention and education programs in 1990. It was the first of its kind to exist in the New York Metropolitan Area, emphasizing the importance of cultural sensitivity and language specificity. She then trained the volunteers, who functioned as the bridge between the first-generation Asian and Pacific Islander clients and healthcare providers. Currently, APICHA provides not only HIV/AIDS-related health and advocacy services to diverse communities of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the New York Metropolitan area, but also provides general primary care.
Dr. Yanagino has been passionate about closing off of the gap between clinical practice of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic-theory making that takes place in non-clinical academic settings. Her doctoral dissertation examines this specific divide, and argues that the practice of psychoanalysis carried out in this way exhibits a unique quality that resembles a form of fetishism. Through articulating and challenging this tendency, Dr. Yanagino has sought to minimize the gap between the two fields.
CLINICAL EXPERIENCE
Prior to opening her private practice, Dr. Yanagino completed five years of clinical experience working as a staff clinician at an outpatient clinic in the New York Metropolitan area where she saw diverse patients with a broad range of psychiatric diagnoses. In addition to her individual work with patients who are in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, she sees couples in therapy sessions, and also offers group sessions for individuals who are engaged in social justice movement work.
Dr. Yanagino has extensive knowledge of working with patients who have experienced trauma and are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Her clinical experience suggests that the treatment of PTSD cannot be facilitated simply by attempting to re-open painful memories ( causing a person to re-experience them). Rather, it must be approached with deep understanding of the uniqueness of the individual’s psychic experience. The work that addresses trauma inevitably invites an opening – a new beginning – that can offer a firm first step towards an openness of the future, a gesture that expresses yes to life, which is a fundamental theoretical view Sigmund Freud shared in his seminal work.
PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS
Dr. Yanagino edits and writes for psychoanalytic journals. She is interested in integrating the academic theory of psychoanalysis, the clinical theory of psychoanalysis, and social justice work. She believes that the result of this integration is what Freud aimed for throughout his career. While being respectful to his theoretical ideas, Dr. Yanagino is interested in advancing Freud’s work by examining the current sociopolitical environment. She strongly believes that psychoanalysts must learn to be attentive to struggles that deeply affect people of color, women, immigrants, and LGBTQGNC (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Gender Non-Conforming) individuals.
Currently, she is heading a weekly supervisory group for clinicians working with Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming patients.
