About Leon S. Brenner
Practice, theory,
and the work of thought.
I am a psychoanalytic practitioner, researcher, and writer based in Berlin. My work brings together psychoanalytic practice, research on subjectivity and psychopathology, and teaching in psychology and psychoanalysis.
Clinical work & formation
Psychoanalytic formation
My psychoanalytic formation has developed through more than 15 years of formative case-study and cartel work within the New Lacanian School, together with extensive personal and training analysis.
It includes more than 300 hours of supervised case work and seven years of practice with analysands under supervision.
My studies in psychology and philosophy, alongside sustained research and writing in psychoanalysis, are part of this development. This work continues through clinical case development, research, and the encounters of analytic practice.
- Practice
- Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis · Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie.
Professional memberships
The Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis
About The Site (opens a new tab)Association for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Ireland
APPI
About APPI (opens a new tab)Academic background
I completed my PhD in psychoanalysis and linguistics in 2019. My research appointments have included positions at Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Potsdam, the Hans Kilian and Lotte Köhler Center at Ruhr University Bochum, and IPU Berlin. Alongside this research, I have taught in BA and MA programmes and supervised student theses and clinical placements.
I teach psychoanalysis in the MA clinical psychology track at the International Psychoanalytic University Berlin.
My research concerns the relationship between culture and psychopathology, with a particular interest in autism, language, the body, love, and transference.
In The Autistic Subject: On the Threshold of Language (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), I develop a Lacanian account of autistic subjectivity. My writing moves between clinical questions, philosophy, and film.
Books, articles & researchResearch interests
Autism & language
Autistic subjectivity, signs and language, and the body’s place in psychoanalytic theory.
Autism reading routeDesire & subjectivity
Love, transference, and questions of desire and responsibility in analysis.
Desire & love reading routePsychoanalysis & culture
Film, philosophy, and the relationship between cultural forms and subjective experience.
Film & culture reading routeUnconscious Berlin
I founded Unconscious Berlin as a space for psychoanalytic education, clinical exchange, and public conversation. Alongside my own teaching, I organize encounters in Berlin with visiting scholars and psychoanalysts.