Format

When

The Junto is a bi-weekly evening working group that borrows its name from Benjamin Franklin’s Junto — a small group organized around collective inquiry and mutual improvement through shared work.

• The meeting will be bi-weekly
• Via Zoom
• On Monday evenings at 8:00 pm CT
• The meetings will last somewhere between 60-90 min

Who

The junto is a closed, carefully curated space for clinicians committed to rigorous clinical thought and practice. Participation will be limited in order to preserve the intensity and seriousness of the work.

What

This group is intended for clinicians who are willing to work from a question rather than from a position of mastery, and who are prepared to let their clinical experience unsettle what they think they know. My aim is to organize this experience around our shared encounter with a lack of knowledge — a lack that can give birth to the analyst's desire. What we cultivate together is not a position of knowing that directs clinical work, but a wanting-to-know that can guide it.

Hybrid Form

• Cartel-like structure — Each member will orient their participation around a guiding question emerging directly from their clinical work. The aim is not the accumulation of knowledge, but its production — through sustained engagement with questions that remain alive. I will participate in the junto as a co-worker in the group’s thinking — similar to, though not identical with, the +1 in a cartel. Like the +1, I will not be the master of the group. Rather, I will take my place as a split subject — someone divided between what I know and can articulate, and what I do not (consciously) know and cannot yet put into words.
• Clinical supervision/control — While this is not traditional supervision, we will work closely with one another’s questions in ways that sharpen clinical thinking and clarify how particular impasses and repetitions take shape in practice.
• Seminar/reading group — There will be assigned readings, always tied to clinical experience. The direction of influence matters: rather than reading theory to organize the clinic, we will allow what we encounter in the clinic to orient our reading of theory. Clinical experience will guide our engagement with texts.

Communication

Participation in the Junto will also include access to a private online communication space (Discord, WhatsApp, or Slack — depending on the group’s preference). This space will support organization and allow conversation to continue between meetings — sharing reflections, questions, passages, and lines of inquiry that emerge from our discussions.

Cost

The first month — the first two meetings — will be offered free of charge. After that, there will be a fee for continued participation. A significant discount will be available for students and for those experiencing financial hardship.

If you want to participate

If you are interested in being considered for participation, please email me directly. After I hear from you, we will schedule a brief (15–30 minute) conversation. This will allow us to determine together whether the group is the right fit — both for you and for the work we intend to undertake.

If that orientation resonates with you, I would be glad to hear from you.

Warmly,

Neil