Psychoanalyst, integrative psychotherapist, supervisor, and educator in New York City.
A SHORT BIOGRAPHY
AT A GLANCE
LCSW, New York · Columbia University · IPSS
Heather Ferguson is a licensed clinical social worker and psychoanalyst with over thirty-five years of clinical experience. Her work is grounded in self-psychological, intersubjective, and relational perspectives, with a sustained interest in trauma, disordered eating, and embodied experience.
She attends to each person’s unique lived experience, strengths, and needs. Alongside psychoanalytic work, she draws on EMDR, clinical hypnosis, and somatic awareness when appropriate.
As a supervisor, teacher, and writer, Heather brings the questions of the practice into conversation with the wider field. Her work supports clinicians in developing a thoughtful, personal clinical voice.
ALONGSIDE THE PRACTICE
Supervision, teaching, writing, and music.
THE PRACTICE OF BEING IN THE ROOM
How do we keep growing in this work?
Theory and technique matter. So do the subtler registers: noticing a shift in the room, staying curious in an impasse, and examining one’s own response. Clinical judgment develops through this repeated, careful attention.
Heather’s teaching and supervision make room for these questions. The aim is to help clinicians develop their own voice, use their reactions thoughtfully, and stay in contact with the particular person in front of them.
1988
A clinical foundation
Graduate study in clinical practice at Columbia University, following a psychology degree at Saint Mary’s University.
2002
Music, groups, and relationship
In Search of Bandhood brings psychoanalytic thinking to the creative and relational lives of original music groups.
2008
Psychoanalytic formation
Completion of psychoanalytic training at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity.
2020–2023
Extending the clinical vocabulary
Further training in sensorimotor psychotherapy, clinical hypnosis, and EMDR deepens attention to experience beyond words.
TODAY
Practice, teaching, and the next generation
Clinical work, supervision, and writing remain in conversation, making the questions of experienced practice available to clinicians finding their own way.
ANOTHER FORM OF LISTENING
Heather has studied and played drums in bands for the past forty years. She has been a therapist-consultant for the Mannes School of Music, The Drummers Collective in New York City, and the Music Industry Therapist Collective (MITC).
Her work with musicians has included help with performance anxiety, blocks in the creative process, band therapy, and hypnosis for stage fright. Music remains another way of thinking about rhythm, attunement, and the experience of being together.
Heather at the drum kit.
Education, training & professional work
The professional record.
January 2024 edition · For more recent work, see publications and presentations.
Teaching & editing
Heather currently teaches and supervises in the four-year psychoanalytic training programs at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity (IPSS) and the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP).
She has previously taught courses at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and the Institute for Expressive Analysis, all in New York City. She has also taught or supervised at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis.
She has served as an Associate Editor for Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context.
Education
MS, Clinical Practice · Columbia University, 1988
BA, Psychology · Saint Mary’s University, 1986
Psychoanalytic training
Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity
Certificate in Psychoanalysis, 2008
Further clinical training
Group psychotherapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy, clinical hypnosis, and EMDR.
Analytic Group Therapy, 2000
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Level I, 2020
Clinical Hypnosis, ASCH, 2021
EMDR, Levels I & II, 2022–2023
CONTINUE EXPLORING
