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The New Orleans-Birmingham
Psychoanalytic Center

grew out of the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute, which was the oldest psychoanalytic training program in the southeastern United States, founded in 1947. Today, the Center offers training in the practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy. It promotes community outreach, continuing education, and research to deepen general understanding of psychoanalytic thought, thereby, enriching human experience.

The FAR Fund,

a private foundation established in 2001 and located in New York City, fully underwrote this program. The foundation awards grants to a diverse range of organizations. Most of the grantees are located in the tri-state area, although occasionally grant proposals are funded in other states. Predominantly, the projects supported focus on providing innovative programs to children, families, and communities in need. Organizations that clearly demonstrate a psychoanalytic sensibility in their work and leadership are particularly attractive to the FAR Fund.

Supporting the mental health community in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina offered an opportunity for The FAR Fund to help a group of professionals that was trying to to do it all with almost no outside support. The funding we provided enabled the FAR Fund NOLA project to create a space in which clinicians could process what had happened to them since the storm and develop an understanding of what their future needs might be. Our goal was to make funding available that would be flexible, allowing for creativity and adjustment in direction as the project developed. This grant is an excellent example of the type of work the FAR Fund supports, where we can provide funding to allow ideas to emerge that will be of benefit to to all.

Kathryn Nathan, Ph.D.

is a clinical psychologist in private practice in uptown New Orleans. Dr. Nathan wrote the original proposal for the FAR Fund-NOLA project, on behalf of the New Orleans Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center, requesting psychoanalytically informed help for the psychotherapists of New Orleans. She was the Clinician Grant Coordinator of the FAR Fund-NOLA Project since its inception in 2008.

After ten years in New York City, Dr. Nathan returned to her hometown of New Orleans in 2002, where she joined the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center and started a private practice in psychotherapy.

Ghislaine Boulanger, Ph.D.

served as consultant to the FAR Fund-NOLA Program. A psychologist psychoanalyst on the faculty of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, she also maintains a private practice in New York City. In the mid seventies, Dr. Boulanger joined a congressionally mandated research team doing the first epidemiological study of Vietnam veterans. Her findings about the long-term consequences of adult onset trauma led to a career of research, writing, and teaching about the psychodynamic aftermath of surviving a catastrophic experience in adulthood. She has published and lectured widely on this topic.

Shirlee Taylor, Ph.D.

is the Executive Director of the FAR Fund, a private foundation committed to achieving far-reaching results with the populations served. This can include children with disabilities, students, struggling families, or communities in need. She is also a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Manhattan and a candidate at the New York University Post Doctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. Prior to receiving her doctorate from Adelphi University, Dr. Taylor worked in the financial sector and with non-profits.

Laura Manning Franke, Ph.D.

was the Assistant Grant Coordinator for the FAR Fund-NOLA Project. She is a native of Richmond, VA, and was a resident of New Orleans for 9 years, including during "the Storm." She received her PhD in experimental psychology from Tulane University of Louisiana in 2011. Her roles in the Project have ranged from researcher to production assistant to event planner, and she is honored to be involved.

Georgina Hollick M.A.

was Dr. Boulanger’s research assistant and reviewed interview transcripts during preliminary research conducted in compiling content for this website. She is from London, England and is currently pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology at The New School for Social Research in New York.