Lara Sheehi | On the Necessity for Psychic Militancy

This talk will explore how we might remain aligned in psychic militancy against the psychic intrusions and expansionism of violent systems such as imperialism and settler colonialism. It will attempt to distill the mechanics of psychic militancy to read how settler colonial logics and their imperialist and patriarchal counterparts work to lodge themselves inside of us, mobilizing identifications with the aggressor that have potential to disrupt notions of our own self as well as others, as Frantz Fanon has taught us. We will discuss how we might engage in refusals against psychic intrusions and their politically demobilizing work.

About the Speaker

Lara Sheehi is a Research Fellow at the University of South Africa's Institute for Social and Health Sciences, a licensed clinical psychologist, and the host of the Psychic Militancy podcast. Lara’s work focuses on psychoanalysis, the psychic refusals central to liberation struggles and life-making in the Global South, the psychic dimensions of resistance and revolution, and critical Zionism studies. She is co-author with Stephen Sheehi of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2022) which won the Middle East Monitor's 2022 Palestine Book Award for Best Academic Book. Lara is a member of the founding collective for the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism and is on the advisory board for Forensic Architecture. Her new book, From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures will be released by Pluto Press in May 2026.