The Candidate Connection is an APsaA newsletter written by and for candidates. This year two candidates from the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, Valentino “Luca” Zullo and Danielle Dronet, are co-editors, and their first issue, entitled "Psychoanalysis in the Neighborhood" is devoted to community psychoanalysis. Danielle and Luca are the founders of Siggy’s Village, a community garden and soon to be recreation and therapeutic center located in Collinwood, a Cleveland neighborhood, where they offer pro-bono, low cost and/or insurance reimbursed psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Working with local community agencies and schools, they hope to introduce psychoanalytic ideas and therapy to adults, children and families.Phoebe H. Cirio, MSW, President of the Candidates Council, explains in her opening address in the newsletter that

“as more social workers pursue psychoanalytic training they bring with them a long, and rather noble tradition of clinical intervention in, and with, communities. This type of work can take the community as a whole as the patient, building resilience in the community by developing social structure.”

Inspiration for the theme of this issue and the work in Collinwood comes from a few different sources. Candidates Zullo and Dronet have learned from CPC member Vera Camden, Ph.D. the importance of literature and popular culture inside and outside the consulting room. Società Psicoanalitica Italiana candidate Davide Rosso’s engaging video, which circulated on social media last year and instantly became a classic, illustrates how clinicians are inspired to take psychoanalysis beyond the consulting room. In this issue of the Candidates Connection you will find interviews with Dr. Rosso and Dr. Patricia Gherovici, an Argentinian now living in the United States, who has trained as a Lacanian and whose scholarship and clinical work also promote extending psychoanalysis into the community.