Frank Summers, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and holds faculty positions both at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He is President of the Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association.
Dr. Summers has published extensively and lectured nationwide on object relations theories and their application to the process of psychoanalytic therapy. The emphasis of his contributions has been on the translation of insight into concrete emotional and behavioral changes by bringing to fruition the latent potential of the patient. His books and papers in professional journals elucidate his theory that psychoanalytic therapy is a process of self-creation in which the therapist plays a dual role of understanding current patterns and facilitating the creation of new ways of being and relating.
His previous book, Object Relations Theories and Psychopathology: A Comprehensive Text has been hailed as the best available survey of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and technique.
In his current book, The Psychoanalytic Vision: The Experiencing Subject, Transcendence, and the Therapeutic Process, Dr. Summers argues that analytic therapy is a worldview that stands in clear opposition to the dominant cultural value system of objectification, quantification, and materialism. The Psychoanalytic Vision situates psychoanalysis as the voice of the rebel.
Dr. Summers maintains a private practice in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Chicago.