Dr. Anderson is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, clinical researcher and teacher in Toronto. He has served as Faculty Member in the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry, Staff Member at the city’s Sunnybrook Hospital, and Chair of the Ontario Psychiatric Association’s Psychotherapy Section. He has also held diverse executive positions in the Canadian and Toronto Psychoanalytic Societies, including the Presidency of the latter.
During his medical training, he became inspired by the apolitical curiosity, courage and determination of the scientists he encountered, and he carried their example into a career in the psychoanalytic domain. He was led to test the definability of the profession’s concepts and the predictive capability of its principles, and developed methods for doing so during treatments. Then some held up to validation procedures while others did not, and reliable bodies of genuinely-scientific basic an applied theories began to emerge from the work.
As they proved repeatedly accurate in sessions with patients, he applied them in a parallel analysis of conflicts remaining in self after his training analysis. Then new research data emerged from several sources to expand its range, and as the roots of some of life’s most severe symptoms were reached and dismantled, the goal of providing “complete analyses” became more than possible. It also became apparent that unsuspected artistic creative potentials could be released in self and others, and that theoretically-informed analysands could create extensive, positive ripple effects in marriages, partnerships, families, groups, career situations and friendships.