Salman Akhtar, MD, is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.
He has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Psychoanalytic Quarterly. His more than 450 publications include 114 books, of which 23 are solo-authored.
Selected solo-authored books
- Broken Structures (1992)
- Quest for Answers (1995)
- Inner Torment (1999)
- Immigration and Identity (1999)
- New Clinical Realms (2003)
- Objects of Our Desire (2005)
- Regarding Others (2007)
- Turning Points in Dynamic Psychotherapy (2009)
- The Damaged Core (2009)
- Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2009)
- Immigration and Acculturation (2011)
- Matters of Life and Death (2011)
- The Book of Emotions (2012)
- Psychoanalytic Listening (2013)
- Good Stuff (2013)
- Sources of Suffering (2014)
- No Holds Barred (2016)
- A Web of Sorrow (2017)
- Mind, Culture, and Global Unrest (2018)
- Silent Virtues (2019)
- Tales of Transformation (2021)
- In Leaps and Bounds (2022)
- In Short (2024)
Dr. Akhtar has delivered many prestigious invited lectures, including a Plenary Address at the 2nd International Congress of the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders in Oslo, Norway (1991); an Invited Plenary Paper at the 2nd International Margaret S. Mahler Symposium in Cologne, Germany (1993); an Invited Plenary Paper at the Rencontre Franco-Americaine de Psychanalyse in Paris, France (1994); a Keynote Address at the 43rd IPA Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2005); the Plenary Address at the 150th Freud Birthday Celebration in Leiden, Holland (2006); the Inaugural Address at the first IPA-Asia Congress in Beijing, China (2010); and the Plenary Address at the Fall Meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association in 2017.
He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Edith Sabshin Award (2000), Columbia University’s Robert Liebert Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied Psychoanalysis (2004), the American Psychiatric Association’s Kun Po So Award (2004), and the Irma Bland Award for being the Outstanding Teacher of Psychiatric Residents in the country (2005). In 2012 he received the highly prestigious Sigourney Award for distinguished contributions to psychoanalysis. In 2013 he gave the Commencement Address at the graduation ceremonies of the Smith College School of Social Work in Northampton, MA.
“A true Renaissance man.”
Dr. Akhtar’s books have been translated into many languages, including German, Italian, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, and Turkish. He has served as the Film Review Editor for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and currently serves as the Book Review Editor for the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. He has published 18 collections of poetry and serves as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia.