Ep. 22 Feeling Disorders with Gila Ashtor

What does it mean to lose touch with your own feelings, even while functioning well in everyday life? In this episode of Psychoanalysis & You, Dr. Gail Saltz speaks with psychoanalyst Dr. Gila Ashtor about what she calls “feeling disorders”—experiences like gaslighting, empty consent, and toxic relationships that reflect a deeper difficulty in accessing and trusting one’s own emotional life. Ashtor explains how many patients today appear high-functioning yet feel disconnected, uncertain, or on “autopilot,” and how this can fall outside traditional diagnostic categories. The discussion explores how modern culture, social media, and therapy trends may reinforce emotional disconnection, and why psychoanalysis aims instead to restore curiosity, emotional range, and a stronger sense of internal experience. The episode also examines gaslighting and “empty consent,” and how subtle relational dynamics can lead people to override their own perceptions without recognizing it at the time. The conversation focuses on how psychoanalytic work helps people reconnect with their feelings and build a more vivid, internally grounded sense of self. About Our Guest As a psychoanalyst and critical theorist, Dr. Gila Ashtor is at the forefront of current efforts to bring psychoanalysis into dialogue with adjacent disciplines, especially critical theory, affect studies, and cultural criticism. One of the few psychoanalysts who also has an extensive background in academia, Dr. Ashtor conducts groundbreaking research at the intersection of dissociation, selfhood, and sexuality. She is part of the Faculty at the Center for Psychoanalytic Training & Research, where she teaches courses on Freud, Laplanche, sexuality, masochism, and selfhood. Dr. Ashtor is the author of three books, including Exigent Psychoanalysis: The Theoretical Interventions of Jean Laplanche (Routledge, 2022) and Homo Psyche: On Queer Theory & Erotophobia (Fordham UP, 2021). She is currently at work on a new project that explores "pseudo-selfhood" and other disorders of self-connection. About Our Host Dr. Gail Saltz is best known for her work as a relationship, family, emotional wellbeing, and mental health contributor in the media where she is a go-to expert for commentary on the mental health aspects of current/breaking issues and news. She is a bestselling author of numerous books. She serves on the public information committee for the American Psychoanalytic Association and for The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.