Perverse Autonomy: Trauma, Confucius and Queerness

Kris Yi (she/her) is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in

Pasadena, CA. She is currently a member of the teaching and

supervising faculty at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICP) of Los

Angeles.

She is an Associate Editor on Race and Psychoanalysis for the Journal of the

American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA). She serves on the board of the

Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiaN) and until recently a long time co-

chairperson for the International Relations Committee for the Division 39 of the

American Psychological Association.

She has presented widely and published work on culture and race in

psychoanalysis. Her most recent work on Asian American and Model Minority

Stereotype, and Collective Trauma and Splitting were published in the

Psychoanalytic Dialogues. She is currently editing a special issue on the Asian

American Experience for The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA). 

She is a 1.5 generation Korean American and works predominantly with Asian

and Asian American individuals.

Aries Liao (she/her) is a psychotherapist with extensive experience in clinical, group and community social work. She received her PhD in Social Welfare and Masters in Social Work from Yeshiva University, and is a trained psychoanalyst and supervisor from the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology.

She has co-founded Q-WAVE and The Asian Pride Project. She also served on the executive board of The National Queer Asian and Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), and the executive steering committee of PFLAG NYC-API Rainbow Parents; involved in development of organizational vision and strategies, and the facilitation of workshops and training.

Aries is committed to community building and gender, racial, disability and economic justice. She has been passionately involved in the advocacy and education work for the past 20 years. 

Sien Rivera, MD (they/them) is Assistant Program Director of the Prisma Health Midlands/University of South Carolina General Psychiatry residency program, and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia, SC where they lead teaching and supervision of resident psychodynamic psychotherapy. They received their medical degree from SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine and completed their general psychiatry residency and child adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Prisma Health Midlands/University of South Carolina. 

They are the co-chair of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Committee on Gender and Sexuality and they present nationally and internationally on topics related to gender, sexuality, and new technologies.