María Verónica Laguna is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, clinical supervisor, and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Uruguay. She spent over a decade working in New York City, where she taught Social Work at Mercy University and served as an instructor at the Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She is the co-author of From Grad School to Private Practice: A Roadmap for Mental Health Clinicians and has forthcoming chapters on immigrants’ self-states and critical psychology. Her work spans continents and disciplines—she founded The Bicultural Collective to support bicultural individuals and the clinicians who serve them, and leads Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, a collaborative database curating events and resources at the intersection of clinical practice and activism. She also explores the intersection of music and mental health, facilitating workshops on tango’s therapeutic power and on learning Spanish through Latin American protest songs. I first met María through that protest songs group, and then discovered we share other interests—psychoanalysis, social work, and the experience of migration from the Southern Cone to the United States and back again. She is warm, good-hearted, and passionate, and it was a joy to connect with her for what I hope is the first of many conversations. In this hour, we talk about the role of immigration and otherness in the consulting room, the cultural roots of psychoanalysis in the Southern Cone, and what it means to work towards a psychoanalysis for the people. We explore how music and movement can be tools for healing, how to channel anger into social change, and how clinical work, activism, and art can meet in the service of collective wellbeing. Support the project: patreon.com/TherapyfortheWorld Music credits: “Limit 70,” licensed by Kevin MacLeod “Meditation” by Jules Massenet, from the Library of Congress Jukebox