Frie, Roger

My research bridges psychology and the humanities, and reflects my training in each field. I am concerned with the way in which we are unconsciously shaped by social forces, and how this impacts memory and responsibility in the aftermath of genocide and racial violence. My scholarship revolves around a series of questions: How do perpetrators and their descendants remember the crimes that were committed? Can the silence and silencing at work in perpetrator societies be broken? How do we learn to listen for voices that remain unheard and work toward progressive political change? 

Drawing on the tradition of social psychoanalysis, I suggest that the well-being of the individual and the well-being of society are inherently related. I emphasize the centrality of social forces in human experience and elaborate the place of culture and society in contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice.

• Psychosocial studies
• Psychoanalysis, modern history, and social theory
• Memory and responsibility after genocide and racial violence
• Culture, society, and politics in psychoanalysis

• 1986-1989 BA in Modern History and Politics, University of London, UK
• 1989-1990 MPhil in Social Theory, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK
• 1990-1994 PhD in History and Philosophy of Science, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK
• 1993-1995 Lecturer in History of Science Department, Harvard University, USA
• 1996-1998; 2002-2004 Clinic Fellow, William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology, New York, USA
• 1998-2000 PsyD in Clinical Psychology, George Washington University, USA 
• 2000-2001 Psychology Internship, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, USA 
• 2002-2008 Assistant Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, USA
• 2018-2025 Associate Member, University Seminar on Cultural Memory, Columbia University, USA
• 2008-2025 Professor of Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada 
• 2009-2025 Professor of Psychiatry (Affiliate), University of British Columbia, Canada 
• since December 2025, Professorship in Psychoanalysis and Education, University of Vienna