Laura Melano Flanagan, M.S.W.

In 1985 Laura Melano Flanagan began teaching the first Integrative Seminar in the M.S.W. program at Smith. This was followed by decades of developing and teaching the first-year required Psychodynamic Theories of Individual Development and what was then called the Psychopathology course. Coming full circle, she then taught her Drive, Ego, Object, Self-Revisited seminar for many years. She is one of the co-authors of Inside Out-Outside In, (1996) the fifth edition of which came out in 2021. She has been a faculty field adviser for the last nine years and loved her return to interaction with agency practice.

Melano Flanagan has also taught in the Hunter and NYU post-masters clinical programs. She holds an M.S.W. degree from Hunter College and a certificate from the Advanced Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in NYC.

Melano Flanagan is in private practice in Brooklyn and Manhattan. She works with a large diversity of clients and does as much pro bono work as possible so that psychodynamic, often long-term psychotherapy, is not limited to privileged clients. Her interest has always been in learning how to best blend psychodynamic theory with intersectionality and how to improve her curiosity, support and empathy.

In addition, Melano Flanagan works with young opera singers through coachings and master classes to help them deepen their psychological understanding of the characters they play. She is on the faculty of VoicExperience and has presented at Juilliard and the Mannes School of Music.