Nellie Thompson Discusses a Paper by Phyllis Greenacre at NYPSI

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 THE NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE:
Extension Division
Centennial Program
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CLASSIC PAPERS SERIES
Wednesday
June 1, 2011
8:15 pm

Nellie Thompson, Ph.D.  Discusses The Childhood of the Artist: Libidinal Phase Development and Giftedness*
by Phyllis Greenacre

Phyllis Greenacre’s paper The Childhood of the Artist* is often remembered for her observation that the artist has a “love affair with the world.”  What exactly did she mean by this characterization? A review of her paper offers an opportunity to engage anew with Greenacre’s stimulating and imaginative observations on the organizing impact of giftedness on the infant and young child, the role of aggression in creativity, and the challenges that accompany clinical work with artists. In addition, Greenacre’s own creativity throughout her remarkable career provides an opportunity to reflect on psychoanalytic creativity.

Dr. Thompson is an historian and member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, where she serves as the Curator of the Brill Library’s Archives and Special Collections. She has written extensively on the role of women psychoanalysts in the psychoanalytic movement, the role of émigré analysts in the NYPSI, Bertram Lewin and Ernst Kris, and is currently working on a study of Phyllis Greenacre. She recently co-edited, with Peter Loewenberg, One Hundred Years of the IPA: Centenary of the International Psychoanalytical Association, 1910-2010, Evolution and Change.

*Phyllis Greenacre  (1957) The Childhood of the Artist: Libidinal Phase Development and Giftedness. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 12:47-72.

The paper will be available in the library at NYPSI.  Call 212-879-6900 to obtain a copy before the discussion.

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