IPTAR ONGOING CONFERENCES ON CONTROVERSIAL PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPTS
REGISTRATION FOR THIS CONFERENCE IS NOW CLOSED.
WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING REGISTRATIONS.
Conference title:
“A NEW CONCEPTION OF WORKING THROUGH: TRANSFORMATIVE MOMENTS AND THE ANALYST’S SUBJECTIVITY”
With
Maxine ANDERSON (Seattle), Christopher CHRISTIAN, Carolyn ELLMAN, Thomas HELSCHER (Los Angeles), Theodore JACOBS, and Judy KANTROWITZ (Boston)
REGISTRATION FOR THIS CONFERENCE IS NOW CLOSED.
WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING REGISTRATIONS.
Conference title:
“A NEW CONCEPTION OF WORKING THROUGH: TRANSFORMATIVE MOMENTS AND THE ANALYST’S SUBJECTIVITY”
With
Maxine ANDERSON (Seattle), Christopher CHRISTIAN, Carolyn ELLMAN, Thomas HELSCHER (Los Angeles), Theodore JACOBS, and Judy KANTROWITZ (Boston)
Date: Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Time: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Place: The IPTAR Center, 140 W. 97th St.
There is growing interest, across a broad spectrum of psychoanalytic schools, in the idea that the influence of the analyst’s subjectivity on the patient is to some degree inevitable and may even be central to therapeutic action and working through. Whether we think in terms of countertransference, reverie, holding, intersubjectivity, the third, enactment, or look at some other aspect of the analyst’s involvement in the process, these terms point to a major shift in understanding how the analytic process works. We aim to understand how the notion of working through has evolved in conjunction with this increasing interest in the interplay between patient and analyst.
Different psychoanalytic perspectives can be organized along a gradient—albeit loosely conceived and not fully linear—on which the analyst’s subjectivity is seen to be increasingly perceived by the patient, on some level, and to exert increasingly direct influence on her, and to play a progressively vital role in therapeutic action.
The most traditional, conservative position along the gradient sees a minimal role for the analyst’s subjectivity in a well-functioning analysis. The first deviation from this might be the idea that the analyst’s inner process not only informs her interpretations but is seen as fostering psychic space for the patient, even though the analyst might not reveal her inner experience to the patient directly. At the next point, the analyst expresses her subjectivity, though very selectively, to create a holding environment that facilitates transitional space for the patient. Further down the gradient we find ideas about mutual projective identification and counter-identification as central to therapeutic action, leading to a strong emphasis on the here-and-now and more open interaction between patient and analyst. Even further along, we might find an analyst who lets herself be guided intuitively by inner, apparently disconnected, nonrepresentational images and pursues a more fluid interpenetration of affect and thought with the patient.
Our conference features distinguished presenters who have developed their own ideas on this topic, influenced in different ways by Klein, Bion, Winnicott, Ogden, and others. Each engages this gradient in very different ways.
In the morning, they will all present their ideas based upon clinical markers of transformative moments, illustrated through fragments of their own clinical work that highlight the role they see their own subjectivities as playing. In the afternoon, Carolyn Ellman will begin with an integrative discussion, followed by a forum for further elaboration, dialogue, and debate among the presenters, and with the audience. The conference will culminate in an attempt to develop an inclusive, integrative understanding of the competing analytic perspectives on the role of the analyst’s subjectivity in the process of working through.
Time: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Place: The IPTAR Center, 140 W. 97th St.
There is growing interest, across a broad spectrum of psychoanalytic schools, in the idea that the influence of the analyst’s subjectivity on the patient is to some degree inevitable and may even be central to therapeutic action and working through. Whether we think in terms of countertransference, reverie, holding, intersubjectivity, the third, enactment, or look at some other aspect of the analyst’s involvement in the process, these terms point to a major shift in understanding how the analytic process works. We aim to understand how the notion of working through has evolved in conjunction with this increasing interest in the interplay between patient and analyst.
Different psychoanalytic perspectives can be organized along a gradient—albeit loosely conceived and not fully linear—on which the analyst’s subjectivity is seen to be increasingly perceived by the patient, on some level, and to exert increasingly direct influence on her, and to play a progressively vital role in therapeutic action.
The most traditional, conservative position along the gradient sees a minimal role for the analyst’s subjectivity in a well-functioning analysis. The first deviation from this might be the idea that the analyst’s inner process not only informs her interpretations but is seen as fostering psychic space for the patient, even though the analyst might not reveal her inner experience to the patient directly. At the next point, the analyst expresses her subjectivity, though very selectively, to create a holding environment that facilitates transitional space for the patient. Further down the gradient we find ideas about mutual projective identification and counter-identification as central to therapeutic action, leading to a strong emphasis on the here-and-now and more open interaction between patient and analyst. Even further along, we might find an analyst who lets herself be guided intuitively by inner, apparently disconnected, nonrepresentational images and pursues a more fluid interpenetration of affect and thought with the patient.
Our conference features distinguished presenters who have developed their own ideas on this topic, influenced in different ways by Klein, Bion, Winnicott, Ogden, and others. Each engages this gradient in very different ways.
In the morning, they will all present their ideas based upon clinical markers of transformative moments, illustrated through fragments of their own clinical work that highlight the role they see their own subjectivities as playing. In the afternoon, Carolyn Ellman will begin with an integrative discussion, followed by a forum for further elaboration, dialogue, and debate among the presenters, and with the audience. The conference will culminate in an attempt to develop an inclusive, integrative understanding of the competing analytic perspectives on the role of the analyst’s subjectivity in the process of working through.
While registration for this conference is closed, we are accepting names for a waiting list, in the event that people who have already registered are unable to attend. If you would like to be placed on the waiting list, please email Jay Frankel at jaybfrankel@gmail.com requesting this. Be sure to include your phone numbers, and please write “waiting list” in the subject line of your email. (If you have already registered and but will not come, please email me by November 10th, at the same email address, and your registration fee will be returned.)
The current season of our series on psychoanalytic concepts includes three meetings, of which this is the second. Our first meeting took place in September the third is scheduled for April, 2012. Details will be forthcoming in future announcements.
Jay Frankel
Norbert Freedman
Co-chairs
The current season of our series on psychoanalytic concepts includes three meetings, of which this is the second. Our first meeting took place in September the third is scheduled for April, 2012. Details will be forthcoming in future announcements.
Jay Frankel
Norbert Freedman
Co-chairs