The Metropolitan Institute for Training in
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy,
The Metropolitan Center for Mental Health and
The Metropolitan Society of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists
Invite you to a Scientific Meeting
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 8:00 P.M.
ON LOOKING AND BEING LOOKED AT: THE ANALYST AS RELUCTANT SPECTATOR
Presenter: Janice S. Lieberman, Ph.D.
In my treatment of patients obsessed with the way they look and the way others look I have come to believe that they make use of the analyst as a “spectator” (often a reluctant one). I attempt to link the development of language and thought, from concreteness to symbolization and metaphor, to thoughts about the body and body narcissism. The concerns and the language these patients use is concrete, language that stems from that time in their development in which the integration of body narcissism was an important task. There is an historic link between the development of language and that of body narcissism.
The analyst’s focus on the body enables these patients to supplement its insufficient cathexis. Statements that indicate to them quite concretely the analyst’s awareness of small bodily changes, or changes in clothing, that is, of what is on the surface, rather than within the psyche, should be made. The analyst should address what is seen, rather than what is heard. Seemingly mundane statements have a mutative influence. The analyst must stay linguistically attuned, using the concrete language used by the patient, rather than “rush to metaphor.”
Janice S. Lieberman, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty member at The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. Dr. Lieberman is on the Editorial Board of The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. She is a member of IPA (Consultant to the Public Information Committee); APsaA; Psychoanalytic Association of New York: Contributing Book Editor, PANY Bulletin; Docent: The Whitney Museum of American Art. Dr. Lieberman is the author of Body Talk: Looking and Being Looked at in Psychotherapy (Jason Aronson, Inc., 2000) and co-author of The Many Faces of Deceit: Omissions, Lies and Disguise in Psychotherapy (Jason Aronson, Inc., 1996). She has written numerous articles and book reviews on gender issues, body image, deception, perversion, greed, art and psychoanalysis.
No registration or fee required. Refreshments served following the presentation.
Meeting Will Be Held At:
The Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Institute and Center
329 East 62nd Street (1st & 2nd Avenues)
1st Floor Auditorium, New York, NY 10021
For further information: (212) 496-2858, email mitppnyc@aol.com or visit www.MITPP.org
Program Committee: Alexandra Cattaruzza, MS, LP, Co-Chair * Rosemarie Verderame, LMSW, Co-Chair
Debra Gill, LCSW * Joyce A. Lerner, LCSW * Thomas McCoy, M. Div., LCSW *
Barbara Reichenthal, LCSW, BCD * Ivy Vale, BFA *
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