Elio Frattaroli’s “Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain,” is an eloquent plea for a humanistic psychoanalysis and a guide to technique.
Elio will be at NYPSI on Wednesday, May 8 for the Works In Progress program to present some provocative thoughts on the nature of morality in psychoanalytic practice and how this underlies breaches in practice.
Please join us.
N. Szajnberg, MD
New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute “Works in Progress” Seminar Series
Elio Frattaroli will present on Reflections on the Absence of Morality in Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 8:30 p.m., NYPSI’s Lower Library 247 E. 82nd Street, NYC
Register at www.nypsi.org under Events and Lectures
The superego is generally understood as a set of rules and prohibitions that are internalized primarily out of fear and are then activated unconsciously-as conditioned responses-to restrict our behavior and our consciousness. In a recently published paper, however, Stanley Coen (2013) describes the analyst’s superego as an overseeing, guiding, criticizing, restraining, compassionate, inner agency that embodies the analyst’s “ethical loving stance toward himself and toward his patient.” In discussing Coen’s paper, Elio Frattaroli (2013) argues that Coen’s superego is radically different from Freud’s. It is an autonomous unconditioned center of consciousness and moral discernment that is motivated by love, respect and compassion for the patient and for ourselves and that operates to expand consciousness and the possibility of free moral choice. Although many analysts routinely work from this higher self-reflective, morally discerning level of consciousness in just the way that Coen describes, very few analysts have ever been willing to speak or write openly about it. We are inhibited by a group Freudian superego prohibition that makes us averse to acknowledging the importance of love and moral values (as opposed to ethical rules) in our attitude toward ourselves and our patients and in our understanding of the psychoanalytic process of recognizing and resolving inner conflict. This aversion is irrational and it has left us with a disturbing absence of morality in our theory that, in our practice, makes it all too easy for analysts to rationalize immoral boundary violations as, for example, Freud did in his analysis of Dora. Frattaroli will discuss these ideas and will speculate on how our disavowed moral values have operated unconsciously throughout our history to generate a relentless divisiveness that is ostensibly about theory or politics but is really about moral values.
Elio Frattaroli is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He is on the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where he teaches both psychoanalytic candidates and psychotherapy students. He has a full-time private practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy with adults, adolescents and couples in Bala Cynwyd, PA. Among other honors, he has been selected as one of Philadelphia Magazine’s “Top Docs” in psychiatry. Dr. Frattaroli studied Shakespeare at Harvard and trained with Bruno Bettelheim at the University of Chicago before turning to medicine. He has written and lectured widely on topics including Shakespeare, Bettelheim, Buddhism, Freud and Jung, neuroscience and psychoanalysis, the mind-body problem and free will, and American culture before and after 9/11. His book, Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain: Becoming Conscious in an Unconscious World (hardcover title), was first published on September 10, 2001. You can contact Dr. Frattaroli through his website: www.healingthesoul.net
Students, academics and clinical professionals in the analytic community are encouraged to attend.
Educational Objectives: After attending, participants will be able to
1. explain Martin Buber’s distinction between neurotic guilt and authentic guilt.
2. explain what was unethical in Freud’s treatment of Dora.
Information regarding CME credit for physicians
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of [2] AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
Information regarding CE credit for psychologists
The New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education programs for psychologists. NYPSI maintains responsibility for this program and its content. APA-approved CE credits are granted to participants with documented attendance and completed evaluation forms. After submitting a completed evaluation form, attendees will receive a pdf documenting credit via email.
Persons with disabilities: The building is wheelchair accessible and has an elevator. Please notify the registrar in advance if you require accommodations.
DISCLOSURE: None of the planners or presenters of this CE program has any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
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