PANY Scientific Program Overview
The program calendar and present overview can be found on the PANY website …
The 2013/2014 PANY Scientific program develops the theme of The Body in Psychoanalysis. This project stems from the relative paucity of focus on the body in the literature of the second half of the psychoanalytic century in America. Even as the mind/brain issues have been absorbing our imagination with the advent of neurosciences and neuropsychoanalysis, interest in bodily embeddedness as such seems to have atrophied. Brain is superseding the body. Literature paying attention to bodily phenomena on our soil has been either imported or largely subsumed under the rubric of enactment or gender stmainly on its relational rhythms and intersubjective communication. While each of these has brought needed corrections and remarkable understandings in their own right, the body as the origin of the psychoanalytic view of the mind has receded.
Our program revisits the existing traditions with the aim of investigating their values and testing whether there has been an inadvertent impoverishment of psychoanalytic thought by their arguable neglect.
Accordingly, we propose to examine the subject by the following presentations:
On September 16th, 2013 Theodore Shapiro, M.D. presented the paper Language mediates Mind and Brain: Lessons from Freud and Hypnosis Research, illustrating the body’s remarkable responsiveness in such mediation. It was the 11th Memorial C. Phillip Wilson Lecture celebrating his work in psychosomatics.
On October 21st , Arnold Modell, M.D. will read his paper Primary Process and the Mind/Body Problem. Dr. Modell’s ideas about primary process and metaphoric functions will provide a springboard for the Program co –Chair Dr. Richard Kessler’s and Dr. Luba Kessler’s link to the program’s theme by anchoring their discussions of those foundational psychoanalytic concepts in the early bodily experiences.
On November 18th Henry (Zvi ) Lothane, M.D. will bring us his deep erudition in Freud’s early discoveries and insights in his paper The Forgotten Body in Psychoanalysis; Discussant William Greenstadt, PhD.
On December 16th Nellie Thompson, PhD. will present her psychoanalytic archival review of the striking and prescient originality of a mid-century analyst by presenting The Maturational Body in the Work of Phyllis Greenacre. Discussant Laurie Wilson, PhD.
On February 24th 2014 Christine Premmereur, M.D. will turn our attention on the body to the field of infant research with her paper “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”: Mother-Infant Interactions and the Role of the Body in Psychic Development. From Rene Spitz to Contemporary Psychoanalysts: Perspectives on the Body Ego. Discussant TBA.
On March 24th 2014 Karen Proner’s paper Life Space and Intrusive Identification: Thoughts on Identification Processes in the Analysis of a Borderline Patient will introduce Donald Meltzer’s body-derived elaboration of Kleinian school of psychoanalytic thought. Discussant Jacqueline Schachter, PhD.
On May 19t 2014 Rosemary Balsam, M.D., a renown psychoanalytic writer on the female body, will be the Lecturer for the 49th Freud Anniversary Lecture. Her paper Eyes, Ears, Lips, Secrets: Psychoanalysis and the Body will close this year’s program with a look at the theme through the case of Dora.
In addition to the above, PANY will co-sponsor with IPE two scientific meetings:
On Saturday, February 1, 2014 the 3rd Annual Fellowship and Psychotherapy Program Alumni Event will feature Jack Pula, M.D. speaking on contemporary psychoanalytic views on transgender issues. Other participants are to be announced.
On Saturday May 3rd, 2014 the Candidate-Organized Program on Analyzing Enactments will convene a panel of presenters: Dara Cho, M.D., Chair; Joan Bryan, L.C.S.W.; Jodi Davies, PhD.; Nasir Ilahi, and Theodore Jacobs, M.D.
For the PANY Program Committee
Luba Kessler and Richard Kessler, co -Chairs