“Changing Sex, Changing Psychoanalysis” with Patricia Gherovici at CFS

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING INSTITUTE OF THE CONTEMPORARY FREUDIAN SOCIETY
“Changing Sex, Changing Psychoanalysis” Presenter: Patricia Gherovici, PhD
Friday, September 18, 2015, 8:00 – 10:00pm

I take as my point of departure the dawn of psychoanalysis: hysteric patients presented somatic problems for which traditional medicine could give no answer; this led Freud to invent a new mode of treatment. For Freud it meant postulating the existence of the unconscious. The hysterics’ symptoms all revealed a sexual origin. At the same period, leading sexologists and pioneer activists like Magnus Hirshfeld worked closely to Freud, which seemed to promise a fruitful collaboration between the fields. Unhappily prejudice prevented this collaboration, and sexology and psychoanalysis took divergent, even opposed paths. Despite these tensions, transsexualism has remained closely connected to psychoanalysis. Historically, psychoanalysts have taken a normative position by reading transsexuality as a sign of pathology. Nothing could be further away from what one learns in the clinic about sexuality. The transgender experience both reorients psychoanalytic practice and reframes debates about gender and sexuality. This workshop will explore inbuilt prejudice that obfuscates clinical efficacy. This program will expose participants to new clinical modalities to approach sexual and social difference. Clinical vignettes will help participants see the practical dimension of the presentation’s claims.

Patricia Gherovici, PhD is a licensed psychoanalyst. She is an analytic supervisor, senior member, and faculty at Apres-Coup Psychoanalytic Association New York and co-founder and director of the Philadelphia Lacan Group. Her books include The Puerto Rican Syndrome (Other Press: 2003) winner of the Gradiva Award and the Boyer Prize and Please Select Your Gender: From the Invention of Hysteria to the Democratizing of Transgenderism (Routledge: 2010). Most recently, she has contributed to Lacan and Addiction: An Anthology (Karnac: 2011) and The Literary Lacan: From Literature to ‘Lituraterre’ and Beyond (Seagull Books, University of Chicago Press 2013). She has just published a new collection (with Manya Steinkoler) Lacan On Madness: Madness, Yes You Can’t ( Routledge, 2015). She is currently co-editing with Manya Steinkoler Lacan, Psychoanalysis and Comedy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

Her new book Psychoanalysis Needs a Sex Change: Lacanian Approaches to Sexual and Social Difference is forthcoming by Routledge.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this program participants will be able to:

Assess the controversial, yet central role played by psychoanalysis in the history of transsexualism.
Challenge the idea that transgenderism is always a pathology.
List examples of instances of “gender trouble” and provide practical responses and strategies from a psychoanalytic clinical point of view to address the specific needs of minority patients, those segregated by language, sex, gender, race, and/or income.
Modify the approach often adopted by psychoanalysis in regard to sex change practices, as well as to minority patients by identifying and criticizing inbuilt prejudices in the therapeutic relation.
Contribute to a more fruitful use of psychoanalysis when dealing with sexual non-conformity.
Apply an innovative framework for treating difference – sexual and social.
Continuing Education Contact Hours:

The Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the Contemporary Freudian Society SW CPE is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0087. Contact Hours are granted to participants with documented attendance of the entire program and completed evaluation form. It is the responsibility of the participants seeking Contact Hours to comply with these requirements. Upon completion of this program and evaluation form, participants will be granted 2 Contact Hours.

Location:

Mt. Sinai Medical Center

Madison Avenue @ 100th Street, NYC

Program Fee:

Non-CFS Members $125

CFS Members $115

Candidates $100

Students with Valid ID $75

Full refund 30 days prior to program date

If you have any questions, please contact Vivian Eskin, veskinphd@me.com or 212-724-4785

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NY Cont Ed – 9/18/15

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