IPTAR and The New School for Social Research Clinical Psychology Department
Present: JAY FRANKEL, PH.D.: “Authoritarianism as an Illness of Societies”
(With a View Towards Treatment)
March 5, 2016 9:30–1:30 p.m
CE Approved for 4 Credits
Discussants: Richard J. Bernstein, Ph.D and Dorothee C. von Tippelskirch-Eissing, Ph.D
Some groups, from families up to states, violate the needs of their individual members for the benefit of those in power. And sometimes the powerless collude in their own oppression—a psychological enslavement. Dr. Frankel sees Ferenczi’s conception of identification with the aggressor, which describes the abused child’s compliance with his or her oppressors, as crucial in understanding similar reactions in the sociopolitical sphere—specifically, how under certain conditions of social stress, citizens often neglect their own interests and align themselves with authorities, and an authoritarian sociopolitical system, whose interests directly oppose their own. Relying on the work not only of psychoanalytic thinkers but political philosophers, political dissidents, war correspondents, terrorism experts, neuroscientists, and others, Dr. Frankel develops two elements of the identification with the aggressor response, both key in understanding people’s willing submission to oppression—the shut-down of the capacity to think independently, and the creation of feelings of guilt and shameful defect. And he shows how narcissistic fantasy, designed to compensate for this loss of self and for the loss of a sense of belonging, ends up facilitating identification and compliance.
On the basis of these ideas, Dr. Frankel explores ways in which well-intentioned leaders can tip the balance toward democracy when authoritarian temptations beckon, and how people without power can begin to find their way toward genuine freedom and autonomy.
JAY FRANKEL is faculty at IPTAR; an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor, and Clinical Consultant, at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; faculty of the Trauma Treatment Training Program at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis; Associate Editor at Psychoanalytic Dialogues; co-author of Relational Child Psychotherapy, and author of dozens of articles and chapters on trauma, identification, play, psychoanalysis and politics, and the work of Sándor Ferenczi.
DISCUSSANTS:
RICHARD J. BERNSTEIN, PH.D is Vera List Professor of Philosophy and former Dean of New School for Social Research. Books include: Violence: Thinking without Banisters; Freud and the Legacy of Moses; Radical Evil; The Abuse of Evil and The Pragmatic Turn
DOROTHEE C. VON TIPPELSKIRCH-EISSING, PH.D is Dipl-Psych. President of the Karl-Abraham-Institute, Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, Board Member of the German Psychoanalytic Association, Member of the IPA, Chair-Elect of Partners in Confronting Collective Atrocities (PCCA), Germany
Register Here: iptar.org/jayfrankel
Registration fee:
General Admission: $50
Students and Candidates: $15
Time & Location:
3/5/16, 9:30–1:30 p.m. (9:00–9:30 Breakfast and registration)
Starr Foundation Hall, UL102 (lower level)
University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003
Educational Objectives:
To Understand the concept of Identification with the Aggressor
To Understand the narcissistic defenses that interfere with rational thought
To Understand the relevance of socio-political theory to individual treatment.
Program Committee: Carolyn Ellman (chair), Michael Moskowitz, Ben Kafka, Jeanne Even, Judy Ann Kaplan, Chris Christian, Eva Atsalis, Susan Berger, Steven Ellman, Carlos Padrón
The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) 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 #0226
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