Click Here to Register Online!
Click Here to Download: The Symposium 2011 Brochure. Symposium 2011 will take place at Mt. Sinai Medical Center on March 5 and 6th, 2011.
The early rates of $175 for regular registration, $120 for candidates, and $95 for students will be extended until February 15!
Please note: Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies is now a sponsor of Symposium 2011.
Also note: Laura Kleinerman will be discussing Will Braun’s paper at Symposium 2011. Arlene Kramer Richards will not be presenting.
Our Practice Today: Treatment and Transformation
Ars longa, vita brevis. Mastering the art of psychoanalysis is truly a lifelong enterprise. We learn something about our work and ourselves almost every day, and we’re privileged to pursue a profession that allows—that demands—continuous learning and personal growth.
But it’s not only the quest for psychoanalytic art that keeps us striving. Psychoanalytic practice changes too. It is no longer limited to the classic scenario of a person lying on a couch, 4-to-5- times-a-week, freely associating to an out-of-sight other who speaks only to interpret the mysteries of the unconscious. And perhaps in actuality it never was. But for a long time it was defined that way, and for a long time that narrow definition was reflected in our theory and our literature.
Those days are over. Analysts are asking directly, What really ispsychoanalysis? How can we best understand this compelling endeavor, and how do we best practice it? Historically, psychoanalysis began as a “treatment” for emotional suffering. It developed within a rich therapeutic tradition—in this country, the medical tradition—aimed at allaying problems understood as mental illnesses, mild or severe.
Over the years, however, psychoanalysis has escaped the constraints of historical tradition. American practitioners are no longer trained primarily in medicine, but come also from psychology, social work, and other sometimes unexpected disciplines. In their practice, analysts no longer aim exclusively at treatment, but more broadly at change. Psychoanalysis is increasingly recognized as a process that can effect real and lasting changes in character or personality, that can help people achieve their potential in love and in work. Freud likened psychoanalysis to a sculptor’s effort to free the subject from the stone; more precisely, he considered it a way to help people address the problems that they are unconsciously motivated to make for themselves.
As our aims have evolved, our practice has too—but often silently. Symposium 2011 breaks the silence, and considers out loud the structure of psychoanalytic work. We will explore the well-known “frame” issues of frequency, length, and depth. We will consider the relevanceof age in psychoanalysis, and when psychoanalysis is and is not appropriate. We will consider the psychoanalytic situation in couple and group work. No boundaries are too sacrosanctfor scrutiny. We even have a panel that considers psychoanalysis when the patient and analyst are not in the same room—or have never even met!
Today, growth as a psychoanalyst includes taking into account all of these new situations plus an evolving literature in neuroscience—a literature that suggests, among other things, that psychoanalytic treatment can have permanent effects on neural circuitry. As the stakes rise, we must become more sophisticated about how we apply our techniques, and perhaps morerealistic about their limitations. All the more reason to ask ourselves: How does psychological healing happen? How can we facilitate it? Dare we ask what sets the soul free? After all, the Greek psyche of psychoanalysis is closer to soul than to mind.