Après-Coup Psychoanalytic Association presents
BOOK PRESENTATION
Premature Birth: The Baby, The Doctor and the Psychoanalyst
London, February 2015: Karnac Books,
The Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research Library
Catherine Vanier
Moderator: Paola Mieli
Discussant: Zina Steinberg and Lissa Weinstein
Saturday, May 2, 2015
10:30 am – 1:30 pm
The School of Visual Arts
136 West 21st Street, New York, NY
Advances in medical technology allow babies to survive earlier and earlier births, while medically assisted reproduction allows women to become mothers later and later; yet what is the psychic impact of such precarious emergence into the world for the children, their families, and the medical staffs devoted to them? How can neonatal intensive care units avoid, among many other problems, becoming “autism factories”? In narratives of fascinating social diversity, Catherine Vanier draws on her twenty years of pioneering, direct experience in such clinics to guide psychoanalysts in dealing with medical personnel, distraught parents, and fragile new human beings who, as science shows, improve remarkably when they receive the caring intonations and rhythms of the human voice.
“Working in close collaboration with medical personnel, Catherine Vanier never asks if it is right to let these children live or die. In work like this, no one would dream of urging pointless therapeutic efforts on parents in distress, or immediately cutting off life. Here, every story is singular.”
—Elisabeth Roudinesco, Le Monde, review of Premature Birth: The Baby, The Doctor and the Psychoanalyst.
Catherine Vanier interview, Paris edition, Elle Magazine:
Q: Are you a believer?
A: I’ve the belief of a psychoanalyst, I believe in the dignity of these small human subjects and in the necessity of every life, however brief it may be.
Dr. Catherine Vanier practices psychoanalysis in Paris. A member and past president of Espace Analytique, associate researcher at the Research Center for Psychoanalysis, Medicine and Society of the University of Paris Diderot – Paris 7, president of Enfance en Jeu, a research association for pediatrics, psychoanalysis and pedagogy, a knight in France’s Legion of Honour, and a faculty member of Après-Coup Psychoanalytic Association in New York, she is the author of many articles and books, including the recent Autisme, comment rendre les parents fous? [Autism, or How to Drive Parents Crazy], and, in English translation, Lacanian Psychotherapy with Children: The Broken Piano, published under her former name, Catherine Mathelin.
Dr. Paola Mieli is a psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. She is the president of Après-Coup Psychoanalytic Association, a member of Le Cercle Freudien, Insistance, Encore (Paris), The European Federation of Psychoanalysis, and an Associate Researcher at the Centre de Recherches en Psychanalyse, Médicine et Société at the University of Paris VII–Diderot. She is the author of numerous essays on psychoanalysis and on culture published in Europe and America.
Dr. Zina Steinberg is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, couple and family therapist. She consults with family members and staff at the neonatal intensive care unit at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, is an assistant clinical professor of Medical Psychology in Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a faculty member of the Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Training Program and the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies.
Dr. Lissa Weinstein is a Professor in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at CUNY and a graduate and member of The New York Psychoanalytic Institute, currently teaching a course on Universal Fantasies. A clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst for more than 20 years, her interests include the interrelationship of neurobiology and psychoanalysis, sleep and dreams, the function of repetition in the psychoanalytic process and in the overcoming of traumatic states, and film and literature studies.
Attendance is free and open to the public.
Please ask at the desk for the room number.
For more information, visit www.apres-coup.org