IPTAR **A Special Program in Honor of Dr. Anni Bergman**
SAFETY OR DANGER? A RECONSIDERATION OF THE CONCEPT OF OBJECT CONSTANCY
Speaker: William M. Singletary, M.D.
Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst in private practice in Philadelphia; Faculty Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia; President, Margaret S. Mahler Psychiatric Research Foundation
Within the first 36 months of life, as a reaction to experience (which is influenced by neurobiological and other individual factors), the infant establishes his or her own inner world. This inner world has an adaptive, self-organizing and self-regulating function.
The child’s sense of constancy develops through the experience of self and others as either loving or hostile during the first three years, and is then actively maintained. The experience of a sense of safety leads to a loving inner world, whereas the experience of danger and vulnerability leads to a hostile inner world The more firmly
established and the more regularly we rely upon our predominant type of working model, the more difficult it is to change this. Thus, a sense of constancy develops in our experience of self and others as either loving or hostile—which we then actively maintain.
This paper will use clinical material from child and adult analysis and psychotherapy to illustrate loving and growth promoting processes as well as hostile, growth-disturbing processes, and will discuss their implications for the understanding of development and psychoanalytic treatment, Selective reviews of the literature from developmental psychoanalytic theory, clinical theory, neurobiology, and evolutionary biology will be considered in order to encompass the complexity of building bridges between psychoanalysis and other fields, as well as understanding the complexity of how the inner world of the child develops.
November 16, 2007 8:30 PM
Hatch Auditorium, Mt. Sinai College of Medicine
Madison Avenue and 100th Street, New York, New York
No Fee Refreshments will be served.
Allan Frosch Anni Bergman & Carolyn Ellman
President Program Committee Co-chairs
Program Committee: Kate Bar-Tur, Jeanne Even, Roslyn Goldner, Laurence Gould, Judy Ann Kaplan, Carol Kaye, Ellen Sinkman, Neal Vorus, Tracey Strasser Vorus, Florence Williams, and Arnold Wilson