Letter to the Editor on Taking Play Seriously from Leon Hoffman

Click Here to Read:  Taking Play Seriously by  Robin Marantz Henig on February 17th in the New York Times Magazine

Letter to Editor
NYT Magazine

Your February 17, 2008 article, “Taking Play Seriously,” is a very comprehensive discussion of the importance of play in human development. One area, however, was missing: The importance of recognizing that for children play has meaning. Continue reading Letter to the Editor on Taking Play Seriously from Leon Hoffman

International Psychoanalytic Conference On Love

International Psychoanalytic Conference 
On Love 
Affiliated Psychoanalytic Workshops (APW)
March 28- 30, 2008
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
 
 The “malady of being two” [mal d’être deux] from which . . . patients suffer hardly frees them from Narcissus’ problem. It is a mortal passion that ends up taking its own life.
-Lacan, Le Minotaure
Continue reading International Psychoanalytic Conference On Love

Institute of Group Analysis: Psychotherapy and Liberation May ’68 Anniversary Conference

Institute of Group Analysis: Psychotherapy and Liberation May ’68 Anniversary Conference
 2nd – 4th MAY 2008

LVSRC, 356  Holloway Road, London N7 6PA

This conference is about psychotherapy and political action that connects with the spirit of 1968 with papers on the intersection between psychotherapy and liberation. How can we build on the dynamic set in play by 1968? What are the lessons of struggles in the last forty years for what we do now? What practical steps should psychotherapists take now to link the personal and the political?

SPEAKERS: Our invited guest speakers link political struggle and personal change: Peter Tatchell and Hilary Wainwright.

Click Here for Details 

Letter from Susan Jaffe Re: “Daring to Think Differently about Schizophrenia” by Alex Berenson in the New York Times

Click Here to Read:  “Daring to Think Differently about Schizophrenia”  by Alex Berenson in the Business section of the New York Times, February 4th, 2008.

The following is a letter by Susan Jaffe responding to this article in The Business section of the New York Times on March 2nd, 2008. 

On Schizophrenia
To the Editor:

Re “Daring to Think Differently About Schizophrenia” (Feb. 24), which described new possible medication in battling the disorder:

As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I know that there is no magic bullet for the treatment of schizophrenia, or for any mental illness, for that matter. But a focus on serotonin has been a boon financially, but more important medically, in treating some kinds of depression. Hopefully, the research on glutamate will do the same to lessen the worst symptoms of schizophrenia. Let’s hope for the people who suffer from this terrible illness that we can find a medication that will stay its most debilitating and sometimes tragic effects.

Susan Jaffe, M.D.
Manhattan, Feb. 24

The writer is chairwoman of the committee on public information of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Announcement by Irene Willis

Announcement

 Poets and poetry have long held special appeal for psychoanalysts.  Even more than other scholars, analysts often seem to reach for poetic quotations to fill what Adam Phillips (in Promises, Promises: Essays on Psychoanalysis and Literature) calls “a gap, an aporia, a space often unnoticed … that needs something else.”  It seems appropriate, therefore, that International Psychoanalysis should open up regularly a space for poetry in its pages.  To that end, we will be featuring, at the beginning of every month, three or four new or previously published poems selected especially to interest and perhaps expand the interest of our wide, diverse readership.  Occasionally, we may also include short articles, essays and/ or excerpts from prose about poetry.

We plan to launch our new feature, “Poetry Monday,” in National Poetry Month, on April 7.  Please look for it, and let us have your comments.

                                                                                    Irene Willis
                                                                                    Poetry Editor

Letter to the Editor by Jane S. Hall in The Science Times on Tuesday February 26th

janeshall2.jpgLetter to the Editor by Jane S.  Hall  article in The Science Times on Tuesday February 26th

Richard Freidman, M.D. raises an important question in his article re. the psychiatrist’s own psychotherapy. The public needs to be made aware that as psychiatrists become less interested in delivering psychotherapy, replacing talk therapy with drugs, there is a wide network of psychologists and social workers, licensed, qualified, and with advanced degrees in psychotherapy. These practitioners have graduated from institutes (usually 4 years of training) which includes their own psychotherapy as a requirement for graduation.

Jane S. Hall, LCSW, FIPA
A founder of the New York School for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
 212-675-7364
 49 West 12th St.
 NYC, NY 10011

 Click Here to Read:  Have You Ever Been in Psychotherapy, Doctor? by Richard Friedman in the Science Times, February 19th, 2008.