Dear Colleagues,

For members interested in teaching international groups through video-conferencing, I would like to report an academic experience of a lifetime.

As part of the Chinese American Psychoanalytic Alliance educational program, last Friday I held a two-hour clinical conference from my home office in Port Republic, Maryland for 12 Chinese psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers in Shanghai, China. This class will alternate bi-weekly with a similar group of 12 mental health professionals.

The students, most in their mid-thirties with several years experience as psychotherapists, were open minded, eager to learn, and highly excited about gaining knowledge of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The experience is a refreshing change from the frustration of facing the intellectually muscle bound and emotionally unaware students we often encounter when teaching, for example, modern day American psychiatric residents. 

“How do ‘self-knowledge’ and ‘self-understanding’ (my terms for the benefits of psychoanalysis) help a patient?” one student asked early on, then responded thoughtfully to my “Knowledge is Power” illustrations. The group was particularly impressed with the psychoanalytic discussion that unfolded as the case presenter reported the patient’s ongoing complaint of mental helplessness when the she was faced with feelings she could not describe. The entire class, even the child therapists, responded with awe as they observed, “I would never have thought of that,” as I went into considerable detail to show how such an adult experience could have originated in the pre-verbal period of one’s life, a time when a child experiences feelings but has not yet gained the mental capacity even to conceptualize the feelings’ existence, much less identify and articulate them. Although many Chinese psychotherapists are widely read in psychoanalytic literature, clinically they remain largely innocent.

I was motivated to teach these conferences to express my gratitude to the team of 24 mental health therapists who wanted to translate my book, Now It All Makes Sense, into Mandarin. The book is composed primarily of explicit dialogue between analytic therapist and patient and is especially suited to their needs. We expect, however, that the classes will stimulate the student’s interest in enrolling in the two-year psychoanalytic psychotherapy programs that CAPA will begin in September 2008. This prospect appeared validated when, as the session ended, the presenter eagerly asked, “Can I present again next time?” to which the other members yelled, “No, I want to.”  

If you have questions , please contact me

William Stockton wjstockton@rcn.com