50th Anniversary Lecture Series - The Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis

PSP celebrates its 50^th anniversary beginning this Fall 2021 and through Spring Semester 2022. To commemorate this milestone, PSP has planned a series of free virtual events that focuses attention not only on our psychoanalytic past but on the critical challenges and opportunities facing institutes of psychoanalysis and our profession moving forward. The series schedule is as follows:

PSP 50^th Anniversary Lecture Series Theme:

Modern Psychoanalysis: Adaptations & Advances

Events throughout 2021-2022 academic year:

February 25, 2022- 1:00-3:30pm

The Future of Psychoanalytic Supervision

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Presenter: Nancy McWilliams, PhD, ABPP

Psychoanalytic supervision has evolved organically from over a century of complex and diverse clinical experiences. It cannot easily be formulated in terms of the specific, measurable competences or progressive skill sets that are currently being emphasized by professional groups such as the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association. This talk will highlight the critical importance of maintaining a traditional analytic focus on the supervisee’s overall professional and personal growth, marked by increasing emotional honesty and the capacity to balance internal freedom with clinical discipline. It will note some contemporary obstacles to a psychoanalytic supervisory sensibility and offer some ideas about how to ensure adequate supervisory support for future generations of psychodynamic practitioners.

Learning objectives:

After this workshop, participants will be able to:

Articulate three tensions or controversies that recur periodically in psychoanalytic writing about clinical supervision;
Name ten areas of overall mental health relevant to supervision and comment on their relevance to future psychoanalytic work;
Define two ways of dealing with the possible implications of differences between supervisor and supervisee in areas such as culture, ethnicity, race, age, gender identifications, sexual orientation, religion, class, ability, and similar potential diversities.

March 15, 2022- 7:00-9:00pm

Race and Ethnicity Within the Transference/Countertransference Matrix: Locating Racial Trauma and Dissociation in the Treatment Dyad

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Presenter: Chanda Griffin, LCSW

Description:

Psychoanalysis is giving closer scrutiny to the interconnectedness of the intrapsychic, interpersonal and the socio-political contexts in which our patients sit. While considering both the organizing principles and internalizations of both familial and current socio-cultural values and belief systems, historical atrocities such as slavery, colonialism, and the holocaust are often unintegrated or unacknowledged as impacting the relational dynamics between analyst and patient.

This lecture explores transgenerational racial trauma and dissociation of both the analyst and patient as descendants of slaves. Using case examples, the presenter will explore how the relational dynamics of slavery are embedded, embodied and enacted within the transference and countertransference matrix. The presenter encourages dialogue and participant exploration of their historical roots as it relates to their race and socio-political location.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will learn current definitions of racial trauma and dissociation related to transgenerational trauma.
Participants will learn attunement to the somatic and affective manifestations of historical racial trauma and dissociation within countertransference reactions.
Participants will learn interpersonal/ relational techniques to explore racial trauma and dissociation within the consulting room.

Readings:

Bodnar, S. (2004). Remember Where You Come From: Dissociative Process in Multicultural Individuals. Psychoanal. Dial., 14(5):581-603.

Bonovitz, C. (2005). Locating Culture in the Psychic Field: Transference and Countertransference as Cultural Products. Contemp. Psychoanal., 41(1):55-76.

Gump, J.P. (2010). Reality Matters: The Shadow of Trauma on African American Subjectivity. Psychoanal. Psychol., 27(1):42-54.

Hart, A. (2019): The Discriminatory Gesture: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of Posttraumatic Reactions to Incidents of Racial Discrimination, (2019). Psychoanalytic Social Work, 26(1):5-24

April 8, 2022- 7:00-9:00pm

Use of Self and Care of Self: New Directions For Working With Countertransference

Presenter: Ellen Wright, PhD, NCPsyA

One of the major contributions of Modern Analysis is the recognition that the therapist’s ability to experience and utilize negative feelings is critical to the healing process. Reflecting on the years since PSP’s founding, Modern Analysts still struggle to understand how to use the person of the analyst for therapeutic benefit while sustaining the emotional vitality and energy necessary to fuel this intimate process. One of the tasks of individual and group analysts is to identify and repair the many painful and traumatic experiences that continue to determine the course of our patients lives. To accomplish this, we have to be willing to experience the “bad-analyst-feeling” and the shaming and self-recriminating introjects it enlivens. Building on the work of Lawrence Epstein, this talk will discuss how the process of working with countertransference involves not only an “experiencing self” and an “observing self” but also must involve “the self-valuing self.” This significant addition is what enables therapists to tolerate and then utilize the demanding feelings induced during the therapeutic process.

PAST PRESENTATIONS:

September 7, 2021

Repositioning Therapies of Depth, Insight and Relationship

Presenters: PsiAN Leaders Nancy Burke, PhD; Linda Michaels, PsyD, MBA; and Janice Muhr, PhD

REGISTRATION CLOSED- ACCESS THE ZOOM RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE

October 13, 2021- 7:00-9:00pm REGISTRATION CLOSED (RECORDING PENDING)

“Let’s Never Ask Him What to Do”: The Life and Work of Clare Winnicott

Presenter: Joel Kanter, MSW, LCSW

REGISTRATION CLOSED- ACCESS THE YOUTUBE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE

November 17, 2021- 7:00-9:00pm

Spanning Domains: Applied Psychoanalysis for Varied Professions

Presenter: Wally Fletcher, D Min, NCPsyA