Upcoming 2026-2027 ONLINE Seminars & Presentations

(Check back often as this page is updated throughout the academic year)

Object Relations and Marginalized Populations: A Modern Analytic Look at Transference and Countertransference

Presented by: Crystal Rose Garrison Ed.D.,Ph.D.,LCPC.,NCC.,MAC.,CCMHC.,ACS., DCMHS

Course Meeting: Wednesdays 7:00 -8:30 pm ET

Course Dates: Oct 21, 28, Nov 4, 11

CEs =6

Price: $120

Seminar Description:

This 4-week workshop explores how systemic oppression—including marginalization of race, gender, gender identity, LGBTQ+ realities, religion, and culture—enters the clinical space. Integrating Modern Psychoanalysis with Object Relations, we will examine how structural power dynamics manifest as social transference and social countertransference. Participants will move beyond the myth of the neutral observer to analyze how a clinician’s own internal object world, privilege, and biases impact treatment.
Addressing critical ethical concerns, the workshop deconstructs the limits of traditional clinical neutrality when working with marginalized populations. Through case exploration, clinicians will learn to navigate therapeutic ruptures when diverse identities clash or collude. By utilizing modern psychoanalytic techniques like joining, mirroring, and psychological insulation, attendees will gain practical, ethically sound frameworks to process countertransference resistance and safely hold systemic trauma.

Seminar Objectives:

  1. Analyze Social Transference: Identify how systemic oppression regarding race, gender, gender identity, LGBTQ+ realities, religion, and culture manifests within the patient’s transference matrix.
  2. Deconstruct Social Countertransference: Evaluate the clinician’s internal responses, biases, and object relations when navigating privilege and marginalization in the room
  3. Apply Ethical Modern Techniques: Utilize modern psychoanalytic interventions—like joining, mirroring, and psychological insulation—to ethically address clinical ruptures caused by systemic trauma.

About the Presenter:

Dr. Crystal Rose Garrison, Ed.D., Ph.D., LCPC, is an expertly trained clinician with over 40 years of experience providing compassionate, inclusive mental health care. A candidate at the Institute for Modern Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia (IMPP), she also proudly serves as the chair of the institute’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee, reflecting her deep lifelong commitment to human rights and systemic equity. In her remote private practice, Dr. Garrison specializes in anxiety, trauma, and transgender care, utilizing object relations as one of her primary clinical specialties. In addition to her dedicated psychoanalytic work, she shares her extensive expertise with the next generation of mental health professionals as a Teaching Assistant to Dr. Cris Irey. By blending advanced object relations theory with modern psychoanalytic techniques, Dr. Garrison establishes a deeply secure, respectful environment designed to help patients achieve lasting self-understanding, profound healing, and personal growth.

Making Meaning: Creativity, Play, and Emotional Transformation

Presented by: Timothy J. Walsh, JR., BFA, MA, LPC, NCC, BCC, CCTP

Course Meeting: Wednesdays 6:00- 8:00 pm

Course Dates: Oct. 7, 21, Nov. 4

Time: 6-8 PM

CEs = 6

Price: $120

Seminar Description:

Creativity is often misunderstood as a talent possessed by a gifted few. Psychoanalytic theory offers a radically different perspective: creativity is a fundamental human capacity necessary for psychological development, adaptation, meaning-making, and survival. This seminar explores creativity as a developmental achievement, a clinical tool, and a pathway toward emotional integration. Participants will examine how play, imagination, symbol formation, and artistic expression support psychic growth while considering how these processes emerge within psychotherapy, supervision, leadership, and everyday life. Through didactic discussion, clinical reflection, and experiential exercises, attendees will explore creativity not as artistic talent, but as a core human process through which individuals make meaning, metabolize emotional experience, and construct a life worth living.

Seminar Objectives:

  1. Describe creativity from a psychoanalytic and developmental perspective.
  2. Explain the role of transitional space in psychological growth and psychotherapy.
  3. Identify the relationship between play, symbol formation, and emotional transformation.
  4. Discuss creativity as a mechanism of adaptation and psychic survival.
  5. Recognize the role of artistic and symbolic expression in emotional processing.
  6. Apply concepts of creativity and meaning-making to clinical practice and therapist development.

About the Presenter:

TJ Walsh, BFA, MA, LPC, NCC, BCC, CCTP, is an executive leader, internationally exhibited artist, psychotherapist, educator, founder, and speaker whose career has moved across art and design, communications, behavioral healthcare, higher education, entrepreneurship, governance, and consulting. For nearly 25 years, his work has explored how people create meaning, build capacity, and remain connected to themselves and one another while navigating complexity and change. TJ founded and leads a multidisciplinary behavioral health practice, teaches graduate counseling psychology at Eastern University, and serves as Board Chair of InLiquid and on the board of the Philadelphia Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy. He writes and speaks internationally on leadership, creativity, emotional health, relationships, authenticity, and neurodivergence. He is also the creator of Emotional Alchemy, an approach to helping people notice, name, metabolize, and redirect difficult emotional experience toward more intentional action.