Individual Course Descriptions

Relational Psychoanalysis: Theoretical and Technical Implications of a Changing Paradigm

Jody Messler Davies, Ph.D.

This course will introduce participants to some of the major concepts in relational psychoanalysis including dissociation, multiplicity, self-states, and the careful use of the analyst’s subjectivity. Topics include: development and self organization, constructivism, intersubjectivity, the relational unconscious, trauma, the transference/ countertransference matrix, therapeutic impasse, and termination. Dr. Davies will review major papers in relational psychoanalysis and will apply concepts from these papers to clinical material provided by the course participants.

Social and Cultural Contexts of Psychoanalysis

Neil Altman, Ph.D.

This course will actively explore the clinical manifestations of culture, race and class in the therapeutic process, particularly in regard to our experiences as therapists in order to enhance our effectiveness as therapists. Our learning will be guided by discussions of readings selected by Dr. Altman (that include his own writings) and by case material brought by participants.

Developmental Perspectives in Psychoanalysis: A Basic Introduction

Stephen Seligman, D.M.H.

(Forthcoming)

Children in Their Relational Context: Treatment Considerations

Laurel M. Silber, Psy.D.

There are a number of objectives for this course on child treatment. The first objective is to become familiar with the therapeutic uses of play and principles of child treatment. This is directly applicable if one intends to do child treatment; however, reflecting on a child’s process can inform one’s work with adults in a number of ways. The shift to a 2-person relational model received a huge boost from irrefutable infant research, attachment research and more recently interpersonal neurobiology.  From that vantage point, being immersed in the clinical issues of a child case deepens one’s appreciation for the texture and nuance of relational thought in general. One can’t dismiss how truly intersubjective intersubjectivity is when working with a child patient; the child in relation to the therapist, and the child in relation to their families.  Applying an understanding of child development to treatment decisions helps the concepts to come alive.
In the course we will try to see things through the eyes of the child which may serve to broaden one’s empathic recognition of children as well as adults. Interestingly, children express a lot nonverbally and through their body; deciphering the communication deepens one’s understanding of dissociative processes.
In coming full circle, and framing our work with a non-linear dynamic systems theory, comes an additional objective; adult patients are sometimes parents. To consider at close range the way a parent’s enactments with their children unfold may effect how one listens with the adult patient who is a parent.

Winnicott

Joyce Slochower, Ph.D.

In this course I hope to engage in a close reading of a few of Winnicott’s most central contributions.  For each class I’ve included some related recommended readings, both by Winnicott and by people who have “used” his thinking creatively. In each class we will discuss clinical issues in the context of Winnicott’s thinking; please try to bring in relevant brief vignettes. The course will conclude with an integrative discussion of Winnicott’s contributions.

A Relational Approach to Reading Freud: Part I

Annette Leavy, LCSW, BCD

The aim of this course, most broadly, is to acquaint ourselves with Freud’s style as a writer and thinker, and more specifically, to understand the core concepts which Freud developed during the seminal period of his work between 1895 and 1905. In keeping with the relational sensibility of this institute, we will place Freud’s ideas in the context of his life and times, looking at both the cultural, political and intellectual milieu and the familial and personal relationships from which they emerged. For this reason, The Interpretation of Dreams, which is the story of Freud’s self-analysis and his relationship with Wilhelm Fliess as well as a theoretical treatise, occupies a pivotal point in our reading. Because this is a course for working clinicians, we will also incorporate contemporary thinking about Freud’s ideas into our discussion. In particular, we will include current interest in dissociation and trauma, in neuroscience and in gender and feminist theory.

A Relational Approach to Reading Freud: Part II

Annette Leavy, LCSW, BCD

Chronologically and thematically, the second part of the Freud sequence picks up where Part 1 left off. We will focus on those concepts, which are most clinically relevant: object relations, narcissism, sado-masochism, the ego and structural theory and the function of anxiety. We will read three case histories with an eye to understanding Freud’s way of working with and thinking about his patients. Class discussion will incorporate additional commentary on each case in order to compare Freud’s method with contemporary points of view.

In keeping with the relational sensibility of this institute, we will continue to place Freud’s ideas within the context of his life and times. We will look at the impact of war, illness and death on Freud’s thinking. In addition, we will examine the interface between the development of Freud’s ideas and his role as a leader of the psychoanalytic movement, especially as it relates to his complex relationships with followers and dissenters—Adler, Jung and Ferenzi.  In a similar vein, Freud’s view of female development will be placed in the context of his relationships with several important female dissenters and followers, most notably Karen Horney and his daughter, Anna Freud.

The Background to, Context for, and Inception of Relational Theory

David Mark, Ph.D.

The central purpose of this course is to provide the theoretical foundation for the emergence of Relational psychoanalysis.  As such we will focus on central psychoanalytic “debates” in the 1970s and 1980s, while, at the same time, reviewing the various “relational theories” (relational with a small “r”) which contributed to the formation of Relational theory.  The seminar will offer several ways of thinking about the creation of Relational Theory: (a) in one, Greenberg and Mitchell’s 1983 book, “Object relations in psychoanalytic theory”, created a conceptual space or platform upon which Relational theory has been emerging; (b) in another, Relational theory is seen as the product of the collision of Interpersonal theory with each of the other theories to be considered; (c) the third way of thinking about the creation of Relational theory, which is closely related to (b), rests upon understanding the historical development of psychoanalysis in the United States, as compared with Britain.

Through Winnicott to Lacan

Deborah Luepnitz, Ph.D.

Jacques Lacan remains unknown to most Anglophone clinicians largely because of his notoriously obscure writing style. In this course we will approach Lacan’s basic concepts by using as counterpoint the familiar ideas of his contemporary and friend, Donald Winnicott.
We will begin by contrasting their famous papers on the mirror stage in order to clarify the fundamental difference between a Winnicottian “self” and a Lacanian “subject”. This will lead to an exploration of Lacan’s 3 registers, the phallus, castration and the importance of the signifier in the formations of the unconscious. Through reading the accounts of 2 particularly astute analysands, we will explore: the role of the analyst, the aims of treatment, and experimentation with the frame. WInnicott, who valued mutuality in the analytic encounter, and Lacan who inveighed against it, become exceptionally valuable figures in understanding the contemporary relational school.

Melanie Klein and Contemporary Kleinians

Jane Widseth, Ph.D.

The goal of this course is both to introduce class members to the ideas of Melanie Klein and to bring those ideas up-to-date through the writings of contemporary Kleinians. First, we will study Klein’s personal history as the context in which her ideas germinated.  Then we will read portions of two of her most important contributions, Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms (1946) and Envy and Gratitude (1957). We will explore her ideas of the paranoid schizoid position in relation to the depressive position and the defense of projective identification, especially through the writing of John Steiner, a contemporary Kleinian. We will also consider her ideas regarding the development of the internal world of objects and the destructiveness of envy in relation to jealousy, greed and gratitude. Papers by Elizabeth Spillius will help to clarify and review Klein’s more difficult ideas.