The Promises and Problems of Theory

Theory is an inevitable outgrowth of the mind grappling with uncertain phenomena. Within psychoanalysis, theories have arisen to account for “clinical experience,” or what the clinician observes subjectively in the consulting room. So we might say that theory orders experience. But theory has aspects that have little to do with “clinical experience.” Psychoanalytic theories also arise within specific communities, and are tied to specific people. The “local” genesis of psychoanalytic theories is a main reason why the issue of the therapist’s narcissism in relation to his or her theory is so central to the entire question of theory’s promise and problems. This course will focus on the analyst’s struggles with identifying, and dis-identifying with theory. The specific theory employed is less important than the analyst’s narcissism in relation to his or her chosen theory. But some theories are better than others. Theories that are structural in nature are more clinically powerful than those that tend to emphasize specific contents. However, all theories allow for certain experiences to take place while foreclosing other possible experiences. This is true for any of the major psychoanalytic theories (Contemporary Freudian, neo-Kleinian, Relational, and Lacanian).

Mitchell Wilson, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Member and Faculty, SFCP; Former Member, Editorial Board of JAPA
Fridays: September 9, 16, 23, 30; October 7, 2011
7.5 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to apply fundamental psychoanalytic principles to their clinical work thus improving patient care.
2. Participants will be able to listen for and identify uses of theory in clinical work that are beneficial as well as be able to identify and correct for the detrimental use of theory in clinical work.
3. Participants will be able to use their new clinical skills in applying theory to work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. They will have acquired knowledge of social, cultural, and political influences and concerns that shape clinical treatment.
4. The course will provide students with an opportunity to hear case examples by faculty as well as an opportunity to present their case vignettes. They will apply treatment principles related to the use of theory from textual material and course lecture.
5. Participants will be able to use skills learned to identify heuristics for making the most effective use of theory to adapt to individual clinical needs of patients representing a wide range of diagnostic categories.

Beyond Theory and its Clinical Impact

"Theory is good, but it doesn't prevent things from existing." Jean Martin Charcot

As Freud struggled with creating psychoanalytic theory and validating his clinical experience, he returned again and again to Charcot's words quoted above. As did Freud, we'll explore the tension between our theories and our clinical work, questioning how definition and theory may broaden or constrict our formulations and clinical responses. We'll turn to the writings of Freud, Bion, Parsons, and Ogden, poets Seamus Heaney, Paul Valery, and others, and join them in their struggle to find fresh ways of thinking, being, and becoming, often times refuting and overturning theory for lived experience.

Jeanne Harasemovitch, L.C.S.W., Member and Faculty, SFCP
Fridays: October 14, 21, 28; November 4, 11, 2011
7.5 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to apply fundamental psychoanalytic principles to their clinical work thus improving patient care.
2. Participants will be able to listen for and identify uses of theory in clinical work that broaden or constrict our clinical formulations and responses.
3. Participants will be able to use their new clinical skills in applying theory to work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. They will have acquired knowledge of social, cultural, and political influences and concerns that shape clinical treatment.
4. The course will provide students with an opportunity to hear case examples by faculty as well as an opportunity to present their case vignettes. They will apply treatment principles related to the use of theory from textual material and course lecture.
5. Participants will be able to use skills learned to identify heuristics for making the most effective use of theory to adapt to individual clinical needs of patients representing a wide range of diagnostic categories.

Analytic Listening / Speaking

Language is the bridge between patient and analyst, between unconscious and the world. This class will focus on language, as an analyst hears and uses it. The class will read papers about analytic listening and poems, in order to think about the analyst’s expression of herself in relation to her patient. We will consider the form of the words in an interpretation, the sounds, uses of metaphor, tone, and music as inherent parts of how one reaches the patient.

Alice A. Jones, M. D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Member and Faculty, SFCP; Personal and Supervising Analyst, PINC; Dr. Jones is the author of papers on poetry and psychoanalysis and several collections of poems.
Fridays: November 18; December 2, 9, 16, 2011
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to apply fundamental psychoanalytic principles to their clinical work thus improving patient care.
2. Participants will be able to listen for and identify uses of language in clinical work and how to listen to language use in the clinical setting in order to enhance effectiveness of interpretation.
3. Participants will be able to use their new clinical skills in applying theory to work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. They will have acquired knowledge of social, cultural, and political influences and concerns that shape clinical treatment.
4. The course will provide students with an opportunity to hear case examples by faculty as well as an opportunity to present their case vignettes. They will apply treatment principles related to the use of theory from textual material and course lecture.
5. Participants will be able to use skills learned to identify heuristics for making the most effective use of theory to adapt to individual clinical needs of patients representing a wide range of diagnostic categories.

Clinical Case Conferences:

Two eight-week case conferences will begin the second half of the year’s courses. Each case conference will be composed of half of the members of the larger group. Through discussion of instructors’ and participants’ cases, the groups will focus on using and integrating course material with the goal of observing and developing one’s own ongoing synthesis of theory and clinical experience.

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to apply fundamental psychoanalytic principles to their clinical work thus improving patient care.
2. Participants will be able to listen for and identify uses of language in clinical work and how to listen to language use in the clinical setting in order to enhance effectiveness of interpretation.
3. Participants will be able to use their new clinical skills in applying theory to work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. They will have acquired knowledge of social, cultural, and political influences and concerns that shape clinical treatment.
4. The course will provide students with an opportunity to hear case examples by faculty as well as an opportunity to present their case vignettes. They will apply treatment principles related to the use of theory from textual material and course lecture.
5. Participants will be able to use skills learned to identify heuristics for making the most effective use of theory to adapt to individual clinical needs of patients representing a wide range of diagnostic categories.

Psychoanalytic Theory and Creativity

Psychoanalytic theories have much to offer in explaining creative inhibitions, but the offering of each theory is partial. Therefore, multiple perspectives are best viewed in complement to each other, as we will see in this course. Analytic theory has less to say about what permits creativity to unfold, a subject Freud considered mysterious, except as we consider what doesn’t help. We will discuss what seems to permit creative potential to be realized, looking to psychoanalytic theories of development (and elsewhere) for help. Finally, we will consider the implications for analytic listening of an understanding of what our theories do and do not offer us in relationship to creativity and in general.

Susan Kolodny, D.M.H., M.F.A., Member and Faculty, SFCP; Personal Analyst, PINC; A collection of Dr. Kolodny's poems, After the Firestorm, will be published by Mayapple Press in the Fall.
Fridays: March 2, 9, 16, 23, 2012
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to apply fundamental psychoanalytic principles to their clinical work thus improving patient care.
2. Participants will be able to listen for and identify uses of theory in clinical work that are beneficial as well as be able to identify and correct for the detrimental use of theory in clinical work.
3. Participants will be able to use their new clinical skills in applying theory to work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. They will have acquired knowledge of social, cultural, and political influences and concerns that shape clinical treatment.
4. The course will provide students with an opportunity to hear case examples by faculty as well as an opportunity to present their case vignettes. They will apply treatment principles related to the use of theory from textual material and course lecture.
5. Participants will be able to use skills learned to identify heuristics for making the most effective use of theory to adapt to individual clinical needs of patients representing a wide range of diagnostic categories.

Metaphors We Live By: The Language of Psychoanalytic Theories

Metaphors organize the therapist’s experience of the session and, most importantly, the analytic relationship. We will study the central metaphors of psychoanalytic theories through a close reading of some of the central contributors to clinical psychoanalysis. Each theory’s central metaphor gives specific shape to our emotional experience of the relationship, guiding us, unconsciously, toward particular patterns of listening and responding and thinking. At the same time, these metaphors create a ‘remainder’ of experience that has been left out. Metaphors also have different degrees of flexibility and structure: some are more “binding”, are stronger, and consequently create a greater degree of a remainder, while others tend to open up the field and are more playful. We will discuss selections by Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Lacan, Bion, and the Barrangers.

Henry Markman, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Member and Faculty, SFCP; Personal Analyst, PINC
Fridays: March 30; April 6, 13, 20, 27, 2012
7.5 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to apply fundamental psychoanalytic principles to their clinical work thus improving patient care.
2. Participants will be able to listen for and identify uses of theory in clinical work that are beneficial as well as be able to identify and correct for the detrimental use of theory in clinical work.
3. Participants will be able to use their new clinical skills in applying theory to work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. They will have acquired knowledge of social, cultural, and political influences and concerns that shape clinical treatment.
4. The course will provide students with an opportunity to hear case examples by faculty as well as an opportunity to present their case vignettes. They will apply treatment principles related to the use of theory from textual material and course lecture.
5. Participants will be able to use skills learned to identify heuristics for making the most effective use of theory to adapt to individual clinical needs of patients representing a wide range of diagnostic categories.

Retreats or Engagement? Working Through the Therapist's Emotional Position in the Countertransference

Working together as a group, we will use a close reading of Irma Brenman Pick’s paper: “Working Through in the Countertransference” as a context for an exploration of the therapist’s task in relation to her or his own emotional experience–the difficult psychic work that therapists must do to stay in contact with the patient, and with their own experience as a place from which to respond. We will also consider the current usage of the concepts of holding and containing: whether at this point these ideas have become “saturated” concepts that are used more in the service of retreating from the emotional experience of our patients and ourselves, rather than aiding engagement and the creative integration of emotional experience into our responses. We will consider the particular challenges we encounter in working with more disturbed patients. The authors we will discuss include Pick, O’Shaughnessy, Ogden, and others.

Georgine Marrott, Ph.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Member and Faculty, SFCP; Personal and Supervising Analyst, PINC
Fridays: May 4, 11, 18, 25, 2012
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to apply fundamental psychoanalytic principles to their clinical work thus improving patient care.
2. Participants will be able to listen for and identify uses of theory in clinical work that are beneficial as well as be able to identify and correct for the detrimental use of theory in clinical work.
3. Participants will be able to use their new clinical skills in applying theory to work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. They will have acquired knowledge of social, cultural, and political influences and concerns that shape clinical treatment.
4. The course will provide students with an opportunity to hear case examples by faculty as well as an opportunity to present their case vignettes. They will apply treatment principles related to the use of theory from textual material and course lecture.
5. Participants will be able to use skills learned to identify heuristics for making the most effective use of theory to adapt to individual clinical needs of patients representing a wide range of diagnostic categories.