Dreams and the Dreamer

Freud privileged dreams as the "royal road to the unconscious." Over time, using dreams to access unconscious processes has expanded from dreams dreamt during sleep to dreams dreamt while awake. Readings from Freud, Bion, and Ogden will contribute to our understanding of dreams and the dreamer. We will use clinical material from the instructors and/or participants to illustrate these theoretical perspectives.

Sharon Levin, L.C.S.W., Member and Faculty, SFCP
Susan Yamaguchi, L.C.S.W., Member and Faculty, SFCP
Fridays: September 9, 16, 23; October 7, 2011
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will develop an understanding of the historical evolution of Freud’s thinking about dreams as a way of understanding unconscious process.
2. Participants will compare how contemporary psychoanalysts conceptualize dreams and dreaming.
3. Participants will apply these theoretical perspectives to their work with patients’ dreams.
4. Participants will demonstrate how to pay attention to their own “reverie” as a way to understand a patient’s unconscious communication.

When Help Hurts: Understanding Unconscious Attraction to Pain

We can feel deeply frustrated when our best efforts lead to our patients feeling victimized by us. This seminar presents clinical theory explaining this phenomenon- the problem of masochism. Using clinical examples, we will explore the developmental basis for masochism as first, an adaptation to a disturbed environment, then a defense against aggression toward the object, and ultimately a source of gratification through control of the object. We will outline some technical guidelines for work with these individuals whose relationships are rigidly defined in terms of submission, control, and omnipotence as a defense against helplessness.

Cheryl Goodrich, Ph.D., Member and Faculty, SFCP; Personal and Supervising Analyst, PINC
Maureen Ruffell, M.D., Member and Faculty, SFCP
Fridays: October 14, 21, 28; November 4, 2011
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to identify and work with transference and countertransference reactions and enactments that are typical in treatments of individuals who seem attracted to painful relationships.
2. Participants will be able to establish a therapeutic alliance with such patients that fosters development of a relationship between two separate and fallible people characterized by compromise and empathy as opposed to the control and submission that characterizes the closed system of a sadomasochistic relationship.
3. Participants will be able to use a therapist initiated approach of collaborative effort at understanding to facilitate the patient’s growth toward abandoning defensive omnipotence in order to encounter the other authentically.

Working with the Erotic Transference

A patient who experiences an intense, erotic attraction to his/her therapist poses a special treatment challenge that may not respond to the usual interpretative efforts of the therapist. This workshop aims to explore ways of understanding the meaning of these sexual feelings, in terms of both the technical difficulties, and the opportunity for progress that they present. We will compare multiple analytic perspectives on the erotic dimension of the treatment relationship using readings, film, lecture, and discussion.

Mary Jane Otte, Ph.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Member and Faculty, SFCP; Supervising Analyst, PINC
Fridays: November 11, 18; December 2, 2011
4.5 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to discuss how Freud discovered the erotic transference.
2. Participants will be able to state three ways that the erotic transference can be used as a defense.
3. Participants will learn how to handle the erotic transference in their clinical work.

When the Body Speaks

Often people seek our help when a physician suggests that their bodily symptoms have a psychological origin. Such symptoms may include pain, eating disorders, difficulty swallowing, even hemorrhaging as described in a famous case. Often, these symptoms express unconscious fantasies that have meaning. This course will describe a psychoanalytic approach to understand how emotional states can be manifested in physical symptoms.

Shela Fisk, Ph.D., Member and Faculty, SFCP
Fridays: January 6, 13, 20, 27, 2012
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to list 3 physical symptoms that can often be understood as unconscious communication.
2. Participants will be able to differentiate body dysmorphia and differentiate it from other body related symptom presentations.
3. Participants will be able to define unconscious fantasy and give examples of how it may be linked to physical symptoms.

Listening When the Words Don't Speak: Creating Meaning Out of Concrete Non-Communication

For some patients, much of their life’s experience is unthinkable. For these individuals, words are concrete objects used not for communication, but either to expel unbearable feeling or to build walls they can hide behind. These patients suffer unimaginably, and cause those around them to suffer, too. When they come to therapy, they need us to be able to bear the suffering they find intolerable. By bearing it, they begin to think about it and to give it symbolic meaning for the first time.

Lynn Alexander, Psy.D., Personal and Supervising Analyst, PINC
Fridays: February 3, 10, 17; March 2, 2012
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will be able to describe the stages necessary to transform unmentalized experience into symbolic thinking.
2. Participants will be able to list the differences between symbolic and non-symbolic speech.
3. Participants will be able to give examples from work with their own patients of the qualities of the countertransference when working with concrete words and other expressions of unmentalized experiences.

Clinical Inference and Meaning

The therapist listens for, and selects, derivatives of unconscious thinking. This course will consider how the therapist decides what to call to the patient's attention, what sort of evidence the therapist relies on, and what role the therapist’s unconscious process plays. We will use clinical examples from the work of the instructor and/or the seminar members to illustrate and provide context for these questions.

Lee Grossman, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Member and Faculty, SFCP
Fridays: March 9, 16, 23, 2012
4.5 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will distinguish inference from observation.
2. Participants will judge whether a line of exploration with a patient is incorrect.
3. Participants will analyze their own transference countertransference reactions to assess whether or not they are tuning into the patient’s unconscious.

Am I Feeling What You Mean?  Projective Identification and the Therapists’ Response

As we listen to patients, we often find ourselves having particular thoughts, feelings, or fantasies that may seem unrelated to the content of the patient’s material. Therapists will employ their own defensive mechanisms to maintain psychic equilibrium. We will look at how this process facilitates the patient’s budding awareness of previously unconscious material. We will use case examples from the instructors and the class.

Marilynne Kanter, Ph.D., Member and Faculty, SFCP
Dena Sorbo, L.C.S.W., Member and Faculty, SFCP
Fridays: March 30; April 6, 13, 2012
4.5 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will define the concept, Projective Identification.
2. Participants will be able to identify the uses of Projective Identification by the patient.
3. Participants will assess the ways the analyst/.therapist maintains psychic equilibrium in the face of Projective Identification.

Listening Beyond the Words

Miss Betty Joseph and a group of other British neo-Kleinian psychoanalysts have met for over forty years in an on-going workshop in which they discuss their cases. She and others, including Michael Feldman, John Steiner, and Ronald Britton, have contributed greatly to our understanding of how to listen to what our patients are unconsciously doing to and with us. This course will use some of their published cases to examine, in detail, what is distinctive and useful about their approaches to clinical work.

Karen Johnson, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Member and Faculty, SFCP
Fridays: April 20, 27; May 4, 11, 2012
6 CME/CE credits available

Educational objectives:

1. Participants will compare how Betty Joseph and other British Neo-Kleinians listen to their patients.
2. Participants will describe some general principles of listening to patient material.
3. Participants will gain experience in applying these principles to clinical case material.