SAN FRANCISCO EXTENSION DIVISION
Eric Glassgold, M.D. and Milton Schaefer, Ph.D., Co-Chairs
John DiMartini, Ph.D., Catherine Mallouh, M.D.,
Patricia Marra, M.F.T., Catherine McKenzie, Ph.D., Committee Members
YEAR LONG PROGRAM (Sept. 2008 - May 2009)
Healers, Lovers and Terrorists: Countertransference on the Edge
Countertransference is a re-forming and moveable phenomenon that has progressed from being something to overcome to being central to psychoanalytic theory and practice. Simultaneously a site of knowledge and danger, it is at the core of the notions of projective identification, the analytic third, alpha-function, the bi-personal field, and ideas of co-construction. This program traverses the terrain of theory and practice to explore the psychoanalytic use of oneself in the understanding of the other.
Introduction to countertransference
This five-week seminar will serve as an introduction to the year-long course on countertransference, covering the history of countertransference within psychoanalysis and its various meanings and uses. We will study countertransference from the Freudian point of view and compare it with other contemporary views of countertransference. Classic readings will serve as background for our discussion of clinical situations and vignettes.
J. Samuel Chase, M.D., Member, Faculty, Supervising & Training Analyst, SFCP.
Fridays, Sept. 5, 12, 19, 26, October 3, 2008.
CONTERTRANSFERENCE AND PRIMITIVE STATES
For more disturbed patients, communication itself is a fraught area. Instead of understanding, such patients enter the clinical situation expecting a variety of disasters, such as being shunned, rendered invisible, rebuffed, taunted, invaded, or confused, among other possibilities. Communication becomes a desperate endeavor, using primitive methods such as projective identification, fragmentation, and psychosomatic phenomena. In such a situation, the clinician is not afforded the space for thinking. Rather, the process of learning something about the patient’s experience and states of mind come from finding a way to attend to the impact that being with the patient has on the clinician’s own experience. This course will consider the ways in which the therapist’s own states of attention, mental functioning, and bodily experience become the mode of registeringcontact. Papers read in this course will include those of Ogden, Goldberg, Ferro, and Searles.
Deborah Melman, Ph.D., Member, NCSPP; Faculty, PINC.
Fridays, Oct. 10, 17, 24, 31, November 7, 2008.
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE IN THE TREATMENT OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Analytic treatment of children and adolescents places many demands on the therapist that are more extreme than in the treatment of most adults. Children communicate through play, and adolescents often communicate through action (including action upon their own bodies). This requires the therapist to observe manifest behavior, to reflect upon countertransference experiences and their possible relevance to the child or adolescent's state, and to consider the underlying meanings — while sometimes simultaneously feeling called upon to protect the child or adolescent. We will consider Kleinian, Bionian, and American Relational contributions to this topic.
Mary Brady, Ph.D., Member, Faculty, SFCP.
Fridays, November 14, 21, December 5, 12, 19, 2008.
EROTIC COUNTERTRANSFERENCES
In this segment, we explore an area that has been difficult for therapists to discuss and at times to manage — namely, erotic countertransferences. We will use a number of thought-provoking papers dealing with this topic as springboards for our discussions, including contributions by Searles, Davies, Ogden, and Gabbard. Topics will include the therapist’s understanding and use of erotic countertransference in furthering treatment, the therapist’s resistances to awareness of erotic countertransference, subtle and difficult - to - recognize manifestations of erotic countertransference, and potential pitfalls associated with erotic countertransference, including sexual boundary violations.
Steven Goldberg, M.D., Member, Faculty, Training & Supervising Analyst, SFCP.
Fridays, Jan 9, 23, 30, February 6, 13, 20, 2009.
IGNITING CREATIVITY IN THE COUNTERTRANSFERENCE: GETTING LOST TO BE FOUND
Psychoanalytic ideas about creativity have been elaborated by Winnicott, Milner, Ogden, Williams, Parsons, and others. In this course we will explore the legibility of these concepts in the architecture of the transference/countertransference. Seamus Heaney writes, “Poetic form is both the ship and the anchor. It is at once a buoyancy and a holding, allowing the simultaneous gratification of whatever is centrifugal and centripetal in mind and body.” We will consider how the poetic form of the transference/countertransference frames the spandrels of analytic play.
Catherine McKenzie, Ph.D., Member, SFCP & John Di Martini, Ph.D. , Affiliate Member, SFCP.
Fridays, Feb. 27, March 6, 13, 20, 2009.
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE DISTURBANCES IN THE FIELD
Our class will focus on countertransference as expanded into a field of unconscious experience of therapist and patient where disturbances reveal the emotional reality of the relationship, signal the patient’s and therapist’s troubles, and stretch the therapist’s capacity for containing these troubles to allow transformation. This field has been variously and creatively described as a third, transitional analytic space (Winnicott, Milner, Green, Ogden), a high-intensity locus of bulwarks, bastions, and impasse (Barangers, Ferro, Rosenfeld), or as a space within the therapist co-occupied by the patient (Bion, Parsons, Bollas). In addition to reading these theorists, we will use clinical material from instructors and participants as well as literature and poetry to explore and evoke the field.
Patricia Marra, M.F.T., Affiliate Member, SFCP & Laurie Goldsmith, Ph.D, Member, SFCP.
Fridays, March 27, April 3, 10, 17, 24, 2009.
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE AND ITS DISCONTENTS: CONTEMPORARY VIEWS
Countertransference has been viewed by most psychoanalytic practitioners as that place where the therapist learns most about the patient. While lip-service may be given to the complexities (and hazards) of the therapist using his or her countertransference to make assessments of the patient's mental state and to inform interventions, for the most part these complexities have been ignored. I would argue that most therapists have failed to theorize these complexities, a failure that suggests how unstable the concept may in fact be. Unsure of how to listen to their patients, therapists tend to fall back on their own consciously rendered views of themselves. In these five classes, we will begin with Racker's classic article, read Bion on memory and desire, and Lacan on the imaginary (or dual relation). We will also discuss clinical material in each class.
Mitchell Wilson, M.D., Member, Faculty, SFCP.
Fridays, May 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 2009.
CONTINUOUS CASE CONFERENCES
Elizabeth Simpson, L.C.S.W., Member, Faculty, SFCP.
September 5, 12, 19, 26, October 3, 10, 2008.
Michael Wagner, Ph.D., Member, Faculty, SFCP.
October 17, 24, 31, November 7, 14, 2008.
Lisa Buchberg, D.M.H., Member, Faculty, Training & Supervising Analyst, SFCP.
November 21, December 5, 12, 19, 2008; January 9, 23, 2009.
Jim Dimon, M.D., Member, Faculty, Training & Supervising Analyst, SFCP.
January 30, February 6, 13, 20, 27, March 6, 2009.
Mary Margaret McClure, D.M.H., Member, Faculty, SFCP.
March 13, 20, 27, April 3, 10, 17, 2009.
Barbara McSwain, M.S.W., Member, Faculty, Training & Supervising Analyst, SFCP.
April 24, May 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 2009.
Class meetings: Fridays from 12:00 noon - 3:00 p.m.; Didactic Seminars: 12:00 noon - 1:30 p.m. followed by Case Conference 1:45 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.; All class meetings will be held at SFCP, 2340 Jackson St., 4 th Floor, (entrance on Webster St.), San Francisco, CA; 35 sessions; 105 CME credits; $1800; readers’ cost not included in tuition; for refund policies see registration.
This Year Long Program is designed at an intermediate level and it is recommended that participants be post-graduate clinicians. If you have any questions about your level of preparation, please contact one of the San Francisco co-chairs.
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