Child Development Program (CDP) and The Preschool Consultation Project (PCP)

Are pleased to offer:

Ongoing Study Group in Working with Parents of Two to Six-Year-Olds,
Their Children and Early Childhood Educators

Facilitators: Era A. Loewenstein, Ph.D. and Thomas F. Barrett, Ph.D.

The Child Development Program (CDP) will continue to offer a monthly study group during 2012 – 2013 academic year. The group, now in its fourth year, will focus this year on designing and implementing psychoanalytically informed talks for parents and parents’ groups. The talks and the groups are aimed at facilitating Thoughtful Parenting. We will focus on further developing our Transitions to Preschool and Kindergarten workshops, which help parents and children negotiate the transition into preschool or kindergarten. We will continue to work on the development of an eight-week didactic and experiential based parents’ group, facilitating thoughtful parenting. For example: how a parent can transform everyday challenging situations like tantrums with their children through understanding the importance of recognizing their own feelings and their child’s feelings, learning to set loving and containing limits when needed, and engaging the child’s strength, cooperation, and problem solving skills.

The study group is offered to child psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, and to psychotherapists who work with parents of young children and would like to learn more about early childhood development and mental health. Participants will work on developing topics for parents’ talks in preschools, or in a number of venues which offer us opportunity to practice our skills.

We meet on the third Thursday of each month, 7:30-9:00 pm at SFCP (nine meetings, September 20, 2012 through June 20, 2013, no meeting in December). Commitment for a year is required.

Fee: $450 for the year. There will be an additional fee of $40 to $50 for a number of evening and weekend seminars with guest faculty.

Early Bird fee: by August 20, 2012: $425
Deadline for registration: September 7, 2012
Space is limited to 12 participants.

To apply and register please contact Aaron Chow at SFCP: 415-563-5815 or e-mail: Aaron.Chow@sf-cp.org.  New applicants will receive a short application form.

Facilitators:

Era A. Loewenstein, Ph.D., is an adult, adolescent, and child psychoanalyst. She is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. She Co-chair the Child Development Program of SFCP. She is the founder and the chair of Pre-school Consultation Project of SFCP. Dr. Loewenstein is on the faculty of the child and adult psychoanalytic training programs at SFCP. She has been teaching and supervising mental health professionals in the Bay Area for over twenty years. Era was a consultant at Eureka Learning Center in San Francisco for eleven years. She has been facilitating workshops for early childhood educators and mental health professionals for the past nine years. Era was an associate member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. She has published in psychoanalytic journals and is a frequent presenter and discussant in local, national, and international venues on a variety of topics including: trauma, eating disorders, perversion, the development of the capacity to dream, children’s literature and, child analysis and preschool consultation.

Thomas F. Barrett, Ph.D., who will be joining us through Skype from Chicago is a child and adolescent psychoanalyst and psychologist. Dr. Barrett is the Department Chair of the Clinical Program at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology’s Chicago Campus. Dr. Barrett served as Executive and Clinical Director of the Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development for twenty year, until 2010, and during that time was a member of the Center’s child psychoanalytic training faculty. For nearly thirty years he has maintained a private practice as a psychologist and child/adolescent psychoanalyst. From 1986 to1990 he worked with Erna Furman on the Hanna Perkins toddler research project, which culminated in the publication Toddlers and Their Mothers: A Study in Early Personality Development. From 2001 through June 2010 he held an Associate Professorship at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where as the John A. Hadden, Jr., M.D. Chair he was the Director of the Center for Psychoanalytic Child Development.  Dr. Barrett has published a variety of professional papers and presents regularly at conferences at local, national, and international venues.

Guest Faculty:

Denia Barrett, M.S.W. began her career in the field of infant mental health, working in a joint community mental health and public health primary prevention program in Michigan with links to Selma Fraiberg’s work. She trained in child and adolescent psychoanalysis at the Hanna Perkins Center in Cleveland where she subsequently worked as a clinic associate and faculty member. She served as editor of the Center’s journal Child Analysis: Clinical, Theoretical, and Applied from 1996 to 2010 and is a current member of the editorial board of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Her clinical practice has involved working with parents on behalf of children enrolled in the Hanna Perkins School’s toddler group, preschool, and kindergarten, as well as direct psychoanalysis with children and adolescents for twenty-five years. Mrs. Barrett is the current President of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis and a founding member of the Alliance for Psychoanalytic Schools.

Kerry Kelly Novick and Dr. Jack Novick are Training Analysts of the International Psycho-Analytic Association. They are child and adult analysts on the faculties of many training institutes around the country. Trained with Anna Freud in the 1960’s at the Anna Freud Centre in London, they were both formerly on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, where Jack was Chief Psychologist of Youth Services in the Department of Psychiatry. They have published extensively in professional journals and published four books, “Fearful Symmetry: The Development and Treatment of Sadomasochism,” “Working With Parents Makes Therapy Work,” “Good Goodbyes” and “Emotional Muscle: Strong Parents, Strong Children.” Together with other colleagues, they founded Allen Creek Preschool, the award-winning non-profit psychoanalytic school for children ages 0 – 6 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Mirta Berman-Oelsner is a highly sought after consultant and discussant in the Bay Area and nationally. Mirta is an adult, child and adolescent psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in private practice since 1969. She is a full member and Training and Supervising Analyst of the International Psychoanalytic Association and a certified child and adolescent psychoanalyst. She is the author of numerous papers, and received the Elena Evelson Award, for Best Paper on Child Analysis for "The Multiple Functions of Sight". Nine years ago, Mirta moved from Buenos Aires to Seattle, where she currently practices. Since then she has been a faculty member at COR Northwest Family Development Center and the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society in Seattle.

Experienced early childhood preschool directors affiliated with the Preschool Consultation Project will be invited to the group as needed to help facilitate a dialogue about the role of the consultant and selected issues in early childhood development (e.g.: preparation for preschool and kindergarten, toilet mastery, eating, aggression, play, discipline, working with parents).