Development I: Birth to Five Years

Fourth Year Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2021-22, 1st Trimester — Fridays, 1:45-3:15pm
Judy K. Eekhoff, PhD
Kelly Lippman, LMHC

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Introduction

This course generally follows the Infant Observation course and is its didactic complement. As we are unable to proceed with Infant Observation this year, we have shifted this course ahead of the infant  observation experience.

Sigmund Freud’s curiosity about how childhood was linked to suffering and joy in adulthood led to theories of mind and ideas about developmental progression and therapeutic intervention. Early child psychoanalysis, developed by Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, and based in nuanced observation and clinical work, focused attention on the internal dynamics of infants and young children as well as the importance of their relational and social contexts. These foundational theorists set the stage for decades of observational research and psychoanalytic exploration, all of which has led to our contemporary understanding of attachment, developmental progression, affect regulation, object relations, trauma,  identity formation, projective processes and neurobiology.

During this class, we will focus on how the early development of psychic structure reverberates in the adult clinical situation.

Weekly Writing:

Each week, we would like you to write a response paper (one to two pages) on a single concept of your choosing from the assigned readings.  We ask that you integrate your emotional and intellectual responses in your writing. You are welcome to include clinical material, but if you do so please carefully disguise the patient. We are not interested in a review or summary of the articles, rather we hope that each of you will find something in the readings that stimulates your interest and you would like to share with us and with your cohort. Please send these papers to us and to the cohort by midnight Thursday before each class.  Each week, Judy and Kelly will select one paper to be read by its author.

Learning Objectives

This class will offer clinical associates a foundation in psychoanalytic theories of mind and a deeper understanding of how early development relates to adult treatment. At the end of this course, associates will be able to:

1. Assess the developmental experiences of their patients from a variety of perspectives and recognize how patterns of early experience dynamically affect the adult clinical situation.
2. Apply their knowledge of internal working models of attachment, affect regulation and object relations in order to listen more sensitively and respond and interpret more accurately to patients.
3. Recognize the effects of early relational trauma, better empathize with unbearable affect and receive and metabolize projective communication more effectively in order to facilitate improvement in patients’ reflective capacity, self-cohesion and affect regulation.
4. Understand foundational and contemporary ideas about Oedipal dynamics, shame, aggression, masochism and intergenerational transmission of trauma.

September 10, 2021

[17 pages]

Klein, M. (1958). On the Development of Mental Functioning. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 39:84-90.

Bion, W.R. (2013) The Psycho-analytic study of thinking. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 82(2):301-310.

This is a reprint of Bion’s paper from 1962. We recommend this one only because the formatting (in the pdf original formatting mode) is easier to read. The text is exactly the same as the 1962.