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Object Relations
March 13, 2023 @ 6:30 pm - 7:45 pm, Wyman Classroom
2-Year Certificate Program (2YCP)
2022-23, 3rd Term — Mondays, 6:30-7:45pm
Katherine Weissbourd, PhD
View Whole Syllabus
March 13, 2023 — Working with patients with primitive defenses
[43 pages]
In our seventh class we will read two readings by Judith Mitrani. Mitrani, a neo-Kleinian has been deeply influenced by Klein, Bion, Tustin and other Object Relations thinkers. She gives us a taste of moment-by-moment clinical occurrences and understandings in plain, experience-near language. She offers us a flavor of the way in which she connects deeply with her patients’ infantile anxieties related to fear of closeness and need even in the first moment of contact. In particular, she shows us the importance of working in the here and now and of allowing ourselves as clinicians to be transformed. Chapter seven gives us a glimpse of working with patients whose anxieties and defenses are “autistic-like” and encapsulated or hidden.
Mitrani, J. (2015) Ch 1, “Listening for Infantile Dependency” in Taking the Transference, London: Karnac Books. pp1-17.
Mitrani, J. (2015) Ch 7, “Trying to Enter the Long Black Branches: Some Technical Extensions for the Analysis of Autistic States In Adults From the Work of Francis Tustin” in Taking the Transference, London: Karnac Books, pp121-146.
Point of Focus: Do you see yourself being able to make contact with patients/clients in this deeper way? Why or why not? How might you work differently after reading these two texts?
