Elective: Field Theory and Development of the Self of the Analyst

Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2019-20, 3rd Trimester — Fridays, 3:30-5:00pm
Ann De Lancey, PhD
Ronald W. Levin, MD
Margaret Crastnopol, PhD
Píyale Cömert, PhD
Steve Engelberg


Introduction

This course, designed by the cohort, has three distinct yet related sections. The first four weeks will focus on learning some of the most recently remerging psychoanalytic theory. The next four weeks will be “Coffee with an Analyst”. During this time, we will interview four analysts on their perspectives on theory, their practices over decades, and the development of their sense of analytic identity. The final three weeks will be focused on our own emerging sense of analytic identity in ourselves as psychotherapists. We will address our own development as a learning cohort, as individual professionals, and our emerging identities as psychoanalysts.

Section I – Field Theory: Maureen Pendras, MSW and Ann De Lancey, PhD

Classes 1-4.

[Detailed Learning Objectives, Clinical Impact of the Knowledge or Skills Learned, and References will be distributed to class separately]

Introduction and Overview

Welcome to the Field Theory part of your elective. We are excited to explore and learn about this topic together.

Antonio Ferro has likened the analytic process to cooking, and to the unique character of what any dyad creates together.  We consider this course in a similar vein: our own attempts to create something together with you: something that is changed through the process of being and talking together and that is different from and more than the sum total of its ingredients.

“We should keep our discourse on the unconscious subversive… It should be fresh. It should be free.”
—From Giuseppe Civitarese, An Apocryphal Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge. In New Books in Psychoanalysis Podcast, June 4, 2019.

Civitarese’s Two Favorite Metaphors

From Civitarese, G. (2019). An Apocryphal Dictionary of Psychoanalysis.  New York: Routledge.

Three Blind Mice

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice?

Peanuts

Charlie Brown, from PEANUTS
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

 

 

 

 

A Penny for your Thoughts?

Google Search — Charlie Brown and Lucy: A Penny for Your Thoughts

Section II – Coffee with an Analyst

Classes 5-8 will address the following topics regarding development of analytic identity: Changes over time in regards to theory and practice, how the work of psychoanalysis has impacted sense of self and intimate relationships, wisdom gained over time, the intersection of psychoanalysis with social and political issues, beliefs on the healing effectives of psychoanalysis.

Section III – Goodbye Process
Maureen Pendras, MSW

Learning Objectives

  1. Clinical associates will learn the primary concepts of psychoanalytic field theory, thus enabling them to expand their theoretical repertoire and practice options for enhanced patient outcome.
  2. Clinical associates will reflect on the deeply personal practice of psychoanalysis with some of our most experienced analysts. Reflection on the deeply personal practice of psychoanalysis will result in greater reflective functioning and increased capacity to illicit and contain patient and one’s own material.
  3. Clinical associates will reflect on the four years of training as a group process, practicing the active self-reflection, critical thinking, and communication of affective experience so integral to the practice of psychoanalysis. Engagement in group process discussions, on the four years of training, will result in increased capacity for interpersonal communication of affective understanding, a key aspect of the patient's and analyst’s experience of the therapeutic relationship.
  4. Clinical associates will practice and reflect upon the act of termination with each other as individuals and a cohort, as an experience of the parallel process of termination with patients, and the active process of mourning. This will result in an increased capacity to metabolize patients' experience of grief and loss.

March 20, 2020 — The Spirit of Field Theory

Presenters: Maureen Pendras, MSW, Ann De Lancey, PhD

[33 pages]

“Das Heimlich.” The Uncanny. (2015). (Il Perturbante). Societá Psicoanalitica Italiana.

Ferro, A. & Nicoli, L. (2017). Identity. The New Analyst’s Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Routledge, 1-9.

Ferro, A. & Nicoli, L. (2017). The rules of the game. The New Analyst’s Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Routledge, 11-23.

Ferro, A. (2010). Simone’s Complaisant Mutism and the Monsters: A Clinical Illustration of How to Work in the “Field of Dreams”. Canadian J. Psychoanal., 18(2):216-224.

March 27, 2020 — Where Does It Come From?

Presenters: Maureen Pendras, MSW, Ann De Lancey, PhD

[35 pages]

Civitarese, G. Ferro, A. (2013). The Meaning and Use of Metaphor in Analytic Field Theory. Psychoanal. Inq., 33(3):190-209.

Sabbadini, A. Ferro, A. (2010). The Work of Confluence: Listening and Interpreting in the Psychoanalytic Field by Madeleine Willy Baranger (Edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini). London: Karnac Books, 2009. 254 pp; £24.99.. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 91(2):415-429.

Optional Reading

Baranger, M. Baranger, W. (2008). The Analytic Situation as a Dynamic Field. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 89(4):795-826.

April 3, 2020 — Getting into It

Presenters: Maureen Pendras, MSW, Ann De Lancey, PhD

[21 pages]

Peltz, R. (2012). Ways of Hearing: Getting Inside Psychoanalysis. Psychoanal. Dial., 22(3):279-290.

Civitarese, G. Ferro, A. (2012). The Secret of Faces: Commentary on Paper by Rachael Peltz. Psychoanal. Dial., 22(3):296-304.

Optional Reading

Peltz, R. (2012). Making Our Hairs Stand on End—A Call to Psychoanalysis to Look Outside Itself: Response to Commentaries. Psychoanal. Dial., 22(3):305-310.

For reference: definitely optional.

April 10, 2020 — Transformations

Presenters: Maureen Pendras, MSW, Ann De Lancey, PhD

[38 pages]

Ferro, A. & Civitarese, G. (2015). Carla’s panic attack’s: Insight and transformations. The Analytic Field and its Transformations. New York: Routledge, 171-190.

Ferro, A. & Nicoli, L. (2017). The analytic field. The New Analyst’s Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Routledge, 85-102.

Optional Reading

Ferro, A. & Nicoli, L. (2017). The road from Freud to Bion. The New Analyst’s Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Routledge, 57-72.

April 17, 2020 — Coffee with an Analyst: Ron Levin

Presenter: Ronald W. Levin, MD

Facilitators: Janet Soeprono, David Shaner

April 24, 2020 — Coffee with an Analyst: Píyale Cömert

Presenter: Píyale Cömert, PhD

Facilitator: Ellika McGuire

May 1, 2020 — Coffee with an Analyst: Peggy Crastnopol

Presenter: Margaret Crastnopol, PhD

Facilitator: Sarah Matlock

May 8, 2020 — Coffee with an Analyst: Steve Engelberg

Presenter: Steve Engelberg

Facilitator: Jim Basinski

May 15, 2020 — Goodbye Process

Presenter: Maureen Pendras, MSW

May 22, 2020 — Goodbye Process

Presenter: Maureen Pendras, MSW

May 29, 2020 — Goodbye Process

Presenter: Maureen Pendras, MSW