Psychoanalytically Informed Assessment of Character Pathology
Presented by Matthew Bennett, PsyD [Seminar]

NARRATIVE

This presentation serves as the introduction to a series of planned seminars on specific personality styles. The seminar will review broadly psychodynamic perspectives on the diagnosis of personality organization and personality disorder.   The emphasis will be diagnosing personality organization as an aid to conducting psychotherapy.  Dr. Bennett will provide an overview of the psychodynamic sensibility in diagnosing personality disorder, highlighting the clinical usefulness of identifying and describing patterns of handling affect, defensive styles, and perceiving interpersonal reality.  This discussion will include rationales for diagnosis (including cautions about the limits of diagnosis) and the importance of assuming certain “stances” in psychotherapy based on personality diagnosis.  Dr. Bennett will also review the traditional tripartite psychoanalytic rubric of organizing personality development into psychotic, borderline, and neurotic ranges of organization, including the clinical implications for each.  The presentation will then include a more in-depth analysis of some of the more prominent personality styles, including schizoid, narcissistic, histrionic, and depressive styles. As a result, the presentation will include emphasis on both level of personality organization and type.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• • Upon completion of this workshop, participants should be able to:
  • Demonstrate working knowledge of characteristic defensive styles associated with commonly documented personality organizations, as evidenced by a case role-play.
  • Identify four key features of psychotic, characterological / borderline, and neurotic / normal personality development in therapy populations.
  • Analyze key features of interpersonal behavior in such a way as to develop tentative hypotheses about underlying character organization through a sample case conceptualization.
  • Create a psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy case conceptualization based on identification of defensive styles, as evidenced by sample case conceptualization practice.

COURSE OUTLINE

8:30 am   

Registration

9:00 am  

Introduction of presenter

9:15 am   

The psychodynamic sensibility and underlying assumptions.  Functional vs. Trait based descriptions.  The role of symptoms and goals of treatment.

10:00 am      

Criteria for developmental health of the personality: mentalization, ambivalence, observing ego, affect tolerance, reality testing, & mature vs. primitive defenses

10:15-10:30  

Break

10:30 am 

Psychotic, Borderline, and Neurotic Levels of Personality Development

11:00 am 

Schizoid personalities

12:00 pm    

Lunch Break

1:00 pm   

Narcissistic personalities

2:00 pm

Histrionic Personalities

3:00 pm  

Depressive Personalities

4:00 pm

End of Conference

CONTENT CURRICULUM

1.  This presentation builds upon key competencies, skill sets, and knowledge bases associated with the literature of contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy, including models of object relations, mentalization, self-psychology, and principles of intersubjectivity. It builds upon graduate-level concepts and elaborates them into applied clinical methodologies directly relevant to psychodynamically informed psychotherapy.
2. This presentation directly informs the clinical praxis of applied psychotherapy. It includes a review of theoretical considerations as well as praxis considerations which directly inform treatment planning, case conceptualization, and the boundaries established in psychotherapy.
3. The content of this presentation represents intermediate level application of principles of psychodynamically informed psychotherapy. It presumes basic level knowledge of the assumptions and world-view inherent to several models of psychoanalytic psychotherapy (that is, basic knowledge the principles of object relations, self-psychology, and related concepts).
4. The content of this presentation is comprehensively based in the established literature of contemporary psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy, especially as it relates to personality theory and self-psychology. The concepts and methodologies described are characteristic of the broadly accepted principles and theoretical frames associated with this well-documented model of psychotherapy.  The inherent limitations of this content include the well-documented difficulties in establishing the empirical evidence of efficacy among competing models of psychotherapy, which are complicated by competing assumptions about what represents desirable outcomes (e.g.,behavior change vs. development of psychological capacities which may be difficult to measure).  The risks involved in this presented content include transient discomfort and emotional dislocation involved in addressing basic personality patterns which may be recognized as important parts of the selves of the participants.
5. This presentation will include a discussion of the cultural, racial, and gender-based manifestation of personality patterns, and the way culture acts as a lens to the manifestation of underlying character structure. For example, the discussion will include analysis of the complex reasons why certain personality traits appear associated with gender, and the relationship between these observed character traits and the forces of socialization and culture.

COST:

CIP Members:

$100 early registration 10 business days prior to seminar; $120 after

Non-Members:

$130 early registration up to 10 business days prior to seminar, $150 after

CEs: 6 CEs for LMFTs, LCSWs, and Psychologists. Participants must attend the full live session and complete the evaluation at the end to receive a CE completion certificate.

Community Institute for Psychotherapy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Community Institute for Psychotherapy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Cancellation must be received in writing by email: Full refund if canceled 48 hours prior to the event; $25 cancellation fee if canceled with less than 48 hours notice. 

Accommodations will be made wherever possible to those with disabilities.  Please let us know of any disabilities upon registration, to ensure proper accommodations are put in place prior to workshop/training.

Grievance Procedure: CIP will respond to complaints in a reasonable, ethical and timely manner, when submitted by program attendees in writing to the Chair of CIP’s Professional Development Committee.

Anti-Discrimination Policy: CIP shall not discriminate against any individual or group with respect to any service, program or activity based on gender, race, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, age or other prohibited basis. CIP does not require attendees to adhere to any particular religion or creed in order to participate in training. CIP will not promote or advocate for a single modality of treatment that is discriminatory or likely to harm clients based on current accepted standards or practice.

*There is no conflict of interest or commercial support related to this CE program.