NARRATIVE Although DSM criteria for diagnosing paranoia involve externally observable traits, the speakers construe it as an intrapsychic process of disavowal and projection, often related to trauma and inadequate psychological separation from caregivers. Although most visible in psychosis, nonpsychotic paranoid states of mind are common. Dr. McWilliams will review scholarly literature and implications for treatment of nonpsychotic paranoia.…

NARRATIVE This workshop explores dissociation as a universal and often adaptive feature of mental life—one that is functionally and phenomenologically distinct from both repression and splitting. Rather than viewing dissociation solely as pathological, we will consider its role in facilitating transitions between self-states in both daily life and clinical settings. Particular attention will be paid…

NARRATIVE This workshop will present original work on the social unconscious and its application to Wilfred Bion’s theories and praxis.  The conception of a social unconscious was introduced at the very inception of our field (1924) by the first formally trained American Psychoanalyst – Trigant Burrow. It was intensely resisted and eventually erased from our…

NARRATIVE This clinical workshop will help therapists navigate the treatment challenges and impasses that inevitably arise in psychotherapy. It focuses on two linked, core skills: (1) developing a sound clinical case formulation, and (2) developing a shared treatment purpose with clients. When therapy stalls or loses direction, the difficulty almost always traces back to one…