January 2020
Working in the Eye of the Storm: Helping Families through Separation and Divorce
– Nancy Oleson, PhD
Narrative: The time around the decision to separate/divorce is one of intense distress and provides a common reason for people to consult a mental health professional. Adults and children are often flooded with anger, fear and guilt, and it is very common for the confusion parents experience to lead to actions that harm themselves and their children. However, these are also fertile period for growth and development in which the person’s underlying psychological structures are “softer” and more open to…
Find out more »March 2020
Lust, Rage, Chaos and Love: Erotic Transference in Psychotherapy
– Felicia Matto-Shepard, LMFT
Narrative: While all psychotherapists are trained to understand that “therapy never includes sex,” few feel adequately train in how to navigate sexual content that might emerge in the course of treatment. And when the sexual content is directed toward the therapist, many feel unprepared to respond. Merely setting boundaries with the patient without exploring the meaning of the erotic transference risks the loss of a vital archetypal energy that could be critical to the patient’s development. At the same time,…
Find out more »April 2020
The Rough Patch in Marriage: Working with Couples Psychoanalytically
– Daphne de Marneffe, PhD
Narrative: Empirical and clinical research on couple processes and couple therapy has expanded in the last thirty years. Simultaneously, psychoanalytic views of development and therapeutic action have incorporated findings from research on attachment, mentalization, and emotion. This seminar provides a grounding in current theories of mentalization, couple therapy, and adult development as a vehicle for considering the crises and challenges of long-term intimate relationships and how to best work with them psychoanalytically. As therapists, we need to hold in tension…
Find out more »May 2020
When Self-Hate is Self-Protection: Understanding Eating Disorders
– Lisa Bograd, MA, MFT
Narrative: Eating disorders are very complex disorders that can be very difficult for clinicians to treat both because of the life threatening nature of these disorders as well as the tendency of those afflicted with them to cling desperately to them despite the grave risk they pose to their physical health and emotional wellbeing. But if we really understand what is at stake for these patients in giving up their disorder, if we can appreciate the profound way in which…
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