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Continuing Education
An essential mission of NYFS is to provide a forum for professional development in an atmosphere of support and mutual respect. These values are made real through a vital spirit of inquiry and through stimulating interactive dialogue that contribute to our intellectual inheritance.
Our Society is pleased to be offering a year-long program in NYC to study the psychoanalytic treatment of patients with primitive mental states, which is described below. It is open to all members of any psychoanalytic institute.
September 2009 to May 2010
Understanding Primitive Mental States
The New York Freudian Society is offering a program to study the psychoanalytic treatment of patients with Primitive Mental States. This program is unique in bringing together analysts from different theoretical perspectives to discuss theory and technique. The learning process will be participatory with the intent of creating a thinking, active work group, which is anticipated to extend into a second and third year of study.
Participants will meet monthly with prominent scholars. This program is open to all members of any psychoanalytic institute.
The meetings, unless otherwise stated, will be held on the third Thursday evening of the month from 8:30 to 10:00 pm, and continue on Friday afternoon from 3 to 4:30 pm. The evening meeting will focus on theory; the afternoon will be a clinical presentation by a senior analyst.
Program Director and Moderator: Susan N. Finkelstein, LCSW
FIRST SEMESTER: SEPTEMBER 2009 to JANUARY 2010
September 17 & 25, 2009*
*third Thursday & fourth Friday of this month
Anxiety and Aggression in Primitive Mental States
Marvin Hurvich
Clinical Case Presenter: Andrea Greenman
Early anxieties and terror of annihilation interrelate with archaic aggression in primitive mental states. In this presentation anxieties and the aggressive reactions which arise from experiences of being overwhelmed, taken over by another, invaded, destroyed and abandoned will be studied. Clinical material and insights from Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bion and others will illustrate and deepen our understanding of these primitive terrors.
October 15 & 16, 2009
Ferenczi: The Analyst of Last Resort
Adrienne Harris
Clinical Case Presenter: Avgi Saketopoulou
Considered a consummate clinician and a controversial and innovative theorist, Sandor Ferenczi made important contributions to many areas of psychoanalysis relevant to the consideration of confusional or primitive states. In this lecture Ferenczi’s theory of trauma, his contributions to technique in the treatment of severe disturbance, his links to Groddeck, and his interests in regression and in multiple self-states will be studied.
November 19 & 20, 2009
Melanie Klein: The Paranoid and Depressive Positions in Clinical Practice
Roy Schafer
Clinical Case Presenter: Ann Rudovsky
Often used in confused and confusing ways, these two concepts and concepts allied with them, such as splitting and projective identification, call for continuing clarification. Of special importance is the flux between the two positions and their admixtures and unsuspected extremes: in practice, the use of interpretation is often thrown into question in that it alienates the analysand and serves mainly countertransference needs.
January 21 & 22, 2010
Confusional States of Mind
Rogelio Sosnik
Clinical Case Presenter: TBA
Confusional states of mind exist from the beginning of life. These states result from early specific anxieties and result in particular defenses which organize the economy of mental functioning and pre-date the establishment of the Paranoid-Schizoid and Depressive Positions. The study of projective identification and its contribution to confusional states of mind in psychosis and neurosis has been developed by many authors of the Kleinian School. We will ponder the influence of confusional states and the defenses against this confusion on the development of mental maturation and conceptual development with reference to the problems created in firmly establishing the Depressive Position.
SECOND SEMESTER: FEBRUARY 2010 to MAY 2010
February 18 & 19, 2010
Container-Contained in Bion
Nancy Wolf
Clinical Case Presenter: Kristina MacGaffin
Wilfred R. Bion understood that projective identification can be both communication and an early form of thinking. In this understanding, Bion gave the mother’s reverie credit for the transformation of the projected. Bion deepens his and our understanding of this activity with his concept of “containercontained” and with the recognition that the transformation of the contained transforms the container as well. When the analyst functions as a container for the analysand in the analytic session, emotional transformation is experienced by both the analysand and the analyst. Readings on “containercontained” and clinical material will illustrate frustration or growth in the container as well as the contained.
March 18 & 19, 2010*
*7:30 pm Thursday evening
Vital Sparks and the Form of Things Unknown
Dodi Goldman
Attention to the precariousness of aliveness and to the bridging of dissociative gaps are central features of Winnicott’s clinical sensibility. The presentation highlights how Winnicott was deeply attuned to the relationship between these two currents: the extent to which aliveness is accessible and sustainable at any given moment is related to how one uses dissociation. As long as dissociation is used only to safeguard survival, there is a collapse of the potential space necessary for aliveness.
April 15 & 16, 2010
Working with Levels of Primitive Anxieties
M.Nasir Ilahi
Clinical Case Presenter: Judith Rovner
This presentation will attempt to bring together the contributions of a variety of analysts from both the British Kleinian and Independent orientations to further our understanding of the levels of primitive anxieties, and associated defenses, that we encounter in clinical work. In addition to Freud, analysts who have made important contributions in this area include Klein, Bion, Winnicott, Rosenfeld, Milner, Tustin and a number of others working in these traditions. Even though there are important areas of divergence between these analysts, it is argued that there is a need for bridging some of their contributions to further enhance our understanding and work with primitive mental states. Clinical examples will be provided.
May 20 & 21, 2010
Early Identification Processes, Separateness and Otherness
Karen Proner
Clinical Case Presenter: Mary Wall
The earliest mental states that are precursors to projective identification and other identification processes will be explored. This will be done by looking at infant observation material and adult clinical examples. The dimensionality of the mind and its influence on unconscious phantasy will frame an understanding of clinically useful concepts such as imitation, protomental synchrony, adhesive identification and intrusive identification, pairing, etc. to understand primitive states of separateness and otherness in infancy and that we find in the consulting room in our work with children and adults.
Judith Mitrani and Theodore Mitrani will consult several weekends throughout the year. Dates and fees to be announced.
Judith Mitrani: Technical Implications of Tustin’s Work in the Treatment of Autistic States in Adult Patients.
Theodore Mitrani: Pathological Narcissistic Organizations.
REGISTRATION AND ENROLLMENT
Please e-mail or telephone 212-254-8501 for information about registration.
The cost of the year long program is $960.00. A $300 registration fee is due by March 1, 2009. Balance of $660 is due by June 1, 2009. All fees are payable to the New York Freudian Society. Location on Upper West Side of Manhattan to be announced.
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