Stop in and say hello.

Dr. Mirkin will introduce the class to the challenges and opportunities provided by working remotely with a special emphasis on the effect of COVID pandemic on the frame of the psychotherapeutic/psychoanalytic treatment. The impact on the transference and countertransference related to “visiting” our patients at home and “inviting” them to the therapist’s home via Zoom will be examined. Dr. Mirkin will present clinical vignettes to illustrate her way of working with these issues. The class is arranged as a seminar, and participants are encouraged to share brief examples of the clinical dilemmas they have been facing during these unusual times.

Freud came up with the idea of “psychic bisexuality” in the context of his intensely erotic relationship with Wilhelm Fliess. Despite its central place in Freud’s theory and its usefulness, bisexuality occupies a controversial place in psychoanalysis. It has been a beacon for sexual and gender minorities and yet within psychoanalysis it has been put to heteronormative and transphobic use. This talk will attempt to throw some light on the contemporary use of the concept of bisexuality in one analyst’s clinical work.

Kathleen Lyon, MD is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practicing in NYC since 1991, and a student and practitioner of Buddhism for more than 20 years. A training analyst at PANY, she has taught courses on theory and technique in the psychoanalytic program there, and has taught and supervised at the NYU Medical Center Psychiatry residency program. She has also taught mindfulness meditation and compassion cultivation meditation programs in NYC and elsewhere. She is a member of the Contemplative Studies Project in NYC.

Meditation, Psychotherapy, and Spiritual Bypassing:
In recent years, mindfulness has become a popular and useful therapeutic tool. Distinctions between secular mindfulness and meditation as a part of a spiritual practice have become blurred, leading to inappropriate use of meditation as a substitute for necessary psychological growth. This “spiritual bypassing”, as it has been termed, can be challenging recognize and work with in therapy.
A young adult with a history of early deprivation presented for therapy after disappointing personal and academic setbacks. Through treatment, it was discovered this patient used spiritual bypassing to defend against social contact and achievement of appropriate young adult life goals. Join us for a discussion of how spiritual bypassing, a defensive use of spiritual pursuit/identity to avoid psychological difficulties or growth, manifests in this case, various other ways it can present, and how it can be approached and worked with in treatment.

Presenter: Marilia Aisenstein

The psychoanalytic treatment of patients suffering from a somatic disease  covers an important field. When confronted with those patients the psychoanalyst needs a theoretical background and technical adjustments. This paper exposes the historical roots and the theoretical corpus of the Paris School of Psychosomatics and relates one clinical case.

Leslie Cummins, DSW is a Faculty Member and Chair of the Fellowship Program at the Psychoanalytic Association of New York.

Working with patients with a history of relational trauma, including sexual, physical, and emotional, presents the dynamic therapist with a host of challenges.  These treatments may call upon the therapist’s subjectivity and experience in difficult, often confusing ways.  Understanding the various and specific transference, countertransference, and enactments that may arise in this work, however, offers opportunity not easily found in other modalities for working through early malignant relationships.  In this seminar, we will discuss the forms therapeutic interaction may take and how the therapist may make best use of his or herself in these interactions.

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