Stop in and say hello.

Presenter: Guillermo Valdes, MD

Discussant: Dionne Powell, MD

Join us for a case presentation and discussion. Representatives from the Outreach Committee and PANY Faculty will be available for questions.

Working for 40-plus years both as a couple therapist and a psychoanalyst has given Dr. Art Nielsen a special window into the problems of intimate relationships. This workshop will focus on three related topics that can facilitate the clinical work of psychoanalytic individual therapists and couple therapists alike.

We will first review the most common vicious cycles that couples get caught up in. Understanding these will help therapists be more informed when they hear patients complaining about such fights, but only from their patient’s limited point of view.

We will then take up the often misunderstood, but nonetheless uniquely valuable concept of projective identification as it applies to such cycles, explains their tenacity, and points us to therapeutic options.

Finally, we will discuss how projective identification accounts for some forms of partner selection and polarizations in marriage. Throughout, we will demystify and critically examine the concept of projective identification, highlighting its strengths, limitations, and independence from other Kleinian concepts.

Chap Attwell, MD

Individual psychoanalysis offers a host of pitfalls and opportunities for psychological growth through the use and analysis of transference, unconscious fantasy, dream analysis, interpretation, and a strong working alliance. Few candidates in training know that group psychoanalysis offers unique windows into the understanding and treatment of the pre-Oedipal character, early life trauma, addiction disorders, and other difficult-to-formulate, unconscious, persistent struggles.

In this 90 minute offering, Dr. Attwell will introduce the class to the didactic similarities and differences between individual and group psychoanalysis as well as how they can work in effective tandem. He will then run a 30 minute experiential group to illustrate the key principles in a here-and-now focus on growth of the interpersonal ego and meaningful affective communication. In closing, the class will wrestle to link the didactic and experiential portions of the class to illuminate future directions of learning.

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

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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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Arden Rothstein, Ph.D.Arden Rothstein, Ph.D.Training and Supervising Analyst, PANYClinical Professor of Psychiatry, NYU School of MedicineChair, Progressions Committee, Department of Psychoanalytic Education, American Psychoanalytic Association

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