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 DIRECTORS'S COLUMN
By Seth Warren, PhD
Reading Sally Rudoy's impressive and fascinating report about her experience visiting China with a delegation of psychoanalysts (read article below) has led me to think about the place of our psychoanalytic institution, and our relationship to the larger world outside of our training program.
The training of candidates is obviously the heart of a psychoanalytic institute. But we have to continue to rethink the relationship of our institute to the world outside, and how we can create new connections and relationships, and to consider what creative contribution psychoanalysis can make to that larger world.
It is true that much of our clinical focus tends to be inward, in the form of private conversations that address the inner emotional lives of patient and therapist. But psychoanalysis also has a long and venerable tradition of being directed outward as well, seeking to influence widely disparate areas such as child-rearing practices, educational systems, public policy in mental health, and the arts and humanities. Sally describes work across a tremendous gap in  language and culture, and her experience of the ways psychoanalysis has evolved and become meaningful in a culture far removed from its origins in the Victorian era in the West. It is hard to know exactly what to make of this interest on the part of Chinese practitioners, and what the future of Chinese psychoanalysis may be; certainly Sally makes it clear that there are also obstacles and challenges in the process of bringing our ideas to such a new and unfamiliar context.
The discipline of psychoanalysis has often tended to be insular, with analytic practitioners talking (and arguing!) mostly with themselves, in journals read by, and conferences attended by, mostly other analytic practitioners. This is a shame, because our theories and practices are so widely applicable and our clinical experience so valuable in larger social contexts.
D.W. Winnicott famously gave many talks in non-analytic settings, reaching a broad audience of educators, parents, nurses and physicians. It is no coincidence that, in the view of many, he stands as the most influential psychoanalyst after Freud. His ideas have been widely disseminated and assimilated more than almost any other psychoanalytic theorist, in large part because of his conscious interest in reaching ordinary people involved in the care of children.
In the current cultural context in which we all work, traditional 3 or 5 time per week psychoanalysis forms a fairly small part of the full range of psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic practice. That is not to say that such work is not important - it remains a unique treatment approach with very much to offer both patients and analysts seeking to learn new ways to understand our fellow human beings. I imagine that such treatment will always form a central part of psychoanalytic institutes and training. But it is perhaps a mistake to think that such formal treatment will be the way psychoanalytic institutions make their greatest impact on the wider culture.
Already it is clear that CPPNJ serves the wider community of therapists in New Jersey by offering conferences and workshops on a wide variety of psychoanalytically-informed subjects. Our couples training program is bringing together a broad range of interested practitioners working in ways influenced by, and extending beyond, psychoanalytic work per se. We hope to continue to develop our Psychotherapy Clinic, and under the leadership of Sandra Sinicropi to increase access to high-quality psychotherapeutic treatment to many who could not obtain such treatment otherwise.
I hope all of our members will think about ways they can reach the larger world outside our consulting rooms, to consider how our psychoanalytic training and experience can be applied in new and varied settings, such as in groups and organizations, in schools and other child development settings, in social service organizations, colleges and medical schools, and in public speaking and writing aimed at a broader public audience than that of our usual journal articles, papers, and even our conferences.
The work of our colleagues in China (and other Asian countries) and the reception they have been receiving suggests that there is much fertile ground out there in the world, interest where we might not expect it, and certainly many difficult problems to be solved. Psychoanalytic ideas bridge wide areas of human knowledge and experience, from the humanities to neuroscience, religion, and medicine, as well as connecting inner to outer worlds. I encourage us all to think of psychoanalysis in the public sphere and to come up with new and creative ways we might bring our ideas and our work to those larger contexts.
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February 26, 2012 Conference The Integration of Attachment Theory and Neurobiology: Clinical Applications Presented by Dan Hill, PhD The Institute for Women's Leadership, Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building162 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 9:00am -12:30pm 3 CEUs offered for social workers  Dan Hill is a psychoanalyst, educator, and a leading proponent of the paradigm shift to affect regulation. His publications and presentations range from the clinical use of multiple models through religious fundamentalism understood through the lens of affect regulation. For the past six years he has conducted yearly conferences and on-going study groups focused on an in-depth understanding of the regulation of affect as understood in Allan Schore's Regulation Theory and Peter Fonagy's theory of mentalization. He is on the faculties of the National Institute of the Psychotherapies and the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.
This workshop will consist of two parts: In the first Dr. Hill will be presenting the basic components of the clinical model of affect regulation: the broad strokes of the model's theory of bodymind, theory of development, theory of pathogenesis, and theory of therapeutic action. He will pay special attention to clinical aspects of the model including the emphasis on dissociation, and giving relational trauma center stage in the understanding of developmental psychopathology. Finally, he will discuss how the integration of attachment theory and neurobiology has led to a deepening of attachment theory and the understanding of the capacity to regulate affect. In the second part Dr. Hill will focus on clinical vignettes that illustrate many of the theoretical concepts discussed in the first half of the workshop. Click HERE to register for this program |
June 24, 2012 All Day Conference
An Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy Approach to Sexual Problems and Crises
Presented by Sue Johnson, PhD
Lenfell Hall, The Mansion, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ
8:30am - 4:30pm
6 CEUs offered for social workers
Sue Johnson is Director of the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy and Distinguished Research Professor at Alliant University in San Diego, California as well as Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Dr Johnson's best known professional books include, The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection (2004) and Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy with Trauma Survivors (2002). She trains counselors in EFT worldwide and consults to Veterans Affairs, the US and Canadian military and New York City Fire Department.
This workshop will outline EFT, an empirically validated model of couple intervention that focuses on the creation of a secure attachment bond. The evidence is that secure attachment enhances the other two key aspects of love relationships, caregiving and sexuality. This workshop will outline EFT as an attachment intervention. It will then consider how sexuality fits into this perspective and how sexual issues are dealt with in EFT sessions. The day will consist of didactic presentation, discussion, exercises and the viewing of EFT training tapes. Attendees will learn: 1) To understand close relationships from an attachment perspective; 2) To understand EFT as a model of intervention; 3)To link sexuality and attachment, bonding and eroticism; and 4) To describe the way sexual issues are addressed in an experiential attachment oriented therapy.
Click HERE to register for this program
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IARPP 10th Anniversary Conference
The 10th Anniversary Conference of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy (IARPP) will be held in NYC 3/1-3/4. CPPNJ Faculty who are presenting include:
1) Sally Rudoy who will moderate a panel entitled: "Relational Themes and Religious Influences;"
2) Spyros Orfanos will give a paper "Swimming the Bosphorus: A Clinical Presentation";
3) Ruth Lijtmaer will present "How Stephen Mitchell's Legacy Influenced My Work as an Immigrant Analyst;"
4) Kenneth Frank will be a discussant on a panel entitled "The Relationality of Everyday Life: The Unfinished Journey of Relational Psychoanalysis;"
5) Eric Sherman will moderate a panel on "Depicting Dissociation: Multiple Self-States in Multi-Media Speakers;"
6) Lisa Lyons will present "Analytic Knowing: Holding Horror & Working Toward Change;"
7) Sophia Richman will moderate a panel that will incorporate Lisa's paper: "Holding Horror: Dialectical Tensions in Working with Trauma Speakers."
Members of the CPPNJ community are encouraged to visit the IARPP website and considering joining (dues include a subscription to Psychoanalytic Dialogues). Our own Sally Rudoy is the co-editor of the IARPP eNews, and you can access the latest issue on the IARPP website and see a cool picture of Sally in China.
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Highlighting Our Faculty:
Eric Sherman, LCSW
Looking back, I was destined to be a psychoanalyst.
All the telltale signs were there; I was the somewhat nerdy eldest child groomed for a caretaker role by a narcissistic father and beleaguered mother. While other kids looked up to sports stars, my adolescent hero was Woody Allen.
Woody Allen, for crying out loud! How could I not have wanted to be a psychoanalyst?
And yet, I didn't. It never even crossed my mind. I grew up in the era of Woodward and Bernstein and was a pretty good writer. So I decided to be a journalist and change the world. Or at least get a lot of positive attention and praise. (Did I mention my narcissistic father and beleaguered mother?)
After majoring in journalism and political science at Syracuse University (I actually considered a career in politics), I got a job as a reporter and editor at The Staten Island Advance. I then made the leap to Ladies' Home Journal, where I ultimately became the Entertainment Editor. I interviewed celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Caine, Debbie Reynolds and Jamie Lee Curtis (who drives like a maniac, by the way). After a few years, I left the magazine and went freelance, writing for People, TV Guide, Redbook and (this one embarrasses me just a bit) Cosmopolitan. Yes, I was a Cosmo girl!
So much for changing the world.
I was successful (and a great source for Hollywood gossip), but I wasn't really satisfied with what I was doing. I had already been in therapy for some years, and found it not only personally beneficial, but a potentially fascinating way to make a living. I started doing volunteer work at a telephone crisis line, and entered Hunter College School of Social Work. I continued to work as a freelance writer, mostly writing popular psychology articles for magazines.
Click HERE for the rest of the article |
Spring Faculty Forums
March 25, 2012 - Strangers to Ourselves: Analysts Reaching Self-Awareness in the Clinical Setting
Presented by Kenneth Frank, PhD
The Rutherford Room, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ 9:30am-12:30pm
May 6, 2012 - Psychoanalysis in a New Globalized and Digitalized Key: Skype Treatment of Patients in China by American Analysts
Chair: Richard Reichbart, PhD. Speakers: Charlotte Kahn, EdD, Lisa Lyons, PhD and Sally Rudoy, LCSW
Institute for Women's Leadership, Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building, 162 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 10:30am-1:00pm
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IDfest 2012 is Coming May 5, 2012
The CPPNJ events committee has announced the date for IDFest 2012: An Evening of Comedy, Wine and Dessert. If you joined us last year you were part of the fun that was had by all. If you missed last year's event you have probably heard that you missed one of CPPNJ's most successful and fun social evenings in the history of the institute.
This year May 5th is the date and Lenfell Hall is the place. Details of cost and ticket purchase will be available shortly (Watch your in-boxes). While you wait, talk to your friends from home and put together a table of 10 friends to receive a discount on admission.
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All Programs are Co-Sponsored with the New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Workers
The New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Workers (NJSCSW) provides leadership and support to clinical social workers in all practice settings. NJSCSW has given voice to clinical social workers dealing with the health care industry. The organization provides outstanding education programs and opportunities for collegial contact. www.njscsw.org
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Our E-Newsletter Editorial Staff
Mary Lantz, LCSW, Editor-in-Chief
Rose Oosting, PhD, Consulting Editor
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Not Your Momma's China
By Sally Rudoy, LCSW
Along with KFC, McDonalds, and Starbucks, China is importing psychoanalysis. I recently went on a multi-week study tour with the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA). I was a bit taken aback at first at the wholesale adoption of all things western in China. For example, take women's fashion : Mao jackets have been replaced by form fitting blouses, 3" heels on unbound feet, and colorful mini skirts. George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kate Winslet appear larger than life on billboards advertising luxury products they would never dare hawk at home. Cell phones are as prolific as they are on the streets of New York. The irony, of course, is that most of these products are made in China although originally designed for western tastes. Consumerism is rampant.
It is this consumerism, in part, that has provided an incentive for Chinese therapists to seek training from outside the country's borders. More than ever before, with a rapidly rising middle class, the Chinese feel pressure to make money and to keep up with their neighbors.
With this pressure has come an upsurge in mood disorders. The one child policy, initiated in 1978, has created generations prone to narcissism and overwhelming parental expectation. The legacy of trauma from the Cultural Revolution finds its way into every corner and generation of this country that has experienced more profound change in the last 30 years than the 2000 that proceeded.
Among young clinicians there is a great interest in psychoanalysis, particularly classical Freudian theory. While conversant in the psychoanalytic literature, they have little clinical experience or training in its practice. That is where CAPA steps in. Founded by Elise Snyder, MD in 2002, CAPA's mission is to provide training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy to mental health clinicians in China.
Classes, supervision, and analyses are conducted via Skype by psychoanalysts around the world. Since all activities are conducted in English, participants must have a good command of the language. Skype is used because it is secure and confidential. As Elise Snyder says, it is also the communication tool of choice for the Mafia and top corporate CEO's.
Most of our contact was with psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors, who had trained with CAPA. In their papers and case presentations they displayed clinical competence and an understanding of psychoanalytic process and theory.
By contrast, we visited a mental health clinic that had no affiliation with CAPA. I was on deck to do a live supervision with a young woman who worked there. We communicated through a translator in front of a large audience of young clinicians. I would speak a few sentences in English, wait for the translator to say what I said in Chinese, wait for her response in Chinese, and then for his translation back to me in English. We averaged about 2 minutes per exchange. This posed quite a challenge not just for the obvious reason of having to speak with so much delay between thoughts.
It was a challenge because the material presented was shocking. The therapist anxiously presented a case of a patient with a sexual perversion that revolted me and, by the look on the scrunched up faces of our audience members, revolted them too. She was determined to help this young man who, to my ears, sounded psychotic or psychopathic.
Containing (over 2 languages) what I believed to be her dissociated disgust and fear of this man, I steadied myself with two slow sentences at a time. I suggested she set firmer conditions and boundaries of the frame of the treatment, including a psychiatric evaluation and establishing conditions of safety
She did not like what I had to say. She wanted my psychoanalytic musings on what caused him to do these things and how she could explain them to him. Internally, I questioned whether I was I hitting a cultural divide, displaying cultural insensitivity. Yes, there is something in the Chinese character that feels duty bound to finish any job started. However, I think it was the universal state that new therapists feel: "I have to help everyone who comes through the door or I have failed."
A colleague, who had also done supervision with a non-CAPA trained therapist observed a similar phenomenon. There was an infatuation with meaning and symbolism that superseded the primary steps of establishing the frame and the therapeutic alliance.
After 10 days of excellent Chinese food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I had a hankering for the more mundane tastes of home. One afternoon I snuck off to a Pizza Hut in a Shanghai mall. Sitting under an enormous sign that boasted "Great Testing Food!," I felt conflicted. I wondered had we come to China to sell, along with the personal pan pizza in front of me, psychoanalysis -- another "product" that arose out of a very different ethos.
Psychoanalysis aspires to help the patient find psychic freedom and choice, to find a balance between the pulls of inner and outer worlds. How would this process operate in a culture, accustomed to authoritarianism, conformity, and tightly constricted social norms?
Yet, I also had begun to see what Elise Snyder termed the Chinese therapists' "hunger" and need for training. Some of my American colleagues had very emotional in-person meetings with supervisees or analysands they had known intimately via Skype for months or even years. The Chinese therapists appeared sincerely grateful for the experience of their training.
The rich exploration of the unconscious that psychoanalysis invites can tantalize the newcomer. Especially if knowledge comes from a book. However, it is in the interpersonal and the interactive engagement of class, analysis, and supervision (face to face; screen to screen) that the theory comes to life and ultimately can be helpful to patients. My CAPA experience underscored the value of psychoanalytic training, no matter what the culture.
Several CPPNJ faculty members are also involved in CAPA, supervising, teaching, providing analysis and therapy. They are: Charlotte Kahn, Nina Thomas, Richard Reichbart, Irwin Badin and Lisa Lyons.
photo credits: Starbucks: Starr Kelton-Locke; McDonalds: Gillian Russell; Sally in China: Barbara Artson
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Welcome New CPPNJ Faculty Member: Introducing Jill Gentile, PhD
It's a pleasure to join the CPPNJ faculty and this vibrant community! I have nurtured a love for psychoanalysis since my graduate PhD training in clinical psychology at the  University of Rochester. While there, I developed a strong interest in attachment theory, self psychology, Winnicott and object relations thinking, and developmental psychopathology. I have since immersed myself in clinical work with children, adolescents, and adults (across diverse settings), completed psychoanalytic training at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity in New York City, and established ongoing practices in both Highland Park, NJ and downtown Manhattan.
During my psychoanalytic training, I developed a strong interest in the evolution of personal agency, developmental "semiotics" (in particular, how the talking cure is grounded in a growing capacity to use signs and symbols), and how these capacities foster our engagement in relationships of mutual recognition. I am continually fascinated by how personal agency and our capacity for intimacy develop in tandem and in my writing, I seek to describe these interdependent processes.
Click HERE to read rest of article
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Our Events: Holiday Party
By Harlene Goldschmidt, PhD  | | Laura Arrue, Irwin Badin, Jim Garofallou and Sandra Sinicropi. |
Our second annual holiday party on January 21 was a rousing success! As Seth Warren so beautifully said: "This party was one of the best-attended social events that I can recall in the history of CPPNJ and our parent institutes, and I have no doubt that the setting in a private home was one of the factors in our outstanding turnout. The food and drink were wonderful, Bob and Mana Levine's home warm and comfortable, and the entire evening was imbued with a feeling of friendliness, celebration and excitement for the continued growth and success of our institute and our community." It was a wonderful opportunity for candidates and faculty to socialize and meet spouses and significant others. The novelty of seeing analysts, patients, supervisors, or supervisees, "out of context" is a unique experience in our warm, holding- environment of an Institute. Feedback from a newer candidate really speaks to CPPNJ's nurturing attitude: "It was the best. I got to meet so many wonderful people. A really high standard was set too. Bob and Mana did an outstanding job. I felt so welcome. I was thinking about their party for days afterward. It was such an honor to be there! Last but not least, I wonder what happened to all the leftover food? Such good cooks too!! It would have taken me days to sample everything." Mana and Bob's graciousness and care were present in every aspect of the evening, beginning with Mana's warm welcoming at the door of their lovely home, the pleasant flow of the evening and ending with Mana and Bob's attentive goodbye as we left. Many thanks, Bob and Mana, for all your efforts in making our gathering so special. Truly a yummy and enjoyable party for all! |
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Unsolicited articles are welcome. Something you'd like to write? Send it to us at cppnj@aol.com. We're happy to hear from you.
Thank you for joining us. Look for our next newsletter in March 2012 when the featured article will be "Jonathan Shedler, PhD: In Defense of Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice," by Nancie Senet, PhD.
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No need to print this email - for future reference, all issues are archived. |
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