Officers 

President: David Jachim

President-Elect: Caron Harrang

Recording Secretary: Naoko Oguchi

Treasurer: Marianne Robinson

Directors

Maxine Anderson

Dana Blue

Julie Hendrickson (candidate representative)

Adriana Prengler

Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is a non-profit corporation dedicated to educational and scientific activities based in Seattle, Washington. The primary mission of the organization is to provide the highest quality psychoanalytic education and training for individuals seeking to become psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists. The organization also supports the ongoing professional growth and development of our psychoanalyst, candidate, and community members. In so doing, the organization aims to contribute to the current regional, national, and international psychoanalytic understanding of mental life and to the emotional health, creativity, and well being of those treated through the practice of psychoanalysis.

As I write this letter, my thoughts drift to "Punxsutawney Phil," the groundhog who comes out of his burrow on February 2 (Groundhog Day) and tells us whether there will be an early spring or six more weeks of winter. Legend has it that if it is cloudy and Phil does not see his shadow, we can soon expect brighter days. If it is sunny and he sees his shadow, we are in for more dark times.

Here at NPSI, we have been happily working under cloudy skies this winter with much to be grateful for and to look forward to. Our academic year is in full swing, with three new candidates in the psychoanalytic training program and senior candidate, Maxine Nelson, graduating in February and taking up the full mantle of "psychoanalyst." Our ACPE (Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education) committee has finished the lion's share of work on completing our application for accreditation. We look forward to the near future when our application to ACPE is accepted and we are able to begin the site visit process.

Our Board of Directors has continued to confidently navigate both our Society and Institute through its many changes, strengthened by the addition of our newest director, Adriana Prengler. Adriana, who also recently joined our ranks as a full member and training analyst, brings tremendous energy and a wealth of experience from her many years as a member of the IPA Board of Representatives. We also welcome senior candidate Julie Hendrickson who replaces Maxine Nelson as candidate representative to the Board.

In October, we will celebrate the 10th International Evolving British Object Relations (EBOR) Conference, an event that is sure to be invigorating and nourishing. Our EBOR committee has successfully secured a beautiful conference venue in Seattle and engaged an exciting panel of distinguished presenters from as far as Argentina and Italy. We have been pleased with the success of our EBOR pre-conference "reverie" seminars as well as our continuing monthly scientific meetings. These gatherings, which continue through May, have been well attended and characterized by robust participation on subjects ranging from the last IPA Congress in Prague to the concept of Bion's obstructive object. (A schedule of these events is posted on our website at www.npsi.us.com.)

So you can see that NPSI continues to be on the move. Please visit our website to see just how we are moving. If you have suggestions, questions or would like to join us in our movement, please contact me at dpjachim@comcast.net. I truly hope that this Groundhog Day finds you safe, healthy and hopeful. Regardless, take heart, as the near forecast is for cloudy conditions.  

David Jachim, PhD FIPA

President, Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

As we make our way through winter term, we in the Institute feel the vigor of our student selves, not only as a new class of psychoanalytic candidates who bring their energy and curiosity to every seminar or as the advanced candidates who continue to pursue their training with passion and persistence, but also as faculty who continue our journeys as life-long learners who benefit from our own readings and studies and from the offerings we give and receive from one another.

Underscoring this sense of ongoing learning was the November 9, 2013 workshop with Deborah Cabaniss that NPSI co-sponsored with SPSI. Cabaniss engaged faculty and candidates from both institutes in a hands-on seminar that demonstrated the teaching and learning of psychoanalytic principles in a humorous, enlivening, and engaging manner that was impressive to all. One of the take-away points of the seminar was the necessity of active engagement on the parts of both teachers and learners, with stress on the importance of establishing learning objectives, creating learning activities, and being able to measure the results of our efforts. Members of SPSI and NPSI collaborated together over the course of the day in learning exercises and sharing notes for enhancing the curricula of our respective institutes. At the end of the day, Deborah commented that she could not tell who belonged to which institute, so well had we worked together and learned from one another-a good sign, she felt, for ongoing mutual endeavors. A report of the Cabaniss seminar is included in this newsletter, with a link to the comprehensive summary written by two of its participants, Barb Sewell from NPSI and Darren Thompson from SPSI.

It is with pleasure that I announce the February 12 graduation of senior candidate Maxine Nelson from the NPSI psychoanalytic training program. We are grateful for Maxine's continuing contributions to the NPSI Board of Directors, as a member of the Curriculum Committee, and as Assistant Managing Editor of this newsletter.

Finally, we are finalizing our application for accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE). Engaging this process has helped the Institute develop its policies and procedures and become sturdy in other ways that will serve our students and faculty as well as provide a substantial psychoanalytic home for members of our larger community.

I offer this snapshot of some of the things that are happening at NPSI. Overall our efforts to teach, to learn and to strengthen our organization continue. Please feel free to contact me at maxinekander@aol.com with any questions regarding the Institute or psychoanalytic training.

Maxine Anderson, MD FIPA

Director of Training, Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

International News

EBOR 2014 Conference Update

Plans continue for the NPSI sponsored tenth International Evolving British Object Relations Conference this fall at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Seattle over the weekend of October 17-19, 2014.

Two pre-conference events are currently taking place in Seattle. The first is a series of monthly meetings on the conference theme of "reverie" as described in a review (below) of one of these meetings by Shierry Nicholsen, PhD FIPA. For a complete listing of meetings click on Pre-Conference Reveries.

The second pre-conference event involves a panel presentation on the topic of reverie by Dana Blue, LICSW FIPA, Caron Harrang, LICSW FIPA, and Maxine Nelson, LICSW FIPA at the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study Annual Forum Conference on Saturday, April 12, 2014 at Shoreline Community College in Seattle. The panel, moderated by David Jachim, PhD FIPA, will define reverie and how it is cultivated in clinical practice; discuss phenomena that threaten reverie and show how, once lost, it is restored; and foster an experience of reverie, drawing on work of visual artist and psychotherapist Kamila Zenatá.

Bion, "O" and the Question of Psychic Change:

A Report on the Second Pre-EBOR Reverie

By Shierry Nicholsen, PhD FIPA

In anticipation of the Evolving British Object Relations conference "From Reverie to Interpretation" taking place next October, NPSI is sponsoring a series of six pre-conference meetings designed to provide opportunities for reverie about reverie. Marianne Robinson led the second of these meetings on January 22. Its focus was on Bion's late writings, centering on his notion of "O," the unknown, thought by some to be a slippage into wild thinking and by others to be an important breakthrough into the question of psychic change.

A set of papers in the "Psychoanalytic Controversies" section of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP 92:5, 2011) written by Belgian analyst Rudi Vermote and London Kleinian David Taylor provided the explicit framework for our discussion. Marianne began the meeting with a definition of reverie as "a state of mind which is open to the reception of any objects from the loved object." She went on to summarize key points from the papers and provided a list of questions to seed our thinking and conversation. Here I give a far briefer summary of the points that helped to focus our discussion.

Click here to read the full report: Second Pre-Conference Reverie Report 

NPSI Society News 

Spring 2014 Scientific Meetings

NPSI Scientific Meetings are a regular opportunity for faculty, candidates, community members, and interested psychotherapists from the Seattle mental health community to gather to hear and discuss topics relevant to clinical practice by practicing psychoanalysts.

The following are a list of Scientific Meetings for the remainder of the 2013-14 academic year. Every meeting this year features an original paper presented by a NPSI member or guest analyst. We are fortunate to have a variety of compelling topics and presenters. Click here to see the full events calendar on the NPSI website: http://npsi.us.com/society/scientific-meetings/ 

March 19, 2014

Shierry Nicholson, PhD FIPA

"Enactment, The Actual, and the Question of Symbolization"

April 16, 2014

Caron Harrang, LICSW FIPA

"Turn! Turn! Turn! The Patient's Contribution to the Interpretive Process in the Termination Phase of Analysis."

May 21, 2014

David Jachim, PhD FIPA

"The Return of the Negative Object and the Function of Reverie in Restoring Hope"

Special Report

Faculty Development with Deborah Cabaniss

Reflections on a Faculty Development Workshop

By Barbara Sewell, LMHC FIPA

On November 8 and 9, 2013, the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute co-sponsored a joint workshop with Deborah Cabaniss, MD FIPA titled "Bringing Teaching to Life: An Education Retreat." Former NPSI site visitors, Ted Jacobs, MD FIPA and Brian Robertson, MD FIPA, had suggested contacting Cabaniss when NPSI expressed a desire to improve teaching methods at the Institute. Cabaniss is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Director of Psychotherapy Training in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia. She teaches psychodynamic psychotherapy to residents as well as coordinates the teaching and supervising of all psychotherapy in the residency program. Long interested in the teaching processes that best facilitate students' learning, Cabaniss has studied and written extensively on the topic of teaching psychodynamic psychotherapy.

In her role as Chair for Faculty Development on the NPSI Education Committee, Esther Karson, PhD FIPA took the lead in contacting Cabaniss and coordinating all the logistical components of the event with Darren Thompson at SPSI.

On Saturday, November 9, a combination of analytic candidates, analysts and training analysts from both institutes met at the Labor Temple in Seattle to learn about teaching psychoanalysis. Thirty-one people were in attendance: 15 from SPSI and 16 from NPSI.

Deborah Cabaniss presented the following Learning Objectives:

Participants will learn new ways to engage learners in psychoanalysis through their own participation in a learning exercise.

Participants will learn to identify learning objectives as evidenced by their ability to identify objectives during a workshop activity.

Participants will participate in a workshop activity that will teach them to use "backwards design" to design creative teaching activities.

Participants will work with diverse members of the psychoanalytic community during a group workshop activity.

The event was very active and thought provoking, not lecture style. Cabaniss emphasized the teaching philosophy developed by Grant Wiggins on "backwards design." In this philosophy the instructor begins with the end in mind, asking the question, "What enduring understandings do I want my students to develop?" 

The Wiggins model has three stages:

Identify desired results (learning outcomes/objectives).

"What should students know, understand, and be able to do?  What is worthy of understanding?"

Determine acceptable evidence.

"How will we know if students have achieved the desired result and met the standards? What will we accept as evidence of student understanding and proficiency?"

Plan learning experiences and instruction. This includes:

Definition of knowledge, skills and procedures students ought to master, definition of materials, and definition of learning/teaching activities.

Through activities and group discussion, Cabaniss taught the group how to create learning objectives, how to create teaching activities, and how to measure to what degree the learning objectives were met through the teaching activities.

The Cabaniss event was an unqualified success not only in terms of teaching learning theory, but also in demonstrating the possibility for collaboration of colleagues dedicated to psychoanalysis and the process of teaching it.

At the end of the day, I asked Cabaniss if she had any thoughts about how the day had gone. She responded that she thought we had played well. She observed that the groups had worked together so seamlessly that by the end of the day she wasn't sure who was from which institute. She thought all the participants had been creative and involved, exhibiting respect for one another and expressing similar concerns about how psychoanalysis is taught at their institutes. Her last comment to me was "I'm hoping this will jump start more discussion and be seen as a beginning and not an ending."

Barbara Sewell, LMHC FIPA

Lynn Cunningham, Reporter

Maxine Nelson, LICSW FIPA presented her graduation paper, titled "Blade Runner as Metaphor: Encapsulation in Virtual Reality as a Defense Against Psychic Annihilation," to Institute colleagues and invited guests on Wednesday evening, February 12, 2014. President-Elect Caron Harrang opened the evening and Mirta Berman-Oelsner, LMHC FIPA served as discussion facilitator. After her presentation, Director of Training Maxine Anderson, MD, FIPA presented Maxine with a graduation certificate and welcomed her to the community of psychoanalysts at NPSI. Congratulations Maxine!

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Senior candidate Dave Parnes, LICSW co-taught an introductory course on psychoanalytic psychotherapy sponsored by the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study this past fall. During the winter term, he was the discussant for a clinical case discussion offered by the Alliance Community Psychotherapy Clinic.

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Candidate President Nicole Wiggins, MA LMHC became the candidate representative to the International Psychoanalytical Studies Organization (IPSO) North American group. In this role, she bridges communication between NPSI and IPSO via contact with Marco Posadas (Toronto) who is the Vice President of the North American group of IPSO and Kathryn McCormick (Seattle) who is the Vice President Elect.

In Spring 2014, Nicole will teach the course "Phenomenology of the Child" at Seattle University in their Existential Phenomenological Psychology Master's Program.

In this section we feature brief reports on the individual activities of our analyst and community members.

Caron Harrang , Reporter

Managing Editor's Note:  

The following evocative report was sent to us by German speaking psychoanalyst colleagues Heidi Spanl and Marco Conci and describes an unusual psychoanalytic workshop featuring a German speaking Seattle training analyst and some Bavarian colleagues. It illustrates the possibilities for understanding that exist between cultures linguistically, theoretically, and with respect to many sorts of differences if we are open to them. 

Robert Oelsner, MD FIPA (NPSI) in Bavaria

By Heidi Spanl, Dipl. Psych. and Marco Conci, MD

Members of the Munich Working Party Group on a hike with Robert Oelsner (third from right)

Robert Oelsner, MD FIPA (NPSI) was the guest speaker of the annual fall meeting of the Munich Working Party held on Friday and Saturday, October 19 and 20, 2013. The meeting took place in Bernried, south of Munich on Lake Starnberg. The 60-member Munich Working Party has existed since the 1960s and meets once a month for regular scientific meetings. It is part of the Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft (German Psychoanalytical Society), a component society since 2009 of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

The Fall Meeting Wissenschaftlicher Wandertag (Scientific Hiking Day) was created to allow members of the Munich Working Party to work together psychoanalytically and to share time together Bavarian style. This year's participants came together starting on a Friday for a hike around Lake Starnberg where the famous "Sisi" grew up before becoming Empress of Austria by marrying Kaiser Franz Joseph in Vienna.

On the first evening, the group gathered together at Hotel Seeblick to meet with guest faculty Robert Oelsner, who was introduced by Working Party Coordinator Heidi Spanl. Oelsner presented a paper in German entitled "On the Interpretation of Reality: The Reciprocity between Psychic Reality and External Reality." The group wondered how Robert, an Argentinian who grew up in Buenos Aires and now lives in Seattle, was able to speak fluent German. By responding to our questions, we learned that he grew up in a German speaking family. By understanding the cultural context of his German language fluency, the group dynamic became more personal and a lively discussion of his paper ensued.

Later that evening we all went to the Seeblick Hotel and dined together. There was, of course, wine and Bavarian beer and we had a chance for more leisurely conversation, or what we in Munich call Bavarian Gemütlichkeit (a friendly comfortable atmosphere).

On Saturday we resumed our meeting and worked on a clinical case presented by Bettina Hahm. Then at midday, the entire group went hiking in the surrounding countryside and had lunch in a Bavarian restaurant with a lovely garden. The weather was warm and sunny and everyone had a chance for a personal exchange with Robert. For example, Marco talked with Robert about some of the scientific aspects of our work and how to further implement the international exchange in our field. Robert also told us a story from his youth. He had learned the German word Wald (forest) from his grandfather in Buenos Aires, but had never seen one since there are no forests there. He only later came to understand what a forest was when he came to Germany later in life. This may be a good metaphor for the advantages of international exchange in our field, in which, for example, the words phantasy and fantasy means different things depending on the country and language and theoretical orientation in which we work.

Heidi Spanl, Dipl. Psych and Marco Conci, MD are psychoanalysts and members of the Munich Working Party of the German Psychoanalytical Society.

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Dave Parnes, Reporter

Jeff Eaton, MA FIPA served as discussant for Arnaldo Chuster's (Brazil) paper, "The Psychoanalyst's Imagination" at the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute on November 2, 2013. He also served as discussant for Ofra Eshel's (Tel Aviv) paper, titled "Tustin's Diabolon and Metabolon Revisited: Further Clinical Explorations," which was awarded the Frances Tustin Memorial Lecture Prize in Los Angeles on November 16, 2013.

Judy K Eekhoff, PhD FIPA has a published article in the December 2013 issue of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis titled "Infantile Trauma, Therapeutic Impasses and Recovery." Judy presented an earlier version of her paper at the International Ferenczi Conference Faces of Trauma held in Budapest on May 31-June 3, 2012. Geneva psychoanalyst André E Haynal, MD, founder of the International Ferenczi Foundation and member of the Sándor Ferenczi Society in Budapest, is guest editor of this special issue of The Journal, which focuses on papers that were presented at the conference.

Marianne Robinson, PhD FIPA facilitated the second of six "pre-conference reveries" sponsored by NPSI in advance of its International Evolving British Object Relations Conference scheduled for October 17-19, 2014 at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Seattle. (For a review of the meeting and discussion, see Shierry Nicholsen's report in the EBOR Update section of this newsletter.)  Marianne is also conducting a seminar entitled "Hearing Primitive Elemental States of Mind" for the Oregon Psychoanalytic Center in Portland, Oregon on April 4, 2014. This seminar will address how to listen to our patients in ways that allow us to follow the movements of their internal worlds and investigate how these serve as filters through which they experience their relationships in the external world.

Selected Facts Spring Issue Deadline

The spring issue of Selected Facts will be published in late June 2014. The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2014.

Please feel free to contact the editors with general questions or either of our reporters with news items or ideas for stories.