March 2012
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DIRECTORS'S COLUMN 

By Seth Warren, PhD   

   

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In this column I would like to return to a theme that I realize is very important to me. At this point in time, somewhere about the middle of my three-year term, I find that I have learned a good deal about our evolving institute, and our members. It is becoming clearer to me that one of the great strengths of CPPNJ - and one of our major challenges - is that we are more diverse as a community in more ways than ever before.

 

Since the early days of the psychoanalytic movement, there has been a tension within our discipline between the impulse to define and delineate psychoanalytic practice, and to allow for its growth and expansion through the expression of new theories and new areas of clinical and applied psychoanalysis. This tension has been expressed in the many splits and divisions that have occurred in the history of the psychoanalytic tradition, as well as in the remarkable and creative integrations of theoretical ideas to open up new areas of psychoanalytic thought and work. sethw

 

It seems to us now that the aim of a unified theory of psychoanalysis is an idealization, past it's time, and that we are all learning to live with, and make use of, diverse and not always compatible points of view. We have on our faculty members who have been trained at almost all of the psychoanalytic institutes (with the exception of some of the most exclusionary medical institutes) in the New York City metropolitan area. This includes institutes that are fairly traditional Freudian training programs, as well as ones that could be described as contemporary Freudian, Interpersonal, Self Psychological, Relational, and still others that are themselves amalgamations of theoretical perspectives. And of course, our own parent institutes, CCAPS and IPPNJ are represented, and some of our first CPPNJ graduates are now joining our teaching faculty. We have members representing virtually every psychoanalytic point of view!

 

I am extremely proud of this diversity, which is also reflected in our training program through a diverse curriculum taught by a wide variety of psychoanalysts. Naturally, this also means that there will be difference, different perspectives, different points of view, and different ways of working psychoanalytically - different versions of psychoanalysis. Not only that, but we as individuals come from different backgrounds, with different prior training, credentials, and experiences, representing many different kinds of clinical practice. It is my goal to encourage support for this diversity through continued open discussion, respect for difference, and the cultivation of a pluralistic mindset in our faculty and our candidates, so that there will be room for all points of view, and the possibility of fruitful and constructive dialogue - which I believe is at the heart of psychoanalytic work and ideals.

 

Complacency and egocentricity are major obstacles to full and open democratic process in which all have a voice. I encourage all of our members to feel free to speak their minds, and express their views, and in so doing, raise consciousness and awareness of particular issues and concerns, increase our collective sensitivity to issues of diversity within our organization, and to contribute to the plurality of voices that is one of the great strengths of our institute.

 

I will remind members that our Board and Training Committee meetings are open, and members are welcome to attend and observe the proceedings except during discussions of confidential material. The Director and members of the Board and the Training Committee are available as well, should anyone want to communicate a point of view they feel needs to be stated. And, as well, all committees are open to all members, and new members are always welcome to join the committee work of the institute. Please do not hesitate to speak up if there is anything you want to say! Your voice is always welcome.

   


Spring 2012 Faculty Forums

March 25, 2012 - Strangers to Ourselves: Analysts Reaching Self-Awareness in the Clinical Setting

The Rutherford Room, Fairleigh Dickinson University,
Teaneck, NJ 9:30am-12:30pm 2.5 CEUs for social workers

Kenneth Frank, PhD      Discussant: Nancie Senet  nanciesenet
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The analyst's self-analysis, originally fashioned on Freud's solo foray into his own unconscious mind, continues to play an important psychoanalytic role. A brief summary of relevant literature is presented which includes recent relational psychoanalytic and neuroscientific data.  

 

Three major findings emerge: first, analysts' achievement of clinical self-awareness is more limited than we might like to admit, especially when we act alone; second, analysts reaching self-awareness is a mutual, interactive process that, in addition to psychological processes, can be understood on the basis of operations uncovered by neuroscience; third, accordingly, a form of "mutual" analysis is seen as an indispensable element of the analytic process.  Analysts' self-awareness is explored through case material and a focus on therapeutic action. 

 

Click HERE to register for this program 

 


May 6, 2012 - Psychoanalysis in a New Globalized Key: "Skype" Video Treatment of Patients in China by American Analysts
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Chair: Richard Reichbart, PhD. Speakers: Irwin Badin, PhD, 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
10:00am-1:00pm 2.5 CEUs for social workers


Analysts will present their experiences in supervising and teaching candidates, as well as treating patients via the internet. Some of the analysts visited China as well and met the students and practitioners whom they had been working with over the internet. We will discuss what it is like treating a patient whom the therapist can see and hear, but who is not physically with the therapist.


June 24, 2012 All Day Conference

An Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy Approach to Sexual Problems and Crises

 

Presented by Sue Johnson, PhD

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Lenfell Hall, The Mansion, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ  

8:30am - 4:30pm   

7 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 

 

Our E-Newsletter Editorial Staff

 

Mary Lantz, LCSW, Editor-in-Chief

Rose Oosting, PhD, Consulting Editor

Contributing Editors:

      Debi Roelke, PhD 

      Harlene Goldschmidt, PhD 

      Ellen Fenster-Kuehl, PhD 

      Ruth Lijtmaer, PhD 

      Martha Liebmann, PhD 

 


Highlighting Our Faculty:

Rose Oosting, PhD  rose

 

I became a psychoanalyst more or less by accident. Looking back, I can see each step as part of a coherent trajectory, but I really didn't know I would end up here when I started.   At first, I thought I'd be an English teacher, and went to college thinking that. I got a bachelor's and then a master's degree in English, and then discovered to my dismay that though I loved to read stories and find out things about how people lived I just plain didn't like teaching English.  

 

After one year of teaching high school English, I changed direction and became a child abuse caseworker for the state of Michigan, making determinations about whether children were being abused or not, and if they should be removed from the household. I saw listless children, some bruised and some not, and I saw children who had been to the emergency room too many times. For the first time in my life, I went to homes where there was literally nothing in the cupboard or refrigerator, which starkly illustrated for me the limits of choice with which many people grow up and live.  

 

Eventually, I became the director of a halfway house for delinquent girls, where I encountered in the most profound way the experience of hopelessness. This was the 1970's, and what we might then have considered very serious cases would barely register on the seismic scale of social concerns now. But these girls had left home, or been thrown out, and at 16 or 17 were on their own, frightened and mistrustful, and resistant to efforts to shape their lives in a different direction. It was my job to try to figure out how to help them do that, and it was in this job that I developed a lifelong interest in helping people negotiate a different future than the one that seemed destined by current circumstances. Reading would remain my lifelong hobby, but working with people was my choice.

 

Click HERE to read the rest of this article

   

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 are available on our website. Talk to your friends from home and put together a table of 10 friends to receive a discount on admission.

 

Click HERE to register for this program

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 

 

Our CPPNJ Blog
By Sally Rudoy, LCSW

What Puppy Husbandry Has Taught Me About Psychoanalysis and Winnicott

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I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. In this case, I am the old dog. The new trick is a profounder, deep-rooted understanding of the psychoanalytic concepts I have been immersed in for years. My rediscovery of psychoanalysis' brilliant take on the workings of the human unconscious has emerged not within the patient/analyst dyad but in my relationship with an animal. Sometimes you have to wander outside the familiar milieus of consulting room and conference hall to gain fresh insights into what you think you already know. For me, I wandered into the world of puppy husbandry.

 

The kids were launched. The nest was empty. Life was an uncomplicated and spontaneous mix of work and personal pursuits. Yet, as I saw that I had more years behind me than were in front of me, I knew there was at least one thing missing. I wanted to raise a puppy from scratch.

 

I was set on a rescue dog. As many have pointed out, therapists rescue others to rescue themselves. Years before I had good luck with an older black lab mix shelter dog named Maggie. For my new puppy I was determined to branch out to some other mutt combination. Psychoanalysis teaches us that people are drawn repeatedly to early objects. Thus, after researching many different breeds and visiting various shelters, I impulsively adopted a black lab mix who was a doppelg�nger for her predecessor.

 

Click HERE to read the rest of this article

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The Couples Program Begins Its Third Year

Congratulations to Our First Graduate

A Big Welcome to Our New Candidates

By Daniel Goldberg, PhD 

 

 Ten new candidates began classes in January 2012 as the third cohort in the New Jersey Couples Therapy Training Program. Interest in the program is growing, as New Jersey therapists are hearing about it. Maybe this is because we offer an alternative to most existing couples therapy training which tends to promote one particular technique as opposed to our approach which integrates attachment, systems, and psychodynamic approaches. Also, some candidates appreciate the opportunity to take one or two of NJCTTP's courses before committing to the full two year program.

 

The program encompasses both theoretical and clinical discussion, and last week Bob Raymond's class began with a discussion of a recent New York Times article which emphasized the rigors of doing couples therapy.   Everyone agreed with the article's basic conclusion that working with couples is difficult, mainly because couples therapy

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Seated in front from left to right: Diane Hecht and Glenda Insabella. Seated in back from left to right: Lauren Meyer, Arlene Kappraff, Shelby Chandler, Tamara Futran, Bob Raymond (faculty), Susan D'Aloia (faculty), Donna Schatten and Shirley Gonzalez. Not present: Lauren Becker and Meryl Dorf.

requires an ability to respond immediately to high levels of emotion, while demanding that we retain the capability to reflect on the process as it unfolds.

 

Both candidates and faculty are excited as we embark together on a new journey of learning.  While a new class begins, we also are celebrating our first graduate, Veronica Horenstein, PhD, who completed her work at the end of last semester. She will be feted at a NJCTTP brunch in April, and also will receive her certificate at the CPPNJ Graduation in June, along with other CPPNJ graduates.

 

 

 

The Effectiveness of Psychoanalytic Therapy:
Evidence From Research: A three part-series
By Nancie Senet, PhD 

 

Part 1: The Dodo Bird Verdict

 

nanciesenetLewis Carroll first introduced us to the judicial talents of the Dodo Bird in Alice in Wonderland. This wise bird devised a race to dry everyone off after they had gotten wet in the pool of tears that Alice had unwittingly created. The Dodo called it a Caucus-race. It was a helter-skelter affair, sort of like the present day political 'Caucus races'. But I digress. Back to Alice. Of course, the runners wanted to know who was the winner when the race was finally called to a stop. The Dodo giving serious thought to the matter handed down his famous verdict. "EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes."

 

In 1936 the beloved Dodo waddled onto the scene in psychology. At that time as is so now, there were a variety of psychotherapies in use. Saul Rosenzweig, a psychologist at Worcester State Hospital, noted that "proponents of psychoanalysis, treatment by persuasion, Christian Science and any number of other psychotherapeutic ideologies can point to notable successes." He lamented that "the proud proponent, having achieved success in the cases he mentions, implies, even when he does not say it, that his ideology is thus proved true, all others false." Invoking the Dodo bird's verdict he argued that there were successes in each of the forms of psychotherapy and that the successes must be due to implicit common factors. He proposed that the effect of having a "good" therapist who uses a systematic ideology providing formal consistency would be effective no matter what the method.

 

Fast forward to 1975. There was now a multiplicity of psychotherapies. There was also a growing interest in proving that one or another particular form of treatment was the empirically validated one. A proliferation of controlled efficacy studies ensued, mostly within the behavioral framework. Lester Luborsky, a psychoanalyst and researcher, began looking at the accumulating data. He and his research colleagues had their eyes on Rosenzweig's earlier opinion that all psychotherapies were effective. They asked the question "is it true that 'everyone has won and all must have prizes"? They published a meta-analysis of the existing therapeutic efficacy studies. The studies available at that time only allowed for comparisons of "psychotherapy", which lumped together all traditional forms including psychoanalytic, vs. behavior therapy, psychotherapy vs. client-centered therapy, psychotherapy vs. group psychotherapy, time-limited vs. time-unlimited, psychopharmacotherapy vs. psychotherapy, psychotherapy vs. "control" groups, and one other that concerned medical management and psychotherapy for psychosomatic disorders. So what was the outcome? Yes, the Dodo bird verdict prevailed again in all of the comparisons of single forms of psychotherapy with each other. Luborsky and colleagues noted that all of the studies were of short-term therapy and that there was a glaring lack of studies of long-term treatment. They also agreed with Rosenzweig's assessment of possible implicit common factors underlying the results.

 

Click HERE to read the rest of this article 

 


Member Presentations and Publications

Division of Psychoanalyis of the American Psychological Association April 18-22, 2012  

1) Barry Cohen, Tom Johnson, and Lisa Lyons will be part of a panel addressing the preparation of professional wills entitled: "Confronting Endings: Emotional and Technical Challenges in Preparing a Professional Will:"

2) Jill Gentile will be a discussant on a panel entitled "Creative Flow: Psychoanalysis, Art, and the Space Between" and will also be presenting a paper, "Separation, Death, Winnicott and Lennon: Oh Baby;"

3) Lisa Lyons will be presenting a paper "Growing Up in the Old Left: Silence and Terror in the McCarthy Era;"

4) Nancy McWilliams will be presenting 3 papers: "Psychotic Experiences and our Shared Humanity," "Writing about Patients: Ethical Quandaries and Therapeutic Trade-Offs," and "Psychological Wellness: Some Psychoanalytic Thoughts about Mental and Emotional Health;"

5) Spyros Orfanos will present "Song of Songs: Anatomy of a Popular Greek Art Song;"

6) Richard Reichbart will be presenting "The Dynamics of a Psychosis: Up Close and Personal;"

7) Sophia Richman will present "Before It's Too Late: Aging and Creativity";  

8) Nina Thomas will present "Stranger in a Strange Land: Creating Home as the Ethnic 'Other'" and will be on a panel entitled "A Roundtable on the Contemporary Context of Clinical Practice."

 

Perhaps more CPPNJ Faculty will send in proposals for next year's Spring Meeting. Candidates are particularly encouraged to attend and also to submit presentation proposals. Notice will be posted on the list serv when the call for proposals comes out for the Spring 2013 Meeting.


Tom Johnson 

 

Tom Johnson had an article published in the recent issue of Studies in Gender & Sexuality, as part of a Symposium on the video and installation artist Nathalie Djurberg. The symposium was entitled "Fairy Tales Gone Mad: Natalie Durberg's It's the Mother" . Tom's piece was "Klein, Claymation, and Reparation."

 

Notes from the Training Committee
Your Training Committee at Work:  CPPNJ's Advisor/Advisee Program

By Sally Rudoy, LCSW sallyrudoy

 

In the first edition of this column we hope to explain how the training committee works and give you a glimpse into how decisions are made. Our goal is to improve communication and demystify and clarify. Below you will find a list of who is on your training committee. With the merger of IPPNJ and CCAPS three years ago, a new training committee composed of faculty from the two "parent" institutes and a student representative was formed. Before and since the merger the committee has met monthly to put together CPPNJ's unique program and streamline the requirements, policies and procedures of all aspects of training. We begin our explanation of the TC's activities with a discussion of the advisor/advisee program.

 

Advisor/Advisee Program: Why We Have One 

 

We recognize that the endeavor of psychoanalytic training can be challenging. Most of our candidates are returning to a learning environment at a time in their lives when they are juggling work and family obligations. We established the Advisor/Advisee program to provide each candidate with support, encouragement, and a personal guiding hand to navigate the, sometimes, daunting steps of psychoanalytic training.  

 

What It Is: 

 

The Advisor-Advisee program pairs each candidate with a faculty member of the training committee (TC). Each TC member is the advisor for a number of different candidates, the advisees. The advisor is there to shepherd the candidate from the beginning of training through graduation. The advisor assists the candidate with staying on track to meet all course, supervisory, and personal analysis requirements.

 

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Our Events: The Integration of Attachment Theory and
Neurobiology: Clinical Applications

Applause for Daniel Hill, PhD

By Marion Houghton, EdS, LMFT and Nell Jackson, MA, LPC 

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Daniel Hill, PhD 

    

CPPNJ encountered the "good problem" of having the demand for Daniel Hill's workshop on Attachment/Neurobiology exceed the space available, so that the program had to be moved to a larger space. This presaged the quality of his February 26th presentation, held at Rutgers University in collaboration with the NJ Society for Clinical Social Work. Dr. Hill is a psychoanalyst, educator, and a leading proponent of the paradigm shift to affect regulation, and perhaps the most striking element of the workshop was its integrative approach. Dr. Hill explored affect regulation and attachment through the lens of Interpersonal Neurobiology.

 

Dr. Hill traced the history of attachment theory from Bowlby (influenced by Freud and Darwin) to Ainsworth, proceeding along both its classical lines to Main and Fonagy, and also by way of modern attachment theory through the work of Alan Schore. He explored how mindbody affect states become regulated in the early caretaker dyad, and delineated how up and down arousal states emerge from early attachment patterns. He identified a critical period of neurodevelopment, between 10-18 months, in which the limbic circuits regulating the sympathetic (up regulating) and parasympathic (down regulating) aspects of the autonomic nervous system are developed. This experience-dependent development, further understood in the context of Mahler's early and late practicing period, is critical to dyadic (other) and auto (self) affect regulation.

 

Meanwhile, back at the office...

 

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Carol Marcus, PhD and Daniel Hill, PhD

The impact of affect regulation theory on clinical practice goes to the heart of our work as therapists and analysts.   How do we experience each of our patients along the continuum of self regulation? To what extent can they join with us in a dialogue that Is both autoregulated and dyadically informed? Are we open to the possibilities of implicit communication that create right-brain to right-brain activity in our encounters with them? Can we sense the existence of dissociated affect and use our whole "body-mind" to engage with our unique therapeutic partner, amplifying that elusive affect so that at some point in treatment the patient can come to own it?  In so doing, can we play our part in helping each person we encounter in treatment become his/her best self?

 

Stay tuned. Dr. Hill will be returning with more programs in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013, so those who missed this opportunity will be able to hear him then, as well as listen to his thoughts about how interpersonal neurobiology informs clinical practice.

 

Unsolicited articles are welcome.  Something you'd like to write?  Send it to us at [email protected].  We're happy to hear from you.   

 

Thank you for joining us. Look for our next newsletter in April 2012 when the featured article will be "Part II: Jonathan Shedler tackles the DoDo bird'" by Nancie Senet, PhD.            . 

 

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