Dear Colleagues,

Happy Mother's Day for all of you who are mothers or who have mothers. Happy Father's Day coming soon for all you fathers and those who have fathers. And happy Graduation Day to those who have graduated or who can take pride in a loved one who has graduated. I just returned from Portland where I attended the graduation of my youngest from college. Best to John Curtis whose daughter graduated from the same fine institution. Sometimes it is important to savor a moment and appreciate when things have gone right.

Another thing to appreciate is that this month, we have finally signed our Presidio lease for 9 and 10 Funston that we have been negotiating over the past year. It is nice to know where we will be for the next five and a half years and that our rents will be affordable.

More important developments to savor are that there are several important steps we are taking to further research at SFPRG. 1) John Snyder will continue to organize research at the clinic, collecting data on psychotherapies at the clinic using iPads that were obtained through a research grant. Congratulations to John for your creativity and initiative. 2) We have received another grant to support Valentina Gandini to do research at the clinic for the fall. Valentina has worked as an intern and extern at the clinic for several years. She had previously done psychotherapy research in Italy and Germany. We are so pleased to have her here as a funded researcher pending final visa arrangements. Congratulations to Valentina and to Jessica Broitman for your energy and initiative to make this happen. 3) We are planning to offer a new yearly cash award to support a Control Mastery Theory dissertation. We will be soliciting donors to contribute to this award and establishing criteria for how it will be given. More to follow. 4) Marshall Bush and I are planning to host a day conference for Continuing Education Credit for those interested in Control Mastery Theory to come and present their new theoretical and research ideas. We have talked about possibly extending this to become a monthly seminar to help those interested in CMT to develop their ideas and hopefully get them into print. A new and related idea is that I would like to help develop and articulate CMT research questions, identify data that could be useful for CMT research studies, and go to the Wright Institute and other programs that require dissertations to present CMT research opportunities to dissertation students before they commit to their dissertation topics. There are important CMT faculty at the Wright such as Lynn O'Connor, Patsy Wood, Steve Kanofsky, and others who are already supervising dissertation students. We would like to make a more organized and concerted effort to expand CMT research and involve more researchers to supervisors dissertation students. More to follow on this idea as well. We hope that these efforts will help spur a resurgence of interest in CMT research in faculty and students alike.

Our SFPRG Membership Drive is in full swing. Don't forget to renew your memberships. We are reaching out particularly to recent graduates of the Clinic and those who have come to our recent conferences as well as old friends and long-term members. Membership in SFPRG helps promote the theory, research, teaching, case conferences, and the Clinic. The Clinic offers needed services to underprivileged adults, children, and families as well as wonderful training for pre-doc and post-doc interns. We need your help. Please support SFPRG by renewing your memberships or joining for the first time.

Mark your calendars for the third SFPRG Honorary Dinner on Saturday, September 7, 2013. Honorees this year will be Stan Steinberg and Lynn O'Connor, who will be recognized for their outstanding contributions to SFPRG and Control Mastery Theory.

See you next month.
Steve Foreman

Ginger Rhodes has been a member of SFPRG since 2005, and since that time has dedicated quite a bit of time, talent, and energy to the organization. As a board member, chair of the Clinic Committee, intern supervisor and teacher, conference organizer and presenter, Ginger's enthusiasm and hard work have been readily apparent and appreciated.

Those of you who attended the April workshop on Trauma readily became aware not only of her knowledge and expertise in the treatment of complex trauma issues, but also of her application of Control Mastery Theory to understanding the psychological and emotional dynamics of such trauma to individuals and entire populations.

Ginger's interest in the effects of trauma and violence is long standing and has been the focus of much of her work. Prior to becoming a psychologist she worked for many years as a reporter and producer for public radio in Missouri, and it was in the course of her work in public radio that she met her husband, historian and writer Richard Rhodes. Ginger got to a point where she no longer was content with just reporting on violence and abuse, and decided she would rather do something about it. Thus her decision to become a psychologist.

Her dissertation was on the Development of Violence, and during her post-doc at the San Francisco V.A. Hospital, she worked with male victims of sexual violence.

It was while she was doing a post-doc at the San Francisco V.A. that a training supervisor handed her a copy of Joe Weiss's book "How Psychotherapy Works". The book and its lucid description of the therapeutic process was an eye opener for her. Ginger says that Joe's book "gave me the guidelines as to what is going on in the room". She was hooked, and found the ideas presented in the theory to be transformative for her, adding more solid structure and substance to her clinical thinking. It was only a few months late that she met Jessica Broitman, who invited her to "find a home" at SFPRG.

Ginger's interest in complex trauma continues to be a major focus of her clinical and her forensics practice. In the latter she conducts evaluations and provides court testimony for people seeking political asylum in the United States, and has a deep commitment to working with people who have been unprotected as individuals because of who they are culturally and ethnically. In this regard, and because of her rich background, Ginger brings a unique perspective to the concept of "safety", the concept that is at the core of C.M. theory, and which she conceptualizes beyond the individual into a broader social psychological arena.

Along with this unique aspect of her practice, Ginger works with a wide range of clients in her Noe Valley practice, and is always interested in expanding her knowledge to help her find the most effective ways of working with her patients, knowing that there is no one size that fits all.

In regards to her involvement at SFPRG, Ginger rates her work with the clinic as being way up there in terms of importance. She has been with the clinic since 2007 and feels that it is a gift to be able to teach and supervise in that setting. It is a win-win for all of them.

Ginger can be reached at (415) 420-7318 or by email at gingerrhodes@comcast.net. .

We would love to see you at our events! Please put these dates into your calendar and come enjoy time with your colleagues! July 21 we are having a party in Berkeley. September 7th is our Honorary Dinner fundraiser which will be at a restaurant in SF. October 26 we will have our Art Show & Reception at our offices in The Presidio. More information will be forthcoming on all these, but please put them in your appointment calendar!

SFPRG has started our annual Membership Drive. Thank you to those that have already sent in checks or renewed online. We rely on members to help keep SFPRG running. We are mostly a volunteer organization but we do pay one full time staff member and provide small stipends for clinic staff. We have moved towards our goals of bringing Control Mastery Theory to a wider audience as well as expanding our intern cohort. We want to do so much more. This requires resources of both money and people.

Please renew your membership at the highest level you are comfortable with. If you are not yet a member, please "pay it forward" and help us spread this wonderful theory by supporting SFPRG with your membership.

Go to sfprg.org to renew or join today! Thank you!

We also welcome new volunteers to our committees. We meet on Fridays at our offices in The Presidio. The Fundraising and Education Committees are particularly wanting additional members! Please contact the office for further information.

Stating this month we will be introducing you to our four graduating interns!
We begin with Laura Condylis, PsyD who was both a predoc and a post doc with us. She graduated from CSPP and did her dissertation on gender differences in depression. She is a warm and caring therapist who maintained a full and consistent case load from her first days. Her supervisors consistently expressed their pleasure at working with such a gifted therapist. In her own words:

"Good-bye Presidio. Lately, when I drive across the bridge on the way to the lovely Presidio, I am very aware of what I came to the clinic with (as a pre-doc intern three years ago) and what I have gained. The most surprising and wonderful gain is the confidence with which to start my own practice. My training in Control Mastery Theory, and the guidance and validation from my supervisors, has allowed me to trust my understanding of the patient's plan and trust the process. What a gift! So.....Hello referrals. To complete my remaining hours, I am working as a Psychological Assistant to Jane Weisbin in Oakland and would appreciate any referrals. I am particularly interested in working with adults and older adolescents. I specialize in Self-silencing, submissiveness and loss of self in women and am interested in submissiveness and depression. I have experience doing psychotherapy with adults with substance abuse in a residential treatment program, crisis management, and attachment based therapy with foster children. My fee is $100 with a sliding scale. My office is off of Piedmont Avenue in Oakland and I can be reached at 510-418-3109. I look forward to joining you as a colleague. See you at the members party on July 21st!!!"

This is Part Four of an article called "Pathological Identification." Part Three appeared in last month's newsletter

The Role of Repression
Weiss believed that people repress memories, thoughts, feelings, and motivations often to protect loved ones out of a fundamental sense of loyalty to them. He said that a person may be inhibited from pursuing "certain normal, desirable goals, such as a satisfying career or a happy marriage" if he believes "he will endanger himself or others. He fears external dangers such as the disruption of an important relationship, or internal dangers such as a painful affect (e.g., fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, or remorse)... He represses the goals he believes to be dangerous, and he inhibits himself from pursuing these goals" (3, pp. 5-6).

Weiss went on to say that a child's view of reality is colored by the fact that he gives his parents absolute authority. A child believes what his parents tell him is true and infers his parents are correct in how they treat him. This distortion of reality that gives a parent undo credit or credibility is a form of repressing what a child knows or senses to be true. Sounding very much like Fairbairn (14, p. 65), Weiss observed "when in conflict with his parents, (a child) tends to perceive them as right and himself as wrong" (3, p. 6).

Whereas Weiss thought repressions often were designed to protect loved ones, Sigmund Freud said the function of repression was to censor thoughts, feelings, and memories that were related to unacceptable, guilty libidinal impulses or wishes (44, p. 126, 45, pp. 294-300). Fairbairn disagreed with Freud and countered, "what are primarily repressed are neither intolerably guilty impulses nor intolerably unpleasant memories, but intolerably bad internalized objects" (italics in the original) (14, p. 62). Fairbairn asserted that the child does not want to remember or be aware of the behaviors of his "bad objects" (his abusive or neglectful parents). In order to repress memories or awareness of his dysfunctional parents, the child internalizes them or "identifies" with them.

Freud said that people maintain their repressions in therapy by "acting out" or "repeating" in the form of the transference to the therapist (46, p. 150). He wrote, "The patient repeats instead of remembering..." (46, p. 151). Fairbairn also thought patients repeat instead of remember but differed with Freud. Instead of repressing guilty, unacceptable libidinal impulses, Fairbairn believed patients repressed the awareness of their bad objects in order to feel safer in the world (14, p. 65).

The argument put forth in this paper and previously (1, p. 124-8) is that patients repeat their parents' problematic behaviors as a way to not remember or avoid awareness of those behaviors. Repetition of behaviors and repression of memories and feelings serves to protect parents from the child's own feelings of anger, scorn, disgust, and rejection that are natural reactions to the parents' misdeeds. Like Freud (46), I argue that children act out and repeat as a way to not remember. Like Fairbairn (14), I argue that children identify with their parents' bad behaviors to repress their thoughts and feelings about them. Like Weiss (3), I argue that the primary motivation of these repressions is to protect the parents from one's own feelings and judgments about them out of intense loyalty to them.

(To be continued...)

References

1. Foreman, S.A., Breaking the Spell, Understanding why Kids Do the Very Thing That Drives You Crazy, SF Press, 2009.

2. Weiss, J. & Sampson, H., The Psychoanalytic Process, Guilford, New York, 1986.

3. Weiss, J. How Psychotherapy Works, Guilford, New York, 1993.

4. Freud, Sigmund, "Family Romances" (1909) in Collected Papers Volume V, Ed. By James Strachey, Basic Books, New York, 1959, pp. 74-78.

5. Freud, S., "Humour" (1928) in Collected Papers Volume V, , Ed. By James Strachey, Basic Books, New York, 1959, pp. 215-221.

6. Freud, S., "Distinction Between the Sexes" (1925) in Collected Papers Volume V, , Ed. By James Strachey, Basic Books, New York, 1959, pp. 186-197.

7. Freud, S., "The Ego and the Id" (1927), Standard Edition, 19.

8. Freud, S., "Dostoevsky and Parricide" (1928) in Collected Papers Volume V, , Ed. By James Strachey, Basic Books, New York, 1959, pp. 229-231.

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38. Nelson, F. & Panksepp, J., Brain substrates of infant-mother attachment: Contributions of opioids, oxytocin, and norepinephrine, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 22:3, 1998, 437-452.

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SFPRG has signed a new lease extension with The Presidio through the end of 2018. We will have a ground floor office available for sublet in building #10 starting January 2014. If you are interested in renting an office in a beautiful park setting, please contact the office.