1996-1997 Scientific Meetings

Scientific Presentation for January 1998

1998-1999 Scientific Meetings

1999-2000 Scientific Meetings

2000-2001 Scientific Meetings

2001-2002 Scientific Meetings

Scientific Meetings of The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society 1996-97

All meetings are held from 7:30pm to 9:30 pm at:

The Northwestern University Dental School, 240 East Huron, Chicago.

JANUARY 28, 1997

"Developmental Psychopathology and Technique with Borderline Personality Organizations"

By Peter Fonagy, Ph. D

Discussant: Bert Cohler, Ph.D.

FEBRUARY 25, 1997

"Integrating Behavior Modification and Pharmacotherapy with the Psychoanalysis of Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder: A Case Study"

By Prudence Leib, M.D.

Discussant: Robert Galatzer-Levy, M.D.

MARCH 25, 1997

"Transcending the Self: An Object Relations Concept of the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis"

By Frank Summers, Ph.D.

Discussant: Susan Fisher, M.D.

APRIL 29, 1997

Business Meeting

MAY, 27, 1997

"The Usable Winnicott "

By Kenneth Newman, M.D.

Discussant: To Be Announced

JUNE 24, 1997

Presidential Address

By Harvey S. Strauss, M.D.

The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society's Scientific Presentation

Self-Organization and Consciousness

January 27, 1998

Northwestern Dental School

240 E. Huron Rm 3380

7:00 pm

Presenter: Virginia C. Barry, M.D.

Discussant: Charles Jaffe, M.D.

Abstract: This paper attempts to correlate a biologically based model of brain function with a psychoanalytic model of the mind. The neurological model addresses the nature of processing experience in "primary consciousness" and "higher-order consciousness." Psychoanalysts often treat patients with limited ability to reflect on their experiences (i.e. To employ "higher-order" consciousness). The clinical material in this paper describes the repetition compulsions of a patient who required symbiotic adaptations to sustain her self organization. Interpreting the meaning of the behaviors was useless in altering the press for repetition until the analyst became imbricated into the patient's self system. The pressure to reenact rather than to reflect upon this patient's experiences is discussed from the perspectives of a neurological model and a psychanalytic model. Each model is explored with the goal of enhancing this patient's reflective capacities.

Scientific Meetings of The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society 1998-99

All meetings are held from 7:30pm to 9:30 pm at:

Northwestern University Dental School, 240 East Huron, Chicago

(unless otherwise noted)

September 22, 1998

Dr. Susan Fisher: A Case Study of an Autistic Child: a Reappraisal

Discussant: Martha McClintock, Ph.D.

October 27, 1998

Dr. Hlena Basserman Vianna

The Brazilian Analyst involved in uncovering candidates' involvement in torture of political prisoners which is currently being investigated by the International Psychoanalytic Association.

January 26, 1999

Dr. Irwin Hoffmann: Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process

(Chapter 9 in Hoffman, I.Z. (In press; expected December 1998) Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process: A Dialectical-Constructivist View. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press)

This paper brings together several themes developed in the author's earlier work and integrates them with a view of the analyst's affirmation of the patient as pitted against the "dark side" of the analytic frame and, at the same time, the dark side of the human condition. With respect to the former, the analyst could be viewed as exploitative, playing upon the patient's neediness from a position of power. With respect to the latter, life itself can be viewed as a seduction which is followed by disillusionment, abandonment, and death -- in other words, as a cruel deception. The love of parental figures in critical periods of childhood helps to buffer the impact of reflective human consciousness, particularly as it comes up against the terror of mortality. When the injuries of childhood are sufficiently traumatizing, the added insults of the human condition can be unbearable. The analyst is in a position to counter these assaults on the patient's sense of worth through a powerful kind of affirmation, one that is born out of the dialectic of psychoanalytic ritual and personal spontaneity. The interplay of the two can triumph over cynicism and despair and cultivate the patient's capacity for expansive and committed living.

Among the new concepts introduced here is the notion of liminal space, a transitional zone, identified by the anthropologist Victor Turner, between structured, hierarchical, role-related ways of being and spontaneous, relatively unstructured, egalitarian ways of being. Many experiences occur in that liminal zone, which is "neither here nor there." An example within the analytic situation is the time period between the moment the analyst says it's time to stop and the moment the patient leaves the office. At such a moment the sense of analytic ritual is suspended, and the analyst and the patient are together more simply as fellow human beings. Nevertheless, even then the sense of the power of the ritual is in the background so that the liminal interaction has a special kind of charge.

This paper includes a detailed and extended clinical illustration. A key liminal moment demonstrates the co-creation by analyst and analysand of a quality of relatedness that is new and generative even as the specter of potentially destructive forms of enactment is evoked. The case affords an especially poignant look at the interplay of neurotic and existential anxiety.  The patient's primary symptom, a kind of vertigo, could be viewed as rational, whereas the usual sense of balance and confidence that people maintain in their everyday lives could be viewed as illusory, grounded essentially in denial. The case also offers the opportunity to explore the relationship between "drive" and "deficit," with particular attention to the issues highlighted by self psychology and classical theory. The two perspectives in this case play themselves out in a special manner in that the patient had an interest in self psychology which he seemed, at times, to use defensively. The paper closes with a series of dreams bearing on the termination of the analysis, ending finally with an account of the last hour in which analyst and analysand try to co-construct a "good-enough ending" for that hour and for the analysis.

February 23, 1999

Dr. Arnold Wilson:

Kindling a Passion for Analysis:Analytic Preparation and the Opening Phase

Clinical psychoanalysis has long labored with two primary pseudo-world hypotheses, one organized around internalization and the other around intrapsychic conflict. The characteristics of these (as seemingly autonomous and self-sufficient aggregates) have delayed a process-centered comparative psychoanalysis from contributing to the maturation and evolution of our theory. Hierarchy is a construct that can help boost contemporary structural psychoanalysis past this hurdle into a next necessary synthetic stage of model building. The opening phase is put forward as an example of how these can be transcended. Preparing an analysand for what is to come -- kindling a passion for analyzing -- becomes an inextricable part of beginning an analysis, and adds a welcome freedom to the analyst's technical vision. Several depictions of "analytic preparation" are offered as illustrations. Positioning oneself "inside" bidirectional processes or "outside" the transference becomes a central axis of analytic technique. The assumption that transference must invariably and assiduously be protected against contamination is critically examined and it is noted that at times, the transference must be first contaminated if it is to later be successfully analyzed. The role of countertransference as either an induced response or an irreducible aspect of the analyst's subjectivity is clarified by the discussion of pseudo-world hypotheses.

March 20, 1999

Sixteenth Biennial Conference on Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Dedicated to the memory of Thomas J. Pappadis, M.D.

April 9th at 10:00 am at the Institute

Perversions and Erotic Transference

Open to Society Members

Helen Meyers, M.D.

The First Traveling Woman Psychoanalytic Scholar

Open to Faculty and Candidates Only

1:00pm Case Presentation

April 27, 1999

Business Meeting

13th Floor, 122 S. Michigan

May 25 at the Dental School 7:30 pm

Presenter: Frank Summers, Ph.D.

The Analyst's Vision of the Patient and Therapeutic Action

Discussant: Bonnie Litowitz, Ph.D.

Open to the Mental Health Community

As psychoanalytic therapy shifts from a conflict resolution theory to a model of self realization, the analyst's vision of the patient takes on a role in the process that did not exist in the traditional psychoanalytic model. This paper builds on Loewald's (1960) concept of the analyst as "behind" because he or she can only build from the patient's spontaneous productions and yet "ahead" in that the analyst goes beyond the patient's material to construct an image of whom the analysand can become. In this way, the future becomes a prominent component of the analytic process. The famous case of Ann O. is used to demonstrate the deleterious effects of failing to include the analyst's vision in the treatment process. This case is contrasted with the contemporary treatment of a young woman that illustrates the use of the analyst's vision in the conduct of psychoanalytic treatment.

June 22, 1999 at the Dental School 7:30 PM

Presenter: Henry Evans, M.D.

Presidential Address: Fear and Adaptation: The Role of Consciousness

Scientific Meetings of The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society 1999-2000

Please Note Change of Location

All meetings are held from 7:30pm to 9:30 pm

Pritzker Auditorium, Northwestern Memorial Hospital

(unless otherwise noted)

OPEN TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY

September 28 at 7:30 PM

Presenter: John E. Gedo, M.D.

A 40 Year Follow-up on a Supervised Case of Psychoanalysis Done in Training

Discussant: Henry M. Evans, M.D.

October 26 at 7:30

Presenter: Philip F. E. Rubovits-Seitz, M.D.

Interpretive Processing of Clinical Data: Problems and Progress

Discussant: Bertram J. Cohler, Ph.D.

This essay focuses on a crucial phase of the interpretive process, the data-processing strategies and operations that cognitively transform clinical data and information into latent meanings and determinant which are unique to the individual patient at a given time. Rather than attempting to review all of the diverse processing operations, the author selects several important and problematic examples for detailed discussion and illustration: pattern seeking, thematization, and clinical inference. A clinical method of investigating data processing, the retrospective "unpacking" or "naturalizing" of therapy sessions is described and illustrated. The author stresses also that we can learn a great deal from various other disciplines whose methods of studying cognitive processing supplement our own. Does detailed knowledge of the preconscious processes that underlie clinical interpretations make therapists better interpreters? The author suggests that the more we can learn about methods of cognitive transformation, and the more we can make such information part of our clinical interpretive knowledge base, the more likely we are to draw on and use that knowledge preconsciously in depth-psychological understanding of our patients.

January 25, 2000 at 7:30

Presenter: Paula B. Fuqua, M.D.

Termination: End or Transition?

Discussant: Mark D. Smaller, Ph.D.

The paper begins with a brief review of the existing literature on the termination of psychoanalytic treatment, focusing on the importance given to the complete resolution of the transference neurosis by Ferenczi, Glover and others. Schlessinger and Robbins made it clear in their later research that the transference never resolves completely and irrevocably. Taking a self-psychological perspective, the author argues that the concept of analysis as a discrete process with a beginning, middle and end is a Procrustean bed, which limits our effectiveness. Psychoanalysis is an on-going process that aims at sustaining the growth of the individual. An adolescent-like process through which the analysand wishes to establish her independent competence fuels those treatments that end most discretely. Other treatments may dwindle, stop and start several times, or never really end. This ought to be permissible as long as it continues to promote the growth and stability of the self.

February 22, 2000

Presenter: Mark J. Gehrie, Ph.D.

Forms of Relatedness: Self Preservation and the Schizoid Continuum

Discussant: Susan M. Fisher, M.D.

March 17-19, 2000

Clinical Issues with Lesbians and Gay Men:

A Conference for Mental Health Professionals

The Knickerbocker Hotel, North Michigan Avenue, Chicago

Reserve your room: 800-621-8140

Speakers and panelists include:

Ralph Roughton

Elizabeth Young-Bruehl

Bert Cohler

Marian Tolpin

Martha Nussbaum

Topics include:

* Finding and Sustaining Relationships

* The Impact of Changing Social Perspectives on Clinical Technique

* Issues of Gay and Straight Therapists

Conference attendees will be eligible for CME credits. For more information, or to register call Eva Sandburg at the Chicago Psychoanalytic society at 312-922-7474, ext. 600

May 12 and 13, 2000

The Institute for Psychoanalysis

Conference on Youth and Violence

* The Chicago Cultural Center

June 27, 2000

Presenter: Arnold Goldberg, M.D.

Gaps, Barriers and Splits:

The Psychoanalytic Search for Connection

Discussant: Jorge Schneider, M.D.

Click Here for ABSTRACT

Gaps, Barriers and Splits:

The Psychoanalytic Search for Connection

June 27, 2000

Northwestern Dental School

240 E. Huron Rm 3380

7:00 pm

Presenter: Arnold Goldberg, M.D.

This paper explores the pictorial imagery that is often used to explain the mind and mental processes. In particular it examines the gap that is said to exist between neurophysiologic and psychologic phenomena, the barrier said to explain the separation of unconscious from preconscious and conscious ideation and the split said to constitute the essentials of disavowal and denial. In each of these visual renditions, the claim is made that there is a logical contradiction, which stems from linear thinking. In addition the paper aims to suggest to the reader that the proper appreciation of these erroneous images might remove present-day futile efforts to pursue solutions based upon these images.

Scientific Meetings of The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society 2000-2001

7:30pm to 9:30 pm

Pritzker Auditorium

Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Feinberg Pavilion

(unless otherwise noted)

OPEN TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY

September 26, 2000

Presenter: Judith S. Yanof, M.D.

Barbie and the Tree of Life:

The Multiple Functions of Gender in Development

Discussant: M. Barrie Richmond, M.D.

Abstract:Gender identity is the lens through which people experience being boy or girl, man or woman. It is a complex compromise formation that is not separate from the wishes, fears, and intrapsychic conflicts of other domains. Over the course of development, gender identity becomes layered and reconfigured. This paper looks at one child's experience of gender over several phases in her development in order to learn how gender is integrated into identity. At different times, as different conflicts came to the fore, she used gender to shape and lend definition to those conflicts. Conversely, her experiences in other spheres influenced her experience of gender.

October 24, 2000

Presenter: Jerome Winer, M.D.

In collaboration with: Eric Ornstein, MA

Titration in the Treatment of the More Troubled Patient

Discussant: Kenneth Newman, M.D.

Abstract: This paper focuses on defining and discussing a modification of technique the authors recommend in the psychoanalytic treatment of more troubled patients, a modification they call titration. Titration is defined as a conscious decision by the analyst to gradually increase or decrease the level of assistance (or gratification) in order to facilitate the analytic process. The complexity of nodal points in treatment is emphasized by focusing on the decision making process faced by analysts in implementing titration. Guidelines and a case vignette are presented. The authors conclude by discussing some of the politics involved in the introduction of technique modifications, the salience of the titration concept and directions for further exploration.

At the Institute

November 28, 2000

Business Meeting

January 23, 2001

Presenter: John Munder Ross, Ph.D.

"INTERSUBJECTIVITY:" Preconscious Defense Analysis and the Neuropsychology of Memory

Discussant: Mark Levey, M.D.

The Knickerbocher Hotel in Chicago

February 24, 2001

"THE THERAPEUTIC EMOTIONAL CONNECTION"

The Seventeenth Biennial Conference on Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Featured Speaker: Evelyne Albrecht Schwaber, M.D.

Discussants: Kenneth Newman, M.D.

Steven Stern, Psy.D.

Abstract Not Available

February 27, 2001

Presenter: Virginia Saft, M.D.

The Role of Recognition Memory in Reconstruction

Discussant: Daniel Busch, M.D.

Abstract:The role of recognition memory in the reconstruction of very early childhood events is explored via the study of a treatment in which unremembered early childhood abuse was reconstructed. The patient's extensive associations to newspaper and TV news stories, movie plots, patient case histories and novels came to be understood as a way of remembering by recognition early childhood moves as well as sexual abuse which had no later childhood equivalents to serve as screen memories. This necessitates a discussion of the concept of implicit memory. A memory research phenomenon called printing, which enables subjects to recognize previously encountered but unremembered material is discussed with the associated concept of recognition memory. A corollary question is raised as to whether all screen memories are not in fact triggered by a specific kind of recognition memory in day residues.

April 24, 2001

Presenter: Douglas Kirsner, Ph.D.

Australian Author of Unfree Association will speak on the History of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Future of Psychoanalysis

Discussant: Meyer Gunther, M.D.

Abstract:The Chicago Institute Story:From Machine Politics to Democracy

Like the city itself, Chicago's leading psychoanalytic institute was from its beginnings, 'on the make.' This story is not about personalities so much as about a crucial structural fault in the governance of the Chicago Institute that allowed boosterism, authoritarianism and conflicts of interest to flourish. This flaw eventually brought about the fall of its director as well as a revolution by the members that brought about a greater measure of democracy and ethics to the Chicago Institute's structure. This paper will detail the history of the Chicago Institute from its 1932 inception until the 'revolution,' and will explore the structural reasons for the changes, through the directorships of Drs. Alexander, Piers and Pollock.

May 22, 2001

Presenter: Shelley Doctors, Ph.D.

Attachment-Individuation:

Clinical Notes Toward a Reconsideration of Adolescent Turmoil

Discussant: Robert Galatzer-Levy, M.D.

Abstract:In this paper, the author takes issue with Anna Freud's (1958) claim that adolescent turmoil is normative adolescent separation distress and suggests instead that when it occurs, turmoil in adolescence is better understood as attachment-individuation difficulties. Two supporting clinical vignettes are offered which illustrate the aspect of individuation referred to as "finding one's own voice." the first case illustrates the turmoil that may result when insecurely attached adolescents attempt to rework emotional ties in adolescence. The second illustrates healthier attachment-individuation in adolescence. The material implies that individuation is not solely determined by structures within the adolescent but is codetermined by the subjective psychological worlds of those who interact with the adolescent, as the adolescent's psychological organization is formed, maintained and transformed in highly specific intersubjective environments providing (or failing to provide) specific selfobject experiences.

June 26, 2001

Presidential Address

Phil Lebovitz, M.D.

What is Empathy is the Question

Scientific Meetings of The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society 2001-2002

7:30pm to 9:30 pm

122. S. Michigan Ave

5th floor

room 5006-Lecture Hall

(unless otherwise noted)

OPEN TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY

September 25, 2001

Presenter: By Barbara Fajardo, Ph.D.

The Therapeutic Alliance: Coupled Oscillators in Biological Synchrony

Abstract:This paper is an application of some principles of nonlinear dynamics systems theory to expand our understanding of the therapeutic alliance in self psychology. The therapeutic alliance is understood as an aspect of a selfobject, a shared created experience in the process of a partnership between analyst and patient. Biologists and other scientists have used dynamic systems theory to described shared behavior patterns that organize the lives of individuals forming a system, sometimes identifying the agents and parameters of change in the process of the system.

Applying the principles of spontaneous organization in biological process to the embodied behavior and experience of the analytic dyad, patients and their analysts work together in an alliance that can be organized in several different ways. A synchronous alliance is characterized by symmetrical experiences and behaviors of the dyadic partners, when there is a feeling of being "in step," as in empathic attunement. An antisynchronous alliance is when the partners are together but at odds, similar to music when a syncopated counterpoint plays parallel to the main melodic line. In the analytic dyad, this is exemplified by repetitious patterned behavior when the analyst does one thing and the patient does another, still responding to one another, but experiencing different things in tandem. A third type of dyadic organization is incoherence, when the system is unable to achieve synchrony or antisynchrony. This can be an impasse, or it might be a phase transition, which is followed by a spontaneous reorganization into new patterns related to growth and development in the patient's self. Clinical vignettes are described to illustrate each type of alliance.

October 23, 2001

Presenter: Harold P. Blum, M.D.

The Dream in the Second Psychoanalytic Century

Abstract:During this past century of psychoanalysis and into the new millennium, there have been continuing challenges to psychoanalytic dream theory. This paper reconsiders the basic characteristics of most dreams and current controversies concerning the motives and meanings of dreams. The recalled manifest dream, loosely analogous to the daydream, is a ubiquitous experience, which has had historical, theoretical, and clinical importance.

The clinical use of dreams has changed with the evolution of technique and prevailing theoretical interests. Dreams are no longer regarded as the via regia of analytic work, and there is no royal road to interpretation without resistance. Dreams represent compromise formations, including a core of hallucinatory wish fulfillment, which may provide compelling vivid evidence and conviction. Dreams illuminate transference and countertransference, self and object representation, current interpersonal elements, the analytic relationship and analytic process, ego state, character, mood, and defense.

Dream psychology is differentiated from the neurophysiology of the dream and from dreaming sleep. The psychoanalytic theory of dreams should be consistent and compatible with neuroscience. The expectation of the convergence of psychoanalysis and neuroscience looms ahead, an old dream in a postmodern context.