“At Ease Within My Own Skin”: A Meeting Place of Psychoanalysis and Buddhism
Presenter: Jeffrey Rubin, PhD
Tuesday, January 12, 2027, at 7:00PM Central time
By ZOOM ONLY
Speaker:
Jeffrey Rubin, PhD practices psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy in New York City and North Salem, NY. He teaches at The Object Relations Institute of NY, The American Institute of Psychoanalysis, and the C. G. Jung Institute of NY. He has authored eight books (Psychotherapy Case Studies: Escaping the Prison You Didn’t Know You Were In; Meditative Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Pathways to Healing and Transformation; A Psychoanalysis for Our Time; The Good Life; Psychotherapy and Buddhism; The Art of Flourishing; Meditative Psychotherapy; and Practicing Meditative Psychotherapy), and has taught at various psychoanalytic institutes and meditation and yoga centers and lectured around the country and abroad on psychoanalysis and psychoanalysis/ Buddhism/ meditation. Jeffrey is most interested in a pluralistic psychoanalysis that respects the genuine insights and practices from each analytic tradition and draws on the best that has been thought and said from all psychoanalytic schools as well as history, art, literature, anthropology and anything that illuminates the human condition. His pioneering approach to therapy was featured in the New York Times Magazine in April of 2009 titled “Enlightenment.”
Description:
This presentation explores what becomes possible when meditative presence and psychoanalytic attention to meaning are brought into dialogue. Drawing on four decades of integrating Buddhist meditation and psychoanalytic practice, Dr. Rubin examines how meditation can deepen attentiveness and receptivity, while psychoanalysis can illuminate unconscious, biographical, and relational meanings that meditative awareness alone may not reveal. Their meeting may make possible a quality of clinical relationship he calls liberated intimacy: one in which previously unsayable things can be said, previously invisible experience can be seen, and patients can begin to inhabit lives more fully their own. At the heart of the presentation is a clinical paradox: a Zen master who had spent decades learning how to let go of the self discovered, in relationship, that there was also a self he needed to reclaim.
The session will include brief clinical presentations illustrating the difference between listening to and listening for; an experiential meditation exercise with group discussion; and an exploration of how psychoanalysis can address dimensions of suffering that meditation alone may not resolve—particularly the need to be seen and understood by another person.
Agenda:
First hour, presentation
Second hour, audience questions and discussion
Learning Objectives
After attending this session, participants should be able to:
- Demonstrate meditative attentiveness from psychoanalytic attention to meaning and describe how each can contribute to clinical listening.
- Explain how to listen to a patient versus listening for confirmation of a theoretical formulation and describe the clinical implications of that distinction.
- Apply the concept of non-self-centered subjectivity to clinical listening by identifying ways an analyst can be fully present without becoming self-preoccupied.
Continuing Education Credits are offered exclusively to Society members in all membership categories and those intending to join.
The presenter, Jeffrey Rubin, PhD, and the organizer, Lisa Karaitis, PsyD, have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to report.
Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program.
CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and The Chicago Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Credits Available:
- Physicians: 2.0 Credits
- Psychologists: 2.0 Credits
- Social Workers: 2.0 Credits
- PAs: 2.0 Credits
- Nurses & NPs: 2.0 Nursing Contact Hours
- Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 2.0 Credits
Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
- Interprofessional Continuing Education: 2.0 Credits
Other Profession Types
Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute hold the final say on which accredited activities they accept.
Disclosure Statement
None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.
