creativity in the modern analytic frame: perspectives on technique

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2011
9:00 AM–5:00 PM

NYU’s Eisner and Lubin Auditorium
60 Washington Square South
New York City
Information: 212.260.7050 • cmps@cmps.edu

Download Annual Conference Brochure in PDF

Modern psychoanalysis is fundamentally a theory of clinical technique. Hyman Spotnitz the founder of modern psychoanalysis, developed an analytic method that enabled psychoanalysts to treat disorders, such as schizophrenia, once thought untreatable by classical analytic approaches. Today, modern analysts effectively utilize Spotnitz’s techniques to treat neurosis, psychosis, borderline conditions, depression, and character disorders.

MODERN ANALYSTS STUDY how each patient processes destructive impulsivity and overstimulation in the “here-and-now” of the session. In addition to Oedipal issues, modern analysts address problems rooted in the preverbal unconscious - a time before language and cognition mediate experience-so patient-induced countertransference is understood as crucial data to help clinicians understand their patients. Emotional communication, joining, and mirroring are the major tools of modern analysis, with the goal of reaching the affective realm of the patient to help him or her put the experience of feeling into words. Current research into infant development confirms the efficacy of these techniques—infants develop a stable sense of self and an ability to mentalize when responded to in such ways.

IN MODERN ANALYTIC CURRICULUMS, students are trained in the disciplined yet intuitive use of feelings. In class and in their personal analyses, they study the feelings aroused in the presence of the patient. The ability to observe these feelings deepens their understanding of psychodynamics alive in the treatment room and allows the analyst to think and respond therapeutically.

THIS CONFERENCE OFFERS creative perspectives on modern analytic technique. Five distinguished speakers, representing four different modern analytic institutes, will present ideas about how they use modern analytic technique to help their patients and their students.

THE MORNING SESSION is devoted to innovative psychoanalytic clinical strategies with patients in individual and group treatment. The afternoon will focus on technique in modern analytic education, in both the classroom and the clinic.

WE CONDLUDE THE DAY with smaller workshops followed by a wine and cheese social - both a means to process a stimulating day.

morning presentations

Consulting the Patient: The Art of Being Together (click on link to view video)
To allow a patient’s past to be the present and to hold our feelings and the patient’s presents a formidable challenge and an exquisite adventure for the analyst. It asks the analyst to be a comfortable follower and to welcome the possibilities of an emotionally collaborative partnership. Consulting the patient through exploration or by following the contact, is saying, “Who you are and what you want is valuable and is worth protecting.” It respects the attempts of the fragile, developing ego to safeguard itself and holds no agenda for the patient other than the process of the therapy. It is a subtle proposal to take a chance with each other in a relationship.

Patricia Harte Bratt, PhD, is a Director of the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis (ACAP), in Livingston, NJ, where she is a faculty member, clinical supervisor, Director of ACAP’s Applied Psychoanalysis Division, and Coordinator of its Trauma and Resilience Studies initiatives. Dr. Bratt sits on the NJ State Advisory Committee for Psychoanalysts, is chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) Conference Committee, and is a Board member of the Society of Modern Psychoanalysts (SMP).

When Talking Stops Helping (click on link to view video)
In many long-term analyses there comes a time when the character is revealed, the conflicts are clear, the self-understanding is significant, and the repetitions are predictable. The patient talks freely, but there is an underlying sameness, to the talk and to the life. So then what? What is the work of the analyst when everything seems known and understood, yet there is no fundamental character change. Ideas about techniques that may be helpful and perhaps necessary at this critical stage in treatment will be addressed.

Mary Shepherd, PsyaD, is a supervising and training analyst and on the faculty of BGSP. Her research and writing interests focus on the complex dimensions of psychic change, especially as they pertain to the mind-body continuum. She has published often in the journal Modern Psychoanalysis and is currently working on a manuscript addressing the difficulty of change entitled The Terrible Stickiness of Hate.

Creativity in Modern Group Analysisstudent Clinical Presentation Dialogue (click on link to view video)
Group analysis brings together a variety of people whose goals converge and diverge with regularity. The key to meeting maturational needs and helping the members get what they came for requires the establishment of a therapeutic group culture. This paper addresses the preparation the analyst needs to equip himself for leadership and the process of creating the right emotional climate for the group to accomplish its work.

Elliot Zeisel, PhD, LP, is a faculty member of CMPS where he serves as Director of Group Development, and the Center for Group Studies of which he is a founder. He is also a Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association and has served on the AGPA Board. Currently, he is Vice-Chair of the AGPA’s Foundation Board. He lectures extensively on group process throughout the country and abroad.

Moderator - Dr. Lucy Holmes, Conference Chair and moderator, will lead the audience discussions following the morning and afternoon presentations.

Lucy Holmes, PhD, LP, is a member of the faculty at CMPS, the New York Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, and the Center for Group Studies. Dr. Holmes is the author of numerous journal articles on women and groups, and was a winner of the 2002 NAAP Gradiva Award for her article, “The Object Within: Childbirth as a Developmental Milestone.” Her first book, The Internal Triangle: New Theories of Female Development was published in 2009.

afternoon presentations

Modern Psychoanalytic Technique: The Training Classroom (click on link to view video)
Psychoanalysis is largely imparted experientially by means of modeling and the demonstration of technique, rather then through pedagogy. How does the learning that occurs in the classroom, a very public place with academic requirements, differ from that of most other training lessons candidates will learn through their analysis, their fieldwork observations, and supervision?What techniques are available to the psychoanalyst as instructor? A case presentation will serve to demonstrate.

Barbara D’Amato, PsyaD, LP, is a faculty member at CMPS, NYGPS, and BGSP, and has been an educator for thirty years. Her interest in emotional education began as a NYC Special Education teacher, flourished as a teacher and supervisor at The Studio School, and continues today in her clinical and research supervision, and the training of candidates in the classroom.

A Crash Course In Spotnitz: Students in the Clinic (click on link to view video)
The Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis runs an outpatient psychiatric program that contracts with Medicare and Medicaid as well as works with private insurers and out-of-pocket payers. In addition to our candidates-in-training, each year the program admits about 12 masters and doctoral level students from area schools who often arrive with no prior clinical experience or training in psychoanalytic methods. Yet in a few weeks they see patients with mental problems from across the diagnostic spectrum. So the school must provide a “crash course” in modern
psychoanalytic techniques. This talk addresses the most important and useful concepts and techniques used in working with these therapists.

Stephen Day Ellis, PhD, is the President and Executive Director of The Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis.