Presented by Stephen Seligman, DMH, Anne Alvarez, PhD, M.A.C.P. & Christopher Bonovitz, PsyD

Vitality might be considered the essence of aliveness. Louis Sander and Daniel Stern drew our attention to vitality as a core component of human development and psychotherapeutic treatment. They were the most visionary of the first group of infant observation researchers, along with Colwyn Trevarthen. Both were inspired by deep experiences beyond the usual psychoanalytic preoccupations: Sander by spiritual faith, sustained in his passion for the essential principles of living systems; Stern by a lifelong commitment to aesthetics and the arts, especially dance, reflected in his extraordinary eye for the choreography of infant-parent interaction and psychotherapy process. Both were also exceptional researchers and creative, integrative scientists. From these platforms, Sander and Stern broke through crusts that had restrained both developmental psychology and psychoanalysis, reaching toward the sources of human vitality throughout the life cycle. Conference presenter Stephen Seligman will discuss Sander and Stern’s foundational findings about the origins, development, and manifestations of vitality, as well as the implications for treatment.

While classical psychoanalysis has taught us much about the passions, less explored are the passionless, often mindless and empty states presented by certain passive patients. In some instances, according to presenter Anne Alvarez, these states may not be the result not of a defensive or aggressive retreat, but of having given up in despair or boredom. Such patients do not seem to be hiding, but lost; not withdrawn, but undrawn. Their internal objects seem to be unvalued rather than devalued and nothing much matters. This may affect curiosity and desire, even the desire to follow a train of thought. Alvarez discusses what might be missing or underdeveloped and ways in which analytic technique may try to address these issues via processes of vitalization.

There also is a relationship between human vitality and sense of time. Presenter Christopher Bonovitz uses Loewald’s concept of time in examining the temporal dimension of self states and enactments that emerge in the psychoanalytic situation. This includes looking at the relationship between time and vitality, fragmented and unitary time, and the role of imagination in developing the dyadic capacity to contain linkages between the past, present and future.