Presented by: Christian Roesler, PhD Dreams have been used in psychotherapy since Freud’s publication, The Interpretation of Dreams. First, the prominent dream interpretation theories of Freud and Jung are presented in comparison, as well as the resulting therapeutic approach. These concepts are then compared with the results of empirical dream research, which has developed since […]

The Coen Brothers 1998 film THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) is a post-modern fever-dream, now a classic. As a comic retelling of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, the film wiggles through multiple genres with an underlying message that narrative spins as communication is distorted by desire and expectation. Discussants: Seth Alt, PhD is an independent cultural […]

What might contribute to our subjectively feeling at home in the world? What leads to the loss of one’s psychic sense of home which in turn results in us feeling psychically unmoored in the world? These are some of the questions we will ponder together. Focus will be on the psychic loss of home even […]

Using both psychoanalytic writing and a case conference format, participants will examine psychoanalytic perspectives on SUDs and deepen their understanding of the psychodynamic underpinnings of their own cases. Presented by Dr Holly Han, Psy.D., LMFT.

Beginning and senior candidates will present vignettes from their early encounters with analytic patients, illustrating the ways our experience of writing helped us to understand ourselves as budding analysts. Discussants Jennifer Stuart, Ph.D. and Mark Moore, Ph.D. will respond, drawing from their own expertise in clinical writing and experience teaching psychoanalytic trainees.

Presenter: Stephen E. Finn, PhD Psychological assessment is typically viewed as something one does to diagnose psychological disorders or to plan for or evaluate an intervention. In this Grand Rounds, Dr. Finn will discuss Therapeutic Assessment, a brief intervention during which psychological testing is used collaboratively with clients to help them develop new self-narratives that […]

Spreaker: Volney Gay, PhD. We explore American slave owners who embodied the existential contradiction of American values (individual liberty) with human bondage. We focus on their struggles to defend themselves against that contradiction. We locate those struggles within the biographies of famous persons, such as President Washington, and unknown persons who claimed to be both […]

Presented by: Jon Allen, PhD Decades of research shows that factors common to various therapies contribute more to their effectiveness than the differences among them. These common factors pertain largely to the quality of the patient-therapist relationship. Prototypical are the Rogerian triad (empathy, positive regard, and genuineness) and the extensively researched therapeutic alliance. These factors […]

This presentation is appropriate for psychotherapists of all levels, interested in learning more about sandplay technique, its underlying theory, utility, and interpretation. It is a 10-session study group and workshop on Friday mornings from January 9 to April 10, 2026. Presented by Joann Ponder, PhD.

Middle School Latency

Presenter: Dagmar Herzog, PhD These days, the topic of intellectual disability seems frequently to function as a conversation stopper, and yet studying its history can teach us much we need to know about the seductive appeal of fascisms both past and present. The Question of Unworthy Life resituates the hundredthousandfold Nazi coercive “eugenic” sterilizations and […]

This conference on risks involving ethics, exposure, and eroticism in the psychoanalytic process features talks by two authors and clinicians, Charles Levin, PhD and Avgi Saketopoulou, PsyD, who have numerous publications on these important topics. Commentary will be offered by Elizabeth Wallace, MD, who has published papers about the immediate and long-term effects of losing […]

Facilitated by: Erica Ehrenberg, Licensed Psychoanalyst, MFA What do the great writers have to teach us about psychoanalysis, and in what ways do some of the most powerful psychoanalytic texts function as poetry? This writing workshop is predicated on the idea that creative writers have crucial contributions to make to how we conceptualize psychological experience, […]

Presented by: Lisa Madsen, MD This consultation group will focus on complex cases which have reached an impasse with little forward movement or even a regression on the part of the patient. We will consider systemic or environmental factors impinging on the dyad, the patient’s comorbid conditions, intrapsychic variables (i.e., personality, resources, defenses), interpersonal issues, […]

Tarsem Singh's THE FALL (2006) explores themes of trauma, healing, storytelling as therapy, and the complex relationship between a hospitalized stuntman and a young immigrant girl in 1920s Los Angeles. The movie is an illuminating example of transference and countertransference within a dyad, and that it illustrates the interesting effect of the immutable presence of […]

“Addressing Defenses: A Core Mechanism of Change in Psychodynamic Treatments “

Explore the pervasive narcissism of our culture and attempt to re-define the concepts of Self, Narcissism and Well-Being with Jeffry Luria, PhD

Presented by: Nancy McWilliams, PhD Dr. McWilliams will reflect on contemporary diagnostic conventions in mental health, emphasizing the unintended negative consequences for both patients and clinicians of diagnostic practices that focus solely on symptoms and observable behaviors. She will describe alternative taxonomies intended to remedy the weaknesses of the DSM and ICD for guiding treatment, […]

In this panel, Brian Ngo-Smith will share a paper entitled Canceling Oedipus, or A Plea to Share the Future, reflecting on a period in his work with a young man in analysis in which a hateful and regressive impasse brought both analyst and analysand into contact with the dangers of the pursuit of hope. Drawing […]

In this panel, Brian Ngo-Smith will share a paper entitled Canceling Oedipus, or A Plea to Share the Future, reflecting on a period in his work with a young man in analysis in which a hateful and regressive impasse brought both analyst and analysand into contact with the dangers of the pursuit of hope. Drawing […]

Join us for the Kramer-Mahler Forum for a compelling case presentation demonstrating the use of TFP-A in working with a 17-year-old patient with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Through panel presentations and large and small group discussions, this program will address the nature of generational anxieties (parricidal, filicidal, and siblicidal) as these emerge in the varying aspects of psychoanalytic institutions. Presenters Brian Ngo-Smith and Teresa Méndez will share reflections from their clinical work as well as from supervisory and other collegial relationships, to […]

How do psychoanalysts work with medication? What is the significance to both patient and analyst of an analyst prescribing medication? ?Dr. Garza will address these topics and provide clinical examples from his psychoanalytic practice. About Our Speaker. Luis Garza, MD Dr. Luis Garza graduated from the University of Texas-Houston School of Medicine. He completed his […]

*** Film must be viewed prior to event. *** Discussion of the film “Me Before You” Friday, January 30, 2026 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Via Zoom 2016 (120 min) Director: Thea Sharrock Discussant: Katherine Marshall Woods, Psy.D. A girl in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently-paralyzed man she’s taking care […]

SORRY, BABY (2025), written, directed, and starring Eva Victor, invites us into the intimate-life world of Agnes, a newly minted Liberal Arts professor. The unsavory underbelly of academic power dynamics and the sexual transgressions therein, play out against life's ever-changing seasons and stages. This off-beat tale, with its penetrating depth, authentic psychological sophistication, and quality […]

Facilitated by: Barton Jones, LCSW & Lindsey Hogan, PhD A collegial companion to Dr. Nancy McWilliams’ lecture, Diagnosis and Its Torments This seven-week, all-level study group invites clinicians to engage deeply with Nancy McWilliams’ widely respected and clinically invaluable text, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process. Co-facilitated by Barton Jones, LCSW and […]

Speaker: John Lucas, LPC. Many clinicians are hesitant to begin working with adolescents, although there is a significant need for adolescent therapists. This course will serve as a primer on working with adolescents and their parents/caregivers from a psychodynamic framework. We will cover both theoretical and clinical perspectives. The course will highlight the contributions of […]

Presented by: Lauren Levine, PhD Discussion by: Janine de Peyer, LCSW In this presentation, Dr. Levine examines the transformative power of storytelling and witnessing in creating shared symbolic meaning and coherence from ungrieved trauma. She explores creativity as a transformative force that emerges within the clinical process, drawing on film, dance, literature, and dreams as […]

Presenter: K. Chapman Attwell, MD Dr. Attwell will introduce the class to the didactic similarities and differences between individual and group psychoanalysis as well as how they can work in effective tandem. He will then run an experiential group to illustrate the key principles in a here-and-now focus on growth of the interpersonal ego and […]

Speaker: Nikki Karalekas, PhD, LCSW. Love is both mysterious and a psychoanalytic term of art. Despite worrying that love was beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, Freud developed several different theories of love. Perhaps most famously, in the Three Essays on Sexuality, he writes, “The prototype of every love relationship is the child sucking at […]

Charlie and his Maps

Presented by: Clara Mucci, PhD Dr. Mucci will use neurobiology of attachment and affect regulation theory (Allan Schore), developmental psychopathology (Giovanni Liotti) and contemporary relational psychoanalysis to illustrate her own contribution to the field through what she terms the “three levels of trauma of human origin” and what she indicates as “embodied witnessing” as a […]

Concrete life circumstances – trauma, early abuse, neglect, and poverty – shape a person’s path and can lead to homelessness. This presentation by Stuart Perlman, PhD, Gerard Sobnosky, LMFT, FIPA, and Daniel Farrell, LCSW, aims to raise awareness of psychoanalytic and psychoanalytically informed work being done with the unhoused population. The total number of Americans […]

This program will introduce Jean Laplanche’s contributions to psychoanalytic theory and practice in accessible terms. Topics will include the historical context of and influences on Laplanche’s life and thought, Laplanche’s research method of “reading Freud (with) Freud”, and Laplanche’s paradigmatic renovation of psychoanalytic theory, the General Theory of Seduction, a framework that offers a new […]

Speaker: Robert Grossmark, PhD, ABPP. Unrepresented and yet-to-be-suffered trauma and neglect announce themselves in the language of symptoms, absence and emergent enactments in the treatment field. This lecture will address the challenges when working with patients whose trauma does not avail itself to symbolization and mentalization. In this lecture I will outline how the analyst […]

Join us for a lively discussion with students and faculty from each of our programs who will share with you how their training at NCP has fostered personal growth, a deeper understanding of their patients' experiences, and opportunities to build professional networks. As you partake of refreshments with us, you'll also have an opportunity to […]

When Machines Care

Speaker: Rudy Oldeschulte, MA, JD, MACP. This is an introductory course on the evolution of the Independent Tradition (British in origin) applied to our work with children and adolescents. This tradition (or approach) is developmentally appropriate to our work with younger populations, as it moves from the more epistemological (knowing) approach, with its emphasis on […]

Presented by: Karen Hopenwasser, MD While moments of attunement with individuals manifesting dissociated self-states are often confusing, dissociative attunement can be used as a valuable tool in therapeutic process. Attunement is a synchronized awareness of implicit knowing that is nonlinear and bidirectional. It is an embodied rhythmic encounter that can be understood, in part, through […]

“When We Are Undone: Exploring Moments of Vulnerability, Surrender, and Creative Transformation Within the Analyst”

Presenter: Avgi Saketopoulou, PsyD This presentation begins with a summary of the theory of overwhelm, a way of conceptualizing working with intensity and excitation that is not about guarding the self (not about emotional regulation, not about protecting the ego from the drives) but which explores what becomes possible when one reaches the limit of […]

Join us online for a lively discussion with students and faculty from each of our programs who will share how their training at NCP has fostered personal growth, a deeper understanding of their patients' experiences, and opportunities to build professional networks. You'll also have an opportunity to meet our program directors and Dean, learn more […]

Speaker: Alicia Naveas, LPC, MEd. This course will explore foundational concepts of cultural competency within psychodynamic frameworks. Emphasizing the work of authors such as Tummala-Narra, Salman Akhtar, and Patricia Gherovici will integrate multicultural awareness into psychoanalytic thinking. For instance, Tummala-Narra (2025) conceptualizes multicultural competence as a reflective capacity to shift perspectives and understand the patient’s […]

Presented by: Donnel Stern, PhD In the interest of integrating the social and the individual in psychoanalysis, Dr. Stern examines the relation of Althusser’s concept of interpellation and the psychoanalytic idea of dissociative enactment. Interpellation is a way of conceptualizing the creation of subjectivity via individual participation in the ideological tropes of power. Dissociative enactment […]

Resolving Rapprochement

Presenter: Dionne R. Powell, MD Yasmin Roberts Memorial Lecture Racism, and otherness, continues to be contentious for psychoanalysts to consider as a psychic phenomenon. Unlike aggression and sexuality, racism is held in silence and resistance, inhibiting exploration of this aspect of mind. By closely examining how and where the analyst/psychotherapist locates themselves racially and working […]

“Unconscious Communication Between Therapist and Patient: The Ordinary Uncanniness of Everyday Psychoanalytic Life-Back to the Future of Psychoanalysis”

Working with Shame

Presented by: Shir Shanun, PhD Civitarese (2024) writes we have a need to exist in the eyes of others, it is what makes relationships meaningful. Such loving connections and freedom in complex analytic system and the positive relationship between them are at the center of this paper. I will argue that restriction or expansion of […]