“Addressing Defenses: A Core Mechanism of Change in Psychodynamic Treatments “
Join us for an exciting opportunity to hear Susie Orbach in conversation with Amy Levy about Amy's new book The New Other: Alien Intelligence and the Innovation Drive. This book is a meditation on a technology that manifests all the hallmarks of human relating, human needs, and human complexities in its interactions with another subject. […]
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 […]
Dr. Steve Hassan Must-Have Tools to Help Clients Disengage from Online Conspiracies, Radical Political Organizations, Cults & More
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.
Given that we can detect in the canonical work of many psychoanalytic thinkers the philosophical influences of Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Heidegger this presentation explores this point of connection between philosophy and psychoanalysis. Few thinkers have matched Friedrich Nietzsche’s psychological insights—a fact Freud acknowledged when he admitted to avoiding Nietzsche’s work to preserve the originality […]
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 […]
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 […]
Presenter: Bruce Reis, Ph.D., FIPA, BCPsa Program Committee Chair: Marina Mirkin, MD Analysts seem spellbound by language when it comes to the word interpretation, a word so idealized and grand, so laden with fantasy, that the term itself continues to hold a magical sense that defies us to think about it. Accordingly, issues of construction, […]
Presented by: Anne Alvarez, PhD, MACP We can sometimes be too preoccupied with removing defenses, which is helpful with many patients but can drain the already limited resources of those with weak egos and a kind of apathetic despair. This session will alert participants to the difference between resistance of a defensive nature and true […]
These classes may be taken individually or together. When taken as a series, they thoughtfully complement one another. Participants who register for both will receive a 10% discount.
*** 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: Daniel José Gaztambide, PsyD - This presentation will use a decolonial lens to review current thinking in psychoanalytic case formulation that addresses a) intrapsychic functioning (Davanloo’s feeling-anxiety-defense model), b) interpersonal dynamics (Luborsky’s wish-response of other-response of self), c) personality structure (Kernberg’s level of personality organization), and d) structural forces (Raque and Meisels’ structurally informed […]
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 […]
The APM is honored to present the second Margaret Morgan Lawrence Lecture for Social Justice This Lecture brings to the APM/Columbia community speakers who apply psychoanalytic theory or practice to socially, racially and culturally diverse community contexts and honors the life and work of Dr. Margaret Morgan Lawrence. Whiteness and the Psychoanalytic Frame Kirkland Vaughans, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Charlie and His Maps: The Developmental Vicissitudes in Achieving a Recognition of External Reality Presenter: Dr. E. Kirsten Dahl
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 […]
Presented by Jane S. Hall, LCSW, FIPA Too many of our current theories lead the clinician away from recognizing uniqueness and individuality. This program will explore how to connect to the client by recognizing their unique childhoods and the way they responded to key figures. My hope is to encourage the therapist to reevaluate certain […]
APsA's Advanced Practice in Nursing Committee Presents: Unlock Your Greatest Potential Committee Q&A Panel - How to Become a Nurse Psychoanalyst Dear Colleagues, I warmly invite you to attend a free online Q&A panel this Sunday, February 22, 2026, from 1:00–2:30pm EDT, hosted by the Advanced Practice in Nursing Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association. […]
We’re excited to welcome you to an engaging open house and discussion with the Chair of our Psychoanalytic Education Committee, Molly Rothenberg, PhD, about our upcoming Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program, launching in Fall 2026. The program offers a rich learning experience for mental health professionals eager to deepen their understanding of psychoanalytic principles and elevate […]
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 […]
Presenter: Katie C. Lewis, PhD - Psychic pain – often described as unbearable, overwhelming emotional suffering – has been increasingly recognized as a core contributor to suicide risk, yet its clinical contours and empirical significance have only recently begun to be clarified. This talk will review the concept of psychic pain within the broader landscape […]
Elizabeth Colistra, PhD, explores Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen to demonstrate how fairy tales can guide the integration of heart and mind within Jungian psychoanalytic practice. Participants will learn how to use these archetypal narratives to transform "meaningless suffering" into a conscious process of psychological development and personality integration.
Often in a psychoanalytic treatment, money is a vehicle, unconsciously used by our patients to obscure their deepest wishes and fears. However, the analyst’s own inner world of feelings surrounding money often allows such wishes and fears to be obscured. A decided upon fee, missed payments, missed billings, too high a fee, too low a […]
Participants will have the opportunity to join a Q&A with faculty from the PANY Psychoanalytic Program.
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 […]
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 […]
Community health institutions have long resisted psychoanalytic thinking, and the siloed psychoanalytic world similarly makes little room for the experience and knowledge of those institutions and the psychic lives of their workers and clients. A clinician who appreciates psychoanalytic insights and understanding and wants to practice in a community setting would find it nearly impossible […]
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 […]
Speaker: Catherine L. Grus, PhD - New tools using artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies with applications for health care and specifically mental health care are increasingly being developed. While clinicians and treatment settings vary with respect to their adoption, the rapid and pervasive development of these technologies suggests a need for all mental […]
When Machines Seem to Care: Close Encounters with the Techno-Subjunctive - Presenter: Todd Essig
This year, the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia's Henri Parens Symposium will focus on resilience in the face of violence. The speakers will be Ann Masten, PhD, LP, a distinguished researcher on resilience, and Merav Roth, PhD, Training Analyst and world-renowned trauma expert, as well as one of the organizers of the psychoanalytic on-the-ground response in Israel. A case […]
“When We Are Undone: Exploring Moments of Vulnerability, Surrender, and Creative Transformation Within the Analyst”
This paper describes the re-accessing of early trauma, longings, and subsequent repression in a 91-year-old man who enters psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The precipitant is both a loss and the infliction of severe psychological pain occasioned by the arrival of a grandson. About the Presenter: Jim Herzog, MD, is an adult training and supervising analyst and a […]
“Buried in the Future Which Has Not Happened” Non-linear Time, Non-logic and the Ultimate Reality of the Session Saturday, March 8, 2025 2:00 to 4:00 pm Reception following presentation 2 CME and CE Credit Hours HYBRID Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute 32841 Middlebelt Rd., Farmington Hills Or join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/my/michiganpsychoanalysis About the presenter: Avner Bergstein is a […]
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 […]
A Scientific Meeting Presented by Mitchell Wilson
An Ethics Workshop Presented by Mitchell Wilson
Not theory and not advocacy, this program highlights the lived experiences of transgender and nonbinary psychoanalysts and patients, offering a clinically-relevant presentation of how psychoanalytic thinking can bring understanding when gender, ideology, and law collide inside the analytic frame.
This course reviews the evolution of a relational holding model that bridges the space between Winnicottian and relational thinking. I begin with a review of Winnicottian holding, the relational critique of developmental tilt models, and then present my proposed resolution of that gap. Offering a retrospective critique of my own model, I also revisit a […]
A parent, sibling, psychoanalyst, and trans man share their stories from the frontlines Given the rise of political attacks on LGBTQIA+ (especially trans) persons and communities and the distress that our current political climate is creating for families wrestling with the impact of these attacks, the Committee on Gender and Sexuality (CoGS) of the […]
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 […]