Events

This conference will feature Peter Fonagy, PhD, and Ed Tronick, PhD — distinguished researchers and scholars who have had long academic careers studying and theorizing about the clinical processes that contribute to human growth and therapeutic change. The clinical processes in the psychoanalytic treatment of adult patients have long been viewed as sharing similarities with […]

Join Dr. Holly Han and Dr. Shirley Liao for a five-week, psychoanalytically-informed group exploring the text Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation by David L Eng and Shinhee Han (2019). Together, we will reflect on the social and psychic dimensions of racial identity and belonging in the lives of Asian Americans.

Selma Fraiberg and colleagues’ seminal article, “Ghosts in the Nursery,” brought our attention to the infant-parent relationship and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Since the publication of the article in 1975, infant observations and empirical studies have continued to elucidate the developmental consequences of the parent-child relationship and implications for adult treatment. In Part II […]

Kathryn Zerbe, MD will discuss how hearing secrets is an often-overlooked yet critical aspect of clinical practice, necessitating that therapists understand the ethical complications and potential for powerful, unanticipated reactions that can arise from these disclosures in order to better assist their patients and themselves. CE

The Morris Eagle Psychoanalytic Research Lecture is an annual NCP Lecture in honor of the career and contributions of Morris Eagle. Introducing the Revised Standard Edition of Freud’s Psychological Works: Can the existing English translation by James Strachey of Freud’s Psychological Works be salvaged and updated, or is a completely fresh start called for? This […]

Psychoanalysis Creativity and the Arts: Session 1 of 3: “Lo creativo y lo vital” Presented by Alfredo Panceira, MD, Jani Santamaria, PhD, Ariel Liberman, PhD, and Rosa Aurora Chavez, MD, PhD, FABP Saturday, October 4, 2025 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm (2 CME/CE) Presentation and Discussion via Zoom *This first session will be conducted in […]

DEWALD LECTURE: The New Other: A.I. What have we created, and why? (Amy Levy, PsyD) Humanity has engineered a new Other. Sometimes referred to as “alien intelligence,” AI technology has the capability to think about our minds, communicate with us at conscious and unconscious levels, and act as a new “container” for human psychic life. […]

Humanity has engineered a new Other. Sometimes referred to as “alien intelligence,” AI technology has the capability to think about our minds, communicate with us at conscious and unconscious levels, and act as a new “container” for human psychic life. From a psychoanalytic perspective, AI is our symptom. What does it reflect about humanity? Our […]

LGBTQ+ Workshop Please join us as Sien Rivera, MD and Justin Shubert, PsyD, PhD present Monstrousness and Aliveness: Engaging Gender in Psychoanalysis Sunday, October 5, 2025 Public Session: 1:00 – 4:00 pm Presentation and Discussion Via Zoom Presentation: This workshop seeks to explore a range of engagements with gender in the psychoanalytic encounter. One portion […]

This paper takes up the clinical challenges of working with patients for whom the repetitive pursuit of intense, erotic relationships both expresses and conceals yearnings to be and belong. While sexual experiences can elicit core fantasies of transformation, awareness of the very otherness that offers such promise also threatens a fragile self and is thus […]

Psychoanalytic clinicians often encounter the complexities of erotic transference and countertransference, yet struggle with conceptual frameworks and language that adequately capture these intense, often ambiguous experiences. Traditional models can obscure the subtle intersubjective and developmental meanings of erotic material, resulting in impasses or missed therapeutic opportunities. This presentation aims to expand clinicians’ capacity to think […]

Speaker Linda Horrell, MDiv, MSW, LCSW. This course is for anyone curious about child development and for experienced psychotherapists who are interested in the psychoanalytic insights into the dreams of children and adolescents. We will have fun discussing the animation, Dream Productions, a Pixar-created mini-series from the creators of Inside Out.

Presented by: Elizabeth Danze, FAIA This presentation examines the concept of resilience in both architecture and human experience through the shared metaphor of the palimpsest—a form that retains traces of its past while adapting to the present. Drawing on Vitruvius’s notion of firmitas and extending it through the study of buildings, we explore how architecture […]

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (2024) written, co-produced and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof won them Special Jury Prize of 2024 Cannes Int’l Film Festival. The film centers on a family thrust into the public eye when the father is appointed as an investigating judge in Tehran, as political unrest erupts in the streets. When […]

This hybrid conference offers clinicians and psychoanalytic practitioners an opportunity to deeply engage with how social positionality, embodiment, and therapeutic practices intersect—equipping attendees with reflection tools, case-based learning, and strategies to foster more inclusive, body-conscious therapy. Presented by Jamie Steele, LMFT, Molly Merson, LMFT, and Laura Westmoreland, LMFT.

Instructor: Golzar Selbe Naghshineh, LP, CGP This seminar explores how fashion influences identity through the lens of heritage— how it's either embraced or rejected in both cultural fashion and in what is passed down/inherited in families. What is inherited can be both a gift and a burden; heirlooms and inherited wardrobes carry meanings and identifications […]

Join us for an illuminating exploration of the hidden narratives and alternative histories that have shaped psychoanalytic practice from Los Angeles to the broader therapeutic landscape. Hannah Zeavin will open our program by examining the overlooked histories of psychoanalysis and psychiatry, revealing how these forgotten chapters continue to inform and illuminate contemporary therapeutic practice. Her […]

Felecia Powell-Williams, Ed.D., LPC-S, RPT/S presents a case presentation with a focus on clinical material of a four-year analysis that has continued therapeutically from childhood into adulthood, and her early attachment disruptions in relationship with her mother and father. The presentation will illustrate the internal conflicts concerning a difficulty with aggression surrounding traumatic loss of […]

6 Tuesdays | Oct 21 – Dec 9 | Facilitated by JoAnn Ponder, PhD We have recently witnessed brazen displays of patriarchy, oppressive behavior toward women, attempts to control their bodies, and threats or acts of violence toward them in American political and social life. Given the longstanding roots of patriarchy and misogyny in our […]

Please join PCOP in welcoming Dr. Steve Axelrod from NYC to speak about some of the most recent considerations of adult psychological development in our field. CE.

Defense Mechanisms: Hierarcy, Adaptation and Change - Dr. Chris Perry

Book Editor: Klara Naszkowska, PhD | Discussant: Rosemary Balsam, MD This book discussion is dedicated to filling a hole in the history of women pioneers of psychoanalysis. Their groundbreaking contributions to the nascent field notwithstanding, their biographies have been largely and systematically erased from the historical narrative. Klara Naszkowska will draw on the anthology that […]

Presenter: Todd Essig, PhD - The AI revolution is here—and by “here,” I mean right here in our consulting rooms. Interactive self-help tools are now marketed as AI psychotherapy, and for many, they’ve become a viable treatment option. Augmentation technologies for clinicians are readily available, reshaping aspects of clinical practice in real time. Meanwhile, patients […]

Nancy Kulish Ph.D Educational objectives: 1. Describe how early infantile trauma can be expressed in bodily symptoms or replayed in a person’s behavior. 2. Identify how the manifestations and symptoms of early infantile trauma appear in the transference and countertransference in psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. 3. Discuss how to relate to and empathize with traumatized patients. […]

The 2 recent explosions within the Program Committee and then within the American Psychoanalytic Association are examined, from an insider’s perspective, as analysts’ difficulties with listening to each other. Analysts’ anxiety with erotic excitement, especially with racial erotics, even when used for self-affirmation, is discussed. So too is the need for Othering and the need […]

6 Mondays | Oct 27 – Dec 8 | Presented by: Erica Ehrenberg, Licensed Psychoanalyst, MFA In this course we will discuss, respond to, and write together from the work of artists, writers, and analysts in order to explore the connections between their work, and the creative forces behind psychic change. What does it mean […]

Presented by: Carol Gilligan, PhD In a special presentation for HPS, renowned social psychologist and feminist Carol Gilligan, PhD will explore the roots of patriarchy and its persistence in contemporary American political and social life. She is best known for her groundbreaking book, In a Different Voice, published in 1982 and described by Harvard University […]

Exploring the Links: Moving from Observation to Transformative Interventions We are excited to announce our upcoming conference with Jeanne Magagna, PhD, Tavistock Centre-trained Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychotherapist London, UK Saturday, November 1, 2025 George Washington University Hospital Auditorium 8:45 am – 4:45 pm ET 6 CME/CE Dr. Magagna’s work emphasizes the transformative power of […]

Model Minority and Its Discontents: Understanding the Asian American Experience This presentation offers a psychoanalytic exploration of the Asian American experience.? Asian Americans comprise 7% of the total US population; yet, they remain largely invisible and unknown to Americans and American psychoanalysis, except for being perceived as a Model Minority. ?The Model Minority myth leads […]

In this presentation Dr. Lotterman documents the extensive overlap between the symptoms and psychology of neurotic and psychotic patients. He portrays the way the sense of self falls apart, and its possible recovery in psychological therapy. Areas of convergence between neurosis and psychosis include: the fragmenting of the sense of self, the sense of aloneness […]

Child Analysis

Instructor: Julie Jaffee Nagel, Ph.D., psychologist, psychoanalyst & musician The Power of Music as Heard in Peter's Psychological Development in "Peter and the Wolf" (Sergei Prokofiev, Composer) This presentation will emphasize through both words and music the power of music in our lives by discussing both words and music about how Prokofiev told a story […]

In this book discussion, we will discuss Borderline: The Biography of a Personality Disorder (Beacon Press, 2024), authored by Alexander Kriss, PhD. The presentation will consist of a conversation between the author and J. Christopher Fowler, PhD. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, patient narratives, and shifts in psychiatric authority from antiquity to present day, the book […]

Session 1 of 3 *** Film must be viewed prior to event. *** Discussion of the film “The Thing” Friday, November 14, 2025 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Via Zoom 1982 (109 min) Director: John Carpenter Discussant: Alex Smith, Psy.D. A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance […]

Presenter: Gila Ashtor, PhD, LP - There is a type of patient who haunts psychoanalysis from the margins, never settling into existing diagnostic categories but never completely disappearing either. Variously referred to as “normotic” (Bollas, 1987, McDougall, 1978, 1985), “false self” (Winnicott, 1960), and the “as if” personality (Deutsch, 1942), this patient confounds conventional classificatory […]

RaMell Ross's Nickel Boys (2024) is based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two African-American boys sent to an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida. Shot entirely from first-person perspective, the film explores institutional trauma, systemic racism, friendship, resilience, and the long-term psychological effects of childhood abuse. The story is inspired by the real […]

with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk

Session 2 of 3 “Creativity and Resiliency” Presented by Rosa Aurora Chavez, MD, PhD, FABP Saturday, November 15, 2025, 12:00 – 2:00pm (2 CME/CE) Presentation and Discussion via Zoom Presentation: In this seminar (in English) we will discuss the evolutionary relevance of creativity for resiliency form psychodynamic and neuropsychoanalytic perspectives. Registration Link: https://wbcp.memberclicks.net/reg_psy_creativity_arts_25-26#/ Flyer: https://wbcp.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/PR/25-26/Psychoanalysis%20Creativity%20and%20the%20Arts%202025_26%20flier%20Multi-Session%20program%20%28B%29.pdf

“Holding and Containing: The Metaphor of the Baby in Winnicott, Bion, and Klein

An Introduction to Applications of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in Medical Settings: The Successful Resolution of a Conversion Symptom by Psychoanalytic Technique in the ER Presented by Micah Knobles

Presenter: Therese Ragen, PhD This lecture will present the journey of a descendant of one of the leaders of the 1919 Chicago race riot in which dozens of people were killed, hundreds wounded and some thousand homes of Black people were burned down. The journey traced in the presentation is from the 1919 race riot […]

Presented by: J. Reid Meloy, PhD Although criminal violence in the United States has been incrementally decreasing for the past forty years, the incidence of targeted mass attacks has been increasing during the past decade. How can the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist assess the risk of such an attack by their patient–or when should the patient […]

Presenters: Golzar Naghshineh, MS, LP, CGP, and Nancy Kaufman, LCSW, LP - While addressing behavioral needs and surface level fears and anxieties is crucial in helping patients who struggle with infertility, it is also crucial that we help patients process their deeper unconscious (and often conflicting) feelings around treatment, failure, loss, inadequacy, and successful pregnancy. […]

Please join WBCP with COWAP North America (Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis, International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA)) for: Misogyny Then and Now: Implications for Psychoanalytic Perspectives Presented by: Special Guest, filmmaker, Jennifer Reeves, Margarita Cereijido, PhD, Paula Ellman, PhD, David Joseph, MD, Janice Lieberman, PhD Saturday, November 22, 2025 10:00 am – 1:00 pm (3 CME/CE) […]

Self-defeating behaviors are present to some degree in every psychodynamic treatment. We will explore ways in which sadomasochism manifests, particularly in the transference/countertransference arena. The developmental roots and psychodynamic underpinnings will be illuminated through clinical examples. A contemporary understanding via Neuropsychoanalysis will explore self-defeating behavior as a problem with the PLAY instinct, leading to impairment […]

This presentation explores how the framework of neuroqueering—a concept rooted in neurodiversity and queer theory—invites a radical reconsideration of foundational psychoanalytic concepts such as identity, subjectivity, normativity, and development. By centering lived experiences of neurodivergent and queer individuals, this talk interrogates the implicit assumptions of the analytic frame and challenges psychoanalysis to reexamine its historical […]

Diana Moga, MD, PhD and Robert Glick, MD This presentation explores how the framework of neuroqueering—a concept rooted in neurodiversity and queer theory—invites a radical reconsideration of foundational psychoanalytic concepts such as identity, subjectivity, normativity, and development. By centering lived experiences of neurodivergent and queer individuals, this talk interrogates the implicit assumptions of the analytic […]

Presented by: JoAnn Ponder, PhD This special presentation will examine castles as historical structures in reality and as symbols that may appear in sandplay therapy with children or adults. Castles are magnificent structures that capture our collective imagination. My own fascination with them began when I was a young child living in Darmstadt, Germany. From […]

Presenter: Brin Grenyer, PhD The Sheila Hafter Gray Memorial Lecture is underwritten by ACPEinc and honors Dr. Gray's role in advancing the importance of psychoanalytic education. The mechanisms of patient change have been described in detail by prominent psychoanalytic thinkers over the last 130 years. These descriptions form the basis for analytic training and are […]

Gerald Melchode, MD The working alliance or the therapeutic alliance is the strongest predictor for the success of psychotherapy. The presentation explores the origins of these concepts and raises the question whether the working alliance can be applied to teaching and learning. Academics educators have already begun to do this. Their findings are presented which […]