The concept of self-alienation is inextricably linked to shame. Working with adult children of traumatizing narcissists, and with others who experience narcissistic abuse, Shaw’s way of working with these clients shifted as he began to study and integrate concepts and techniques from some of the contemporary traumatologists. What he has learned has led Shaw to […]

Presented by Tina Marie Dale, LCSW. This course is intended for clinicians new to the therapeutic field or those with little to no exposure to the psychodynamic approach thus far in their professional careers. We will look at what the psychodynamic approach can offer to clinicians treating families, treating children, and/or working with parents. We […]

With Amy Levy, Psy.D. & Todd Essig, Ph.D. In her paper, “The Phone as a Subject,” Dr. Levy contests the commonly held assumptions that the smartphone is an object, susceptible to healthy or pathological employment and comparable to other objects used to ameliorate the pain of reality. Instead, she will argue that the phone is […]

This program begins with a talk on what a social psychoanalysis might look like in the clinic and draws on some earlier psychoanalysts’ concepts that have connected the social world and the psychic world without reducing one to the other. Exploring identity formation in cultural contexts and within various power hierarchies, Dr. Layton introduces the […]

Join Andrea Celenza, PhD, for our next Meet the Author event with Shari Thurer, Sc. D., and the online audience. We will be talking about Andrea's book, "Transference, Love, Being: Essential Essays from the Field".

Presented by Stuart Ozar, MD and Juliana Varela, MSW. For clinicians or mental health students who are curious about what it is that psychodynamic therapists actually do, we offer a “window” into the process and a chance to connect an introduction to theory with actual clinical material. Each class will begin with a brief theoretical […]

Dr. Solms will discuss how the emotional mind works (using Panksepp’s scheme for core human emotions) and how psychoanalysis achieves relief of mental suffering by making emotions conscious.

This presentation is aimed to enrich psychoanalytic theory by exploring how societal and historical factors shape generational experiences in different contexts. Each generation grows up in a specific cultural, social, and historical context, which influences their values, beliefs, and psychological challenges. In these regards generation Z in general has been characterized as an environmentally aware […]

Directed by Kelly Freeman Craig, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023) is a film adaptation of the Judy Blume young-adult novel. Social, biological, and (to a much smaller extent) identity issues of puberty’s early edge are presented with charming verisimilitude (and earned a 99% positive rating on RottenTomatoes.com). In our discussion we will […]

Directed by Kelly Freeman Craig, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023) is a film adaptation of the Judy Blume young-adult novel. Social, biological, and (to a much smaller extent) identity issues of puberty’s early edge are presented with charming verisimilitude (and earned a 99% positive rating on RottenTomatoes.com). In our discussion we will […]

Jack Drescher, MD: The history of psychoanalytic theorizing about homosexuality is more than a century old and has undergone numerous revisions. Early on, psychoanalytic attitudes toward homosexuality could be reasonably characterized as hostile. The presentation begins with Freud’s early views on homosexuality within the cultural context of his times. It then reviews later pathologizing psychoanalytic […]

Presented by Gary Hirshberg, LCSW. This two session workshop will challenge clinicians to look at our own deeply held beliefs about sex and coupling, specifically what is ‘perversion’ and what is ‘healthy’ coupling. Most of us have come of age and been trained to still consider kink as deviant and as deriving from early childhood […]

This event will focus on ideas from Galit Atlas’ new book "Emotional Inheritance."  It will address silenced experiences that belong not only to us or to our patients, but to their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and the ways they impact our lives. The clinical tales will focus on emotional material that is passed down from […]

Danielle Novack, PhD. “Meeting Again, Meeting Anew: A Child Patient Returns as an Adult”

Masud Khan was a brilliant psychoanalyst, Winnicott’s “principal disciple,” collaborator, editor, and analysand. He was chief editor of the International Psychoanalytical Library for 20 years, wrote four books, and served as training analyst for Christopher Bollas and Adam Phillips. Simultaneously, Masud Khan was an alcoholic, antisemitic, alcoholic, who repeatedly engaged in sexual relationships with patients […]

This study group is based on a book authored by Carl Shubs, PhD, titled Traumatic Experiences of Normal Development: An Intersubjective, Object Relations Listening Perspective on Self, Attachment, Trauma, and Reality (Routledge, 2020). It describes a new conceptualization of trauma, so we can be better prepared to work with it. The book presents a psychoanalytic […]

This is a continuation of NCP's Manifest Mind Series. As psychedelic medicine moves toward wide clinical implementation, psychoanalysts are establishing a specialized set of roles and methods separate from other psychotherapists. The value of psychedelic medicine in psychodynamic care has been extensively documented in the past decade, corroborating published clinical experience in the earlier LSD […]

This is a continuation of NCP's Manifest Mind Series. As psychedelic medicine moves toward wide clinical implementation, psychoanalysts are establishing a specialized set of roles and methods separate from other psychotherapists. The value of psychedelic medicine in psychodynamic care has been extensively documented in the past decade, corroborating published clinical experience in the earlier LSD […]

In this presentation, Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou urges psychoanalysts to let the debate about the validity of trans children take its place in the fossil record of analytic history. Encouraging us to stop squandering our energies sparring with colleagues who see trans existence as cause for alarm, she suggests it is time to move beyond transantagonism […]

Presented by Johanna Dobrich, LCSW-R Working with Survivor Siblings in Psychoanalysis: Ability and Disability in Clinical Process explores a previously neglected area in the field of psychoanalysis, addressing undertheorized concepts on siblings, disabilities and psychic survivorship, and broadening our conceptualization of the enduring effects of lateral relations on human development. What happens to a person’s […]

Association for Child Psychoanalysis:  Presented by Denia Barrett and Peter Bruendl Clinical work performed in isolation or within only a small group of colleagues risks a narrowing of techniques. A continuing conversation between experienced clinicians, working together throughout the year and then sharing their discourse with the conference participants, allows for a detailed examination of […]

Free meeting with the ICP community in LA open to all.  Most psychoanalysts never serve on a jury. This essay narrates my experience of being juror number 11 for nine days. This criminal trial involved horrific allegations of rape, sodomy, kidnapping, armed robbery, and brutal beating. The case also involved issues of race and of violence. […]

This CPI/AAPE webinar will focus on the concepts of internalization and identity, integrating the sociocultural with the intrapsychic. One thread of the discussion will involve the inevitable tensions between sociocultural determinants and individuality in the context of an individual psychoanalysis. Clinical vignettes will be interwoven with a review of the relevant literature.