Interpretation in a Changing Landscape
2025-03-15 10:00 (America/New_York) | Hybrid (In-Person and Virtual)
Presented by Howard B. Levine, MD

The Dead Mother Complex Revisited: Exploring Vicissitudes and Spectral Dynamics in Contemporary Clinical Practice
2025-03-15 12:00 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
This seminar is presented Afsaneh Alisobhani, Psy.D, FIPA will explore André Green’s seminal paper, The Dead Mother, delving into how the experience of an emotionally unavailable maternal figure—due to loss, depression, or trauma —shapes psychic development, attachment, and identity formation. Green’s concept provides profound insights into the inner worlds of patients, particularly those he describes as “non-neurotics,” whose psychological struggles transcend traditional neurotic frameworks. Expanding on Green’s theoretical constructs, this presentation will propose a spectrum-based approach to the Dead Mother Complex, extending its relevance to neurotic patients as well. This broadened perspective aims to deepen our understanding of early relational disruptions and their lasting impact on psychic structure and clinical work.

"Let the Wild Rumpus Start": Group Work with Children and Adolescents
2025-03-20 21:00 - 22:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Many child clinicians are not trained in group work, yet they are often called upon to lead such groups. This program will offer a description of group work with children, summarizing curative factors and clinical applications. It will provide direct strategies for leading groups and understanding the clinical process. By detailing best practices, it will help participants apply the knowledge to their clinical work.

NCP's Virtual Open House
2025-03-20 21:30 - 23:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
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 about our multi-year training programs, and ask any questions you may have.
Whether you are considering training this year or in the near future, all are welcome to attend. We look forward to seeing you!

Film & Mind: Blink Twice
2025-03-21 23:00 - 2025-03-22 00:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Blink Twice (2024, Zoe Kravitz director & co-screenwriter, 1 hr 42 min) tells the story of a dream-perfect island retreat turned sinister, where guests become entangled in a web of memory manipulation and psychological control. Set against the alluring backdrop of wealth and exclusivity, the film traces themes of power, complicity, and the struggle to reclaim personal identity in the face of cyclical abuse.
In this session, we will use a psychoanalytic lens to unpack the film’s central conflicts, focusing on questions of repression, traumatic reenactment, and the role of group dynamics in facilitating or resisting harm. Note that Atlantic Magazine called Blink Twice “the movie that mattered most in 2024.”

Sutures to the Psyche: Weaving Contemporary Treatments and Psychoanalysis into Hospital-Based Trauma Recovery
2025-03-22 12:00 - 13:30 | Hybrid (Zoom or In-Person New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center)
Nathan H. Brown, Psy.D and Sandy Hyatt, Psy.D. will provide an overview of trauma and its treatment among patients seeking medical care for traumatic injuries in a Level 1 Trauma Center. Presenters will review current research on “evidence-based” treatments for PTSD, specifically Prolonged Exposure (PE) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), compared with certain psychoanalytic treatments. Presenters will explore how these contrasting modalities may be integrated effectively within a hospital-based setting.

Book Review and Discussion | Drama as Film, Film as Drama
2025-03-27 20:00 - 21:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
A Book Review and Discussion of The Necessary Dream: ?New Theories and Techniques of Interpretation in Psychoanalysis by Giuseppe Civitarese, MD, PhD, presented by Mark Winborn, PhD
Civitarese takes the title of the book from a passage in Bion’s volume (p. 33), Cogitations, “the way in which the necessary dream is constructed”. The emphasis taken from this passage highlights the thrust of The Necessary Dream: how dreaming facilitates growth in the individual, how we ‘dream ourselves into existence’. In Civitarese’s post-Bionian model the dream becomes the vehicle to “develop the narrative competence of the mind. That’s why we say working with dreams and not on dreams” (p. xiii). Civitarese goes on to state, “the dream becomes the very model of thought” (p. xiv). These points of emphasis locate The Necessary Dream, and the role of the dream in analysis and psychological growth, squarely within Bion’s (1962) theory of thinking and the development of the mind.
A major theme in The Necessary Dream is the close connection between film, psychoanalytic theory, and dreaming. As Civitarese points out, film and dream are effective because “they are able to move beyond the ‘realistic’ illustration of reality, to get closer to reality” (p. 3). He also notes that editing a film is equivalent to the work psyche does in constructing and producing a dream, and also to the work of ? function. Throughout the book, Civitarese uses movies to illustrate the theoretical perspectives he is discussing, but he also treats movies and the characters in movies as cases, as well as using film to comment upon psychoanalysis. Civitarese also relies on film to illustrate and play with the elusive line between illusion and reality, history and construction, intrapsychic and intersubjective.
Another thread found woven throughout The Necessary Dream is Civitarese’s effort to restore emotional experience to the center of analytic focus, which is directly tied to his effort to re-establish the connection between body and mind. Civitarese puts forward, “the hypothesis that dreams are the connecting thread between the body and the mind, a way of giving back the body to the mind every night, of giving a personal meaning to experience and thus regenerating the psychic skin that protects us from the traumas of life” (p. xvi). Reading The Necessary Dream is not so much the acquisition of a set of techniques or theories, but a conduit to a deeper, more profound attitude in relationship to dreaming (both nocturnal and waking).

NPI Open House (In-Person)
2025-03-28 12:00 - 15:30 | Newport Psychoanalytic Institute, 17821 E. 17th Street, Suite 260,, Tustin, CA, 92780, United States
Join us for an engaging opportunity to learn more about NPI! Meet the Dean and President for an introduction to the programs offered, connect with current candidates, experience a live class in action, and participate in a Q&A session to explore all our program offerings.
This event is in-person, but we will be holding a similar open house virtually on April 11, 2025.

The Analytic Museum: Freud's Curatorial Phantasm
2025-03-28 18:30 - 20:00 | Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, 2460 Fairmount Blvd #312, Cleveland, OH, 44106, United States
Led by Diane O’Donoghue. There is a considerable bibliography of writings about the vast collection of early objects, most from Egypt and the classical Mediterranean, filled Freud’s working spaces at Berggasse 19 in Vienna. He spoke frequently of the close relationship between his methods and those of the archaeologist; indeed, the language of fieldwork appeared in a number of his writings. Although it is not difficult to imagine this first psychoanalytic site as akin to excavation, there is a layer of meaning that existed for many of these fragments before their unearthing: they were taken from graves, never intended to be disturbed. However, for Freud’s metaphor to function, the disruption of the burial and subversion of the intentions of those whose objects he collected must essentially be forgotten. This talk will consider the functioning of cultural amnesia that accompanied acts of collecting, both in spaces devoted to the aesthetic and to the psychical.

Fingert Lecture: What Words Can't Say. The Talking Cure and the Limits of Language
2025-03-28 20:30 - 22:00 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Howard Levine, MD: Psychoanalysis is ‘the talking cure,’ but the problems raised by language are complex, paradoxical, and perhaps unsolvable. At their most effective, words play a vital role in psychic homeostatic regulation and the psychoanalytic process that is analogous to the architecturally structural role played by the keystone of an arch. The problem, however, is that words can be used to reveal or conceal, to convey meaning or obscure, distort, hide, fragment, or evacuate meaning. And sometimes the very nature of language falls short of being able to capture and adequately communicate the psychic dimensions of our emotional lives. This paper explores the limitations and possibilities of words and language in psychoanalysis from the perspective of the work of Freud, Bion and Green and ends with a coda from the writings of an analysand.

Saturday Morning Case Conference: Psychodynamic Work with Addiction
2025-03-29 09:30 - 11:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
This case conference series targets early career clinicians and those interested to learn about psychodynamic therapy technique. Jon Venitz, LSW, will present a patient seen in residential D&A treatment, with discussant Fred Baurer, MD, providing an overview of key concepts for working psychodynamically with patients struggling with addiction, including (1) case formulation, (2) the use of countertransference and transference, and (3) clinical interventions.

Surface Illusions: Reading the Manifest and Latent in Asian Painting
2025-03-29 10:00 - 12:00 | 11150 East Blvd, Cleveland, OH 44106
Presented by Diane O’Donoghue. Guided tour at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Sigmund Freud’s widely read The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) made a number of bold claims about the meaning and mechanics of a phenomenon—dreaming— that was at that time widely dismissed in Eurocentric traditions. One of the best-known of his insights involved the notions of the manifest and latent, with the imagery we recall from sleep (“manifest content”) as masking less accessible “latent meaning.” This latter aspect of psychical functioning often defied conventions of representation, of “picturing,” as Freud would have known it. This gallery presentation will consider Chinese and Japanese painting as offering ways to consider different notions of surface and depth, as both visual and psychological experiences.

The Never-Ending Challenge of Reinventing Psychoanalysis for the Unknown with Ofra Eshel (2-Day Event)
2025-03-29 12:00 - 16:00 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
During this two-day conference, Ofra Eshel will present two works, which will be evaluated and discussed by contemporaries Charles Levin, Aner Govrin, and Mary Tennes, as well as a clinical case presentation by Margaret Rubin. The works focus on recognition of the paradox of learning uncertainty and multiplicity of knowledge as well as helping clinicians withstand the Unknown while building capacity to contain psychodynamic dislocation. The discussions of Dr. Eshel’s papers will focus on the brilliantly creative and fundamental quality of her psychoanalytic work, which draws deeply on the analytic tradition, particularly Winnicott and Bion; but also on how she helps us to think beyond them.
This is a two-day program (both March 29th and 30th) which is being presented on Zoom only. Pre-registration is required. You will receive confirmation and details by email.
8 CE/CME credits are offered for this program. Attendance both days is required for credit. Signature is required (in the meeting Chat) for credit.

Creativity & Early Loss
2025-04-01 19:00
Speaker: Chester Smith, MEd, LPC. Loss and trauma in general have long been understood to play a role in the creative process for many famous artists. Using the early histories of Munch, Van Gogh, and Picasso we will look at the role of loss as a contributor to their art. In this course we will also explore psychoanalytic views on how early development influences the development of the capacity for imagination and creativity. We will identify and discuss factors involved in creative inhibitions. Also addressed in the course will be the relationship of art to the artist and viewer through the lens of the “container-contained commensal relationship” (Maniadakis, 2020) as well as exploration of the concept of art as a transitional object.

High Conflict Divorce
2025-04-02 09:45 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Kate Scharff & David Scharff

Writing and Psychoanalysis
2025-04-02 19:30
Speakers: Harold Braswell, PhD & Nikki Karalekas, PhD. This course will explore the relationship between writing and psychoanalysis through a group workshop process. We will begin by holding two courses exploring the connection between psychoanalysis and writing: How do psychoanalysts work with difficulties that can arise during the creative process? How do we support our patients’ creativity and our own? How might we give peers psychoanalytically minded feedback on their writing? We will then spend a day together reading and providing feedback on each other’s writing. Prior writing experience is not required.

Play Therapy and the Virtual Frame - New Forms, Old Symbols
2025-04-03 19:15
This series of four meetings is designed to meet the needs of clinicians interested exploring on- line aspects of child play psychotherapy and incorporating these psychodynamic concepts and techniques into their clinical practice with children. This course will have a clinical focus and will provide an opportunity for participants to hear and discuss case material.

Disordered Eating and Psychodynamic Treatment: Practice, Implications, and Outcomes
2025-04-05 10:00 - 12:00 | Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas
Presented by Christie Hunnicutt, PhD, LCSW

Relational Psychoanalysis: In a New Key
2025-04-05 10:00 - 17:00 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Morning Focus: Core Competencies in Relational Psychoanalysis
Drawing from Dr. Roy Barsness’ text, Core Competencies in Relational Psychoanalysis: A Guide to Practice, Study, and Research, this session invites participants to identify and explore the seven core disciplines of relational psychoanalysis, as revealed through his qualitative research. The workshop will deepen participants’ understanding of relationally oriented theory and clinical practice, with a special focus on radical openness, courageous speech, and disciplined spontaneity. It offers a valuable opportunity for practitioners to assess and reflect on their own clinical approaches through a relational psychoanalytic lens.
Afternoon Focus: Psychodynamic Supervision
In the afternoon, Dr. Roy Barsness shifts focus to his latest book, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in a New Key. Traditional supervisory relationships often follow a didactic model, where the supervisor provides guidance, critique, and feedback. In contrast, this seminar introduces an innovative supervision framework that emphasizes affect over cognition and places the therapist’s subjectivity at the center of understanding the patient’s internal and interpersonal world. The discussion will also highlight a reimagining of analytic interpretations as complex, evolving dialogues.

Psychoanalysis and Cinema: “X” (2022 horror movie)
2025-04-06 15:00 - 18:30 | Hybrid (In-Person and Virtual)
If virtual, the discussion begins at 4pm CDT. Please use link to review all details. This film screening explores the pleasure and fascination we experience when consuming horror movies and true crime media. Presenters will draw from analytic philosophy and psychoanalytic theory to explain our attraction to what is frightening and uncertain in our world. By identifying horror genres with attempts to resolve our deepest anxieties, presenters will discuss how horror can help us understand both our clients and ourselves. By Franklin Worell, PhD & Paul Doyen, LMSW

The Paradox of Horror: Why Do We Enjoy Scaring Ourselves? “X”
2025-04-06 17:00 - 18:30
In person film screening begins at 2pm. The discussion begins at 4pm. This film screening explores the pleasure and fascination we experience when consuming horror movies and true crime media. Presenters will draw from analytic philosophy and psychoanalytic theory to explain our attraction to what is frightening and uncertain in our world. By identifying horror genres with attempts to resolve our deepest anxieties, presenters will discuss how horror can help us understand both our clients and ourselves.

Parental Alienation in High Conflict Divorce
2025-04-09 09:45 - 11:45 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
David Scharff & Kate Scharff

Psychoanalysis & Psychedelics Seminar
2025-04-10 20:30 - 22:00 | In Person, 4455 Morena Blvd., Suite 202, San Diego, CA 92117
Daniel Brockett, M.D. will explain the neuropsychopharmacology of classical psychedelics as well as atypical psychedelics such as ketamine and empathogens such as MDMA.

Occupied Territories: Cosmetic Surgery and Hatred of the Body
2025-04-11 09:00 - 11:00 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Alessandra Lemma

Alumni Group - Personality, Culture, and Context: Intersections in the Therapeutic Relationship
2025-04-11 12:00 - 13:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Presenter: Usha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D. | In this presentation, Dr. Tummala-Narra will explore how personality is shaped by sociocultural context, and how experiences of one’s sociocultural context rely on personality, family dynamics, and trauma.

NPI Virtual Open House
2025-04-11 15:00 - 18:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Join us for an engaging opportunity to learn about NPI on Zoom! Meet the Dean and President for an introduction to the program, connect with current candidates, experience a live class in action, and participate in a Q&A session to explore all our program offerings.

COWAP: Women the Longest Revolution: Session 7: Conversation with Juliet Mitchell
2025-04-12 11:00 - 12:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Please join us for a series of conversations
1 Sessions remaining
April 12, 2025
Presented by the Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis of the International Psychoanalytic Association (COWAP) North America, and sponsored by the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis. Organizing Committee: Chair: Margarita Cereijido, Co-chair: Catherine Mallouh, Members: Anne Adelman, Janice Lieberman, Jill Gentile and Jeri Isaacson.
Activity in English with subtitles in your language
1.5 CME/CE per session
10.5 CME/CE total
Via Zoom
Additional details about the presentation and future sessions can be found on the program flyer below
UPCOMING SESSION
Saturday, April 12, 2025
11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET
Session 7: Conversation with Juliet Mitchell
Participants:
Juliet Mitchell, Margarita Cereijido, and Jill Gentile
Presentation:
Notions of woman and the feminine have changed dramatically over the last decades and this is reflected in how women perceive themselves, how they are perceived by society, and how they are understood from a psychoanalytic perspective. Inspired by the title of her book, Juliet Mitchell will reflect on the impact of feminism, and the ongoing changes in different feminine scenarios, in conversation with Margarita Cereijido and Jill Gentile. The audience will reflect with the presenters about how our thinking has changed.
Registration Deadline: April 9, 2025
Registration Link: https://tinyurl.com/ycy53e5c
Program Page: https://tinyurl.com/mw56a6w
Program Flyer: https://tinyurl.com/33j8uckw

The IPA and NCP present Work Discussion Group for Catastrophic Situations
2025-04-12 12:00 - 13:30 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
“Work Discussion Group (WDG) for Catastrophic Situations” – Martha Harris Model, Tavistock
Organized by the IPA PACE Committee & NCP.
About the Work Discussion Group:
The Work Discussion Group (WDG) provides a reflective space for professionals working in catastrophic situations across diverse contexts such as hospitals, schools, and community centers. Grounded in the Martha Harris model developed at the Tavistock Clinic, this approach helps workers process the emotional impact of their roles, fostering deeper understanding and more effective intervention strategies.
History and Key Characteristics of the Work Discussion Seminar
Inspired by Esther Bick’s infant observation method, Martha Harris developed the Work Discussion model in the 1970s at the Tavistock Clinic. She aimed to extend psychoanalytic thinking beyond the consulting room into educational and caregiving environments. By integrating detailed observation of professional interactions with children, adolescents, and families, this model enables practitioners—whether teachers, social workers, or healthcare providers—to recognize unconscious processes influencing their work.
The seminar requires participants to observe and narrate their work experiences in the first person, fostering self-awareness and emotional containment. The discussion format allows professionals to analyze the dynamics of their interactions, enhancing their understanding of the intrapsychic world and its manifestation in interpersonal relationships.
By applying Bick’s observational method in this context, Harris emphasized the importance of recognizing emotional factors in professional relationships. This reflective process deepens comprehension of the professional’s mental state and the individuals they serve, ultimately improving intervention strategies in preventive and therapeutic settings.
Presenters:
Mónica Cardenal (Argentina) Training analyst of Buenos Aires Psychoanalytical Association. Former Scientific Coordinator. Associate Professor in Child and Adolescent Clinic Psychology and Psychiatry, Postgraduate Training at the Italian Hospital University, Buenos Aires. General Coordinator of the Infant Observation Seminar, taught according to Mrs Bick´s method, Tavistock model, Italian Hospital University. Member of the Expert Registry of CONEAU, Comisión Nacional de Evaluación Y Acreditación Universitaria (National Commission of University Evaluation and Accreditation) Argentina since 2014. Chair of IPA Committee on Psychoanalytic Assistance in Crises and Emergencies (PACE). Consultant of IPA Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis (COCAP). Academic Advisor and supervisor of the work program with street children and young refugees in Puebla, Mexico, Fundación JUCONI since 2010. Author of international publications and guest lecturer in several countries. Co-author and Co-editor of the books: “Territorios postkleinianos. Una actualización de la tarea Psicoanalítica”, Teseo, Buenos Aires, 2020 and “The Infinite Infantile and the Psychoanalytic task. Psychoanalysis with Children, Adolescents and their Families” IPA, COCAP and Routledge, London and New York 2022.
Dr. Jeanne Magagna (UK) is a Child, Adolescent, and Family Psychotherapist with over fifty years of experience in child mental health. She has significantly contributed to understanding and treating children and families, particularly in high-needs and emotionally complex environments. She led the Psychotherapy Services at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London for 24 years, specializing in self-harm, psychosis, and eating disorders in children. Her extensive clinical experience also includes working with non-verbal, non-mobile children with feeding difficulties. She trained at the Tavistock Clinic in London, where Esther Bick, the founder of the infant observation method, taught her.
Throughout her career, Dr. Magagna has taught Infant Observation worldwide. She believes observing babies can profoundly transform our understanding of children and their families. This work has led to the creation of a specialized nursery in Rome and the publication of Being Present for Your Nursery-Age Child. She has also published several influential books, including The Silent Child: Communication without Words, which focuses on nonverbal communication in children, and Psychotherapeutic Understanding of Children and Young People with Eating Disorders. Additionally, Dr. Magagna is the Joint Editor of various books, including Intimate Transformations: Babies with Their Families, Psychotherapy with Families, and Contemporary Child Psychotherapy. She regularly teaches internationally and has been featured in the Mind in Mind interview series with Jane O’Rourke on YouTube. Dr. Magagna’s career reflects her deep commitment to advancing psychoanalytic thinking and its application in clinical practice, particularly in child development, emotional understanding, and early intervention.
Interview by Mind in Mind: https://mindinmind.org.uk/interviews/jeanne-magagna/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
PACE Member Participant:
Sylvia de Egea (Paraguay) is a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalyst specializing in adults, children, and adolescents. A member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), she serves as the Vice President of the Psychoanalytic Association of Asunción (APdeA) and teaches at its institute. She is an active member of the PACE Committee representing Latin America. With a longstanding commitment to humanitarian efforts, Silvia was a Red Cross volunteer for many years, during which she became qualified to train Support Psychosocial Trainers. She currently maintains a private practice in Asunción, Paraguay.

Dreaming the Unconscious Through Collage
2025-04-12 13:00 - 16:00 | 17821 E 17th Street, Suite 260, Tustin, CA 92780
This course will focus on the idea that we can access our unconscious thoughts and images through art, specifically collage. There will be an introduction to “dreaming while awake” referencing both Bion and Thomas Ogden’s thoughts. Participants will be invited to create a collage that represents work with a patient. There will be time to make more than one collage, as well as time to process what we create with the group. Art materials will be provided. Presented by Glenda Corstorphine, Psy.D.

20th Annual Austen Riggs College Counseling Conference: Peer Support, Community, and Belonging
2025-04-14 09:00 - 12:00 | Virtual (Click on event title to advance to website and registration page)
Hosted by the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center
Peer support serves a vital role in the mental health of college students. Beyond buttressing clinical services and expanding resources to meet unprecedented demand, it can mobilize students’ strengths and foster experiences of community and belonging. However, it also brings challenges, including training, liability, and coordination with counseling and wellness centers. In this conference, we will use presentations on an innovative peer assistance program and small and large group discussions to explore how participants might enhance peer support offerings on their campuses.
Featuring presentations by:
Spencer Biel, PsyD, director of the Online Intensive Outpatient Program for college students and emerging adults in Massachusetts
M. Dolores Cimini, PhD, New York State licensed psychologist and director of the Center for Behavioral Health Promotion and Applied Research at the University at Albany, SUNY
Megan Cusick Brix, PhD, assistant director for Peer Services and a licensed psychologist at University at Albany (UAlbany) Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).
This conference is for college mental health clinicians and those supporting students’ mental health otherwise. Trainees are encouraged to attend.
