Houston Psychoanalytic Society

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Presented by Jean Goodwin, MD Electra, like Oedipus, is a character from Greek mythology. The founders of psychoanalysis used their names to denote a psychosocial developmental phase. However, Electra’s story, like the biography of Oedipus, teaches us more about murderous violence than about internal conflict. Electra can also teach us something about recovery; she and […]

Presented by Richard Gartner, PhD Research suggests that in the United States one in six boys is directly victimized sexually by age 16. It has also become increasingly apparent in recent years that adult men, like women, are subject to sexual abuse, harassment, and assault. In order to treat this population, it is crucial that […]

Presented by M. Gerard Fromm, PhD In January, 2002, an annual Group Relations Conference was held as it had been for many years, and one of its large-group events began ordinarily enough. But, four months after 9/11/2001, members could not stay in the room to do the work of that session. Even though the recent […]