Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Society

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

Donald Moss, MD. “The Traumatizing Disorder of Everyday Life”.  

For patients, it's seldom the content of the analyst's interpretation that's memorable but rather the feeling of being understood. Within the interpersonal field, the analyst's interpretation gives voice to field shifts that are jointly created between analyst and patient and make way for a new freedom to think and feel.

Psychoanalytic theories are needed to sense, understand and connect with our patients but they can limit the analyst's participation in terms of theoretical and technical categories. Using his concept of needed relationships, Dr. Stern offers a more holistic view of the analyst-patient relationship in all its therapeutic complexity. He invites the therapist to work creatively […]

Clinicians and researchers find it difficult to adequately describe how the patient changes and what roles the clinician has in facilitating change. What approaches have been developed to help us understand how patients can expand their understanding of the source of the difficulties and what they can do to improve their lives? Dr. Gabbard will […]

Art Nielsen, MD. Asking for Things and Listening to Criticism: Two Fundamental Challenges in Intimate Relationships and Targets for Couples Therapy. Grounded in self psychology, Dr. Nielson uses everyday language to convey complex challenges in working with couples. He begins his talk with an experience-near discussion of why people have trouble asking for what they want, […]

Compulsions and Obsessions: A Lifespan Perspective. Greg Rizzolo, PhD. Freud's concept of the obsessional neuroses has evolved into today's obsessive-compulsive disorder with ideas from many fields helping to understand this condition. Dr. Rizzolo contributes to this effort by framing the variety of obsessive presentations as "a disorder of volition, an exaggerated sense of willpower not […]

Jana K. Edwards, LCSW. Shame and Reunions: A New Look at the Compulsion to Repeat.  Ms. Edwards frames the repetition compulsion in her work with adult partners as a path to healing previously unmetabolized wounds, traumas and losses. In their repetitive conflicts, she sees couples accessing historically dissociated affects. Ms. Shaw illustrates her ideas by […]