Hybrid: In-person Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia & Virtual

Dr. Santa Maria will consider how technology has contributed to the subjective experience of living with AI and how it may be changing our relationship to the experience of otherness. This presentation will seek to generate discussion among the attendees about our emerging technological world and how AI may be impacting the conservation of our […]

Dr. Santa Maria will present The Case of the Manufactured Child, examining the impact of assisted reproductive technology with a solo father on a child's development. She will discuss the father's perfectionism, the role of "self-matryoshka" (other mothers), the cultural implications of "manufacturing" a child, and how psychoanalytic psychotherapy can support children navigating complex psychological […]

Based on 25 years of psychoanalytic and intensive psychotherapy work with patients and his experiences as a teacher, supervisor, and mentor, Dr. Klafter will describe how psychoanalysts are affected by their relationships with their patients. Drawing on object relations theories of psychological development, he will describe how the patient inhabits the analyst's representational world, and […]

Beginning with the question of the individual’s fitness with their family of origin, the authors describe the variables that determine the adolescent’s capacity to join peer groups. Optimally, the adolescent – when cognitive advancement is combined with a specific kind of group psychological mindedness – can consolidate their group identifications. When traumatized, an adolescent’s exclusion […]

Following a two-year personally driven immersive odyssey into the works of French Psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, Nancy M. Kulish, PhD has arrived at a particular understanding of the concept of the abject. Dr. Kulish will guide us on her journey to show us a new way to understand the way the very early conflictual engagement between […]

Listening to secrets is part of the everyday work of a psychodynamic clinician. Despite its importance, this topic has not received extensive attention in the analytic literature. The impact on the clinician in unexpected emotional and physical ways deserves greater scrutiny than has generally occurred in training. It can be experienced as uncanny and disturbing. […]

Sylvia Flescher, M.D., will join us in person on Friday, November 17th, and share with us excerpts from her memoir-in-progress. Her memoir describes the evolution of her identity as a clinician since her analytic training in the '80s. Dr. Flescher will talk about the origins and development of her ambivalence towards psychoanalysis, considering the role […]