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Archives:   2008  •2007  • 2006  • 2005  • 2004  • 2003  • 2002   • 2001  • 2000  • 1999

Analytic  Neutrality, Anonymity, Abstinence, and Elective Self-Disclosure

Paper presentation by  Merton A. Shill, Ph.D., LLM

Recent proposals in the psychoanalytic literature concern new ways of understanding analytic neutrality, anonymity, abstinence and self-disclosure. This paper suggests that these new proposals ignore the fact that transference and resistance analysis have from Freud onwards been accepted as minimal criteria for a psychoanalysis; that the use of elective self-disclosure carries metapsychological implications dismissing the entire notion of the motivation of human behavior; that interpersonal relations are mental events so that the ego’s ability to create intrapsychic representations of object relations is not considered; and that elective self-disclosures within the extraordinarily empathic parameters of the psychoanalytic situation are unreal in relation to the reality of the patient’s life experience with other objects both outside and after the analysis. Abstinence and neutrality as ideals facilitate the maintenance of an internal holding environment or container for the analyst's countertransference tendencies.

BIOGRAPHICAL  STATEMENT: Merton A. Shill, Ph.D., LLM works with children, adolescents and adults in private practice in Farmington Hills and Ann Arbor. He is a candidate at the New York Freudian Society and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Abstractions - The Analyst's Escape From Analysis:

Ferenczi's "For Example" Revisited

 Paper presentation by  Bertram P. Karon, Ph.D. 

Everyone's problems are concrete and specific. But psychoanalytic work is difficult and painful  when specific.  Psychoanalysts of every school escape into abstractions, which may seem profound or metaphors which may seem clever, but which get away from the reality of the patient's pain. Patients frequently talk in abstractions, but analysts need to come back to the concrete realities of feeling and experience, and the people in the patient's life that those feelings and experiences concern, that the patient is both dealing with and avoiding.  It is not helpful when the analyst stays with the patient's abstractions, or provides new abstractions that the patient can use as a defense, even if it makes the analyst more comfortable.

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Professor, Psychology, Michigan State University.  Former President, Michigan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology,  Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of APA, and Michigan Psychoanalytic Council.  Approximately 150 publications including the book (with G.R. VandenBos) Psychotherapy of  Schizophrenia: The Treatment of Choice, and the recent articles "The tragedy of schizophrenia without psychotherapy (2001 Fromm-Reichmann Memorial  Lecture, Washington School of Psychiatry), and "Abstractions: The psychoanalyst's defense against psychoanalysis."  He has received awards for clinical insights, research, and teaching from Division 39, IFPE, MPA, APA Graduate Students, and others. 

The Contribution of Mothering to the Lifelong Process of  Individuation    

Paper presentation by Brenda  Lovegrove Lepisto Psy.D.  

In this paper I explore the notion that as children develop and individuate their mothers do so in tandem. The ongoing individuating process that occurs in mothers as children grow into adults can enrich and enhance the experience of mothering and a woman’s development throughout the lifespan. Clinical and analytic case studies, personal observation, and women writers’ experience will be used to integrate the theoretical understanding of individuation with mothers’ experience of the process.

BIOGRAPHICAL  STATEMENT: Dr. Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto is a psychoanalyst and psychologist in private practice in East Lansing.  She is an adjunct professor at Michigan State University in the College of Human Medicine where she teaches internal medicine residents and the Department of Psychology where she supervises clinical psychology doctoral students. She has had a long-term interest in children and adolescents' thinking, the Rorschach, parenting, and child/adolescent/adult psychoanalysis. 

   The Interplay Between Therapy and Supervision   

Video presentation (from Division 39 program) of paper by  Andrea Corn, Psy.D.

Local Discussants: Michael Shulman, Ph.D. and  Linda J. Young, Ph.D.

This  paper examines  the relationship and interplay between therapy and supervision: and how the therapist who has particular similarities  to the patient brings her own armamentarium of defenses as well as life problems  into the therapeutic and supervisory space. The paper explores  how unconscious  factors from childhood  become reenacted in the therapeutic space  and produce emotions that affect both patient and therapist. The paper describes in detail an upward as well as downward parallel process acted out by the therapist and patient in the  transference-countertransference encounter along with the supervisor’s conscious and unconscious role in the process. The paper concludes  by offering recommendations  to beginning analytic therapists. The discussants will each choose some of the many issues raised by this paper for elaboration.  

BIOGRAPHICAL  STATEMENTS: Dr. Corn received her Psy.D. from Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Corn completed a two year post-doctoral program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at the Southeast Florida Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychology (SEFIPP) where she currently is a candidate in psychoanalysis. She is  active in SEFAPP a local chapter of Division 39, was  president of Section IV in 2001-2002 and is now the Section IV representative to the Division 39 Board. She is the Co-Chair of the 2004 Division Spring Meeting. Dr. Corn has publications in psychoanalytic journals and one book chapter. She offers a bimonthly column in the  South Florida Parenting Magazine. She works with people of all ages in Plantation, Florida and has a special interest in children and in adolescent athletes. Dr. Shulman is a psychologist in private practice in Ann Arbor, working with both adults and children, and an advanced candidate at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute.  He teaches psychoanalytic theory and qualitative research methods at Madonna University, and has taught psychodynamic psychotherapy at Michigan State. A clinical supervisor at the University of Detroit - Mercy, at Madonna University, and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan, Dr. Shulman is currently also teaching an introduction to Lacan within the Extension Division of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. He has recently published a book review of Casement's "Learning from our mistakes," and is author of a series of papers and presentations on a number of topics in psychoanalysis. Linda J. Young, Ph.D received her B.A. from Brown University and Ph.D from the University of Michigan. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute and subsequently held a staff and faculty position there, working on the Adult Inpatient and Outpatient Services as well as the Children's Inpatient and Outpatient Services. Dr. Young is a former Vice president of MSPP. She is a founding member of the Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts and has served as its Vice President since its inception. Several of her papers and articles have been published, most recently in the Psychologist-Psychoanalyst. (volume xxii, no.4) For the past seventeen years, Dr. Young has had a private psychoanalytic practice in Ann Arbor and Northville, where she  is also available for supervision and professional consultation.  

Frankenstein’s Genie-ology: The Magical Visionary Experience and the Associative Method  

  Paper presentation by  Patrick B. Kavanaugh, Ph.D. 

Frankenstein’s Genie-ology... is the autobiographical story of how he came to be  as told over a five year period of time by an Afro-American man on the inpatient unit of an inner-city state hospital. It is  a story that  reflects the palpable experiences and inexplicable processes of psychic transformation in the very telling of his story to another via the associative method. In the context of process material, this essay considers a central organizing experience of this man’s life, e.g., his  living life as the monstrous creature created by Victor Frankenstein. In this essay, the focus is descriptive and centers on the poetic-artistic perception of the magical visionary experience and its creative and inseparable role in the transformative processes and experiences of the analytic conversation; the emphasis is on the associative method as the primary mode of presencing, relating, and knowing.  

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Dr. Kavanaugh is a former president of the International Federation for Psychoanalytic Education (IFPE), the Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts , and the MSPP. He is an adjunct professor of psychology at the Center for Humanistic Studies and a consultant at the V.A. and Wyandotte General Hospital. He has presented and published on psychoanalytic epistemology, theory, practice, ethics, and education. He is in the private practice of psychoanalysis in Farmington Hills, Michigan.   

SOUL'itude --An Inside Look at the Psychodynamic Experience of Self Development in the  Later Years  

Paper presentation by Lisa A. Kelly, Ph.D.   

Come along for the ride on a 'phantasic' voyage! Join me in sharing a unique psychoanalytic understanding regarding the quest for peace as sought by the older adult facing his/her last years of life on earth. Consider a theoretical mindset that is different from the idea that the process of coming to know oneself toward the end of life is one that is either "successful," or "unsuccessful." Materials for our journey have been gathered from various novels, books on self-exploration, and traditional texts. Clinical examples attained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy sessions conducted with nursing home residents will provide the backdrop for supporting the thoughts shared.

BIOGRAPHICAL  STATEMENT: Dr. Kelly studied at the University of Detroit where she completed a Ph.D. in Psychology in 1992. In 1994, she earned a post-doctoral fellowship at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute. Her interests are in working in milieu/inpatient environments with older adults and younger more 'difficult to treat' individuals. She served as the Clinical Director for two private corporations who send consultants to nursing homes: The Behavioral Healthcare Group, from 1999-2001, and, Sierra Behavioral Services from 2001-2002. Currently, she works as an independent staff psychologist through the Senior Wellness Company.   

The Psychohistorical Roots Of Anti-Semitism

 Paper Presentation by Sander J. Breiner, M.D., F.A.

Discussant, Barry Dauphin, Ph.D. 

This paper explores the historical psychodynamics of anti-Semitism. The individual and group psychodynamics, and the psychodynamics of Christianity lead to some different insights into this most unique form of prejudice in the history of the world. The analytic exploration by Ostow and other analysts of anti-Semitism is examined as valuable insights, leading to newer additional conclusions. Recommendations for resolution of this form of prejudice follow basic analytic/psychological paths.

BIOGRAPHICAL  STATEMENTS: Dr. Breiner is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Fellow of the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, Chairman of the Standards Committee Of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, Supervising and Training Psychoanalyst of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council, member of the Michigan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology, Associate Professor Psychiatry Michigan State University, Assistant Professor Psychiatry Wayne State University, and a lecturer at many professional organizations nationally and internationally. He has authored over 100 articles and book chapters, and books.   Barry Dauphin, Ph.D., was awarded his Bachelor of Science degree in psychology in 1981 from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA where he received the Aaron Hartman award for outstanding undergraduate work in psychology.  He received his Master of Science degree from Tulane University and completed his Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1988 at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.  He completed his predoctoral internship through Yale Medical School in New Haven, CT.  Dr. Dauphin received a postdoctoral fellowship through the Detroit Psychiatric Institute & Wayne State Medical School from 1988-1990.  He is currently president of MSPP and treasurer of Section IV of Division 39.  He maintains a psychoanalytic practice in Birmingham, MI. Dr. Dauphin also serves as a private research consultant for student theses and dissertations.   

The Psychoanalysis As Cultural Practice

 Paper Presentation by  Irvin Goldman, Ph.D.  

This paper is an investigation into cultural narcissism from a Q methodological perspective. Lasch's analysis of culture and personality in many ways reflects an intellectual tradition which integrates psychoanalysis into a Marxian framework. The school of thought  known as Critical theory emerged in the U.S. in the late 1930s by way of a primarily Jewish/German refugee community which shared a commitment to social change. The Frankfurt School (e.g. Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich, and Herbert Marcuse) sought to humanize and historicize Freudian theory, while reviving the dialectical tradition in early Marxism which they believed had succumbed to positivism. Christopher Lasch builds on this tradition, referencing the work of Kohut and Kernberg on narcissistic character disorders. Narcissism, Lasch contends, is a valuable tool for understanding American culture. Using Q methodology a case study is offered to illustrate psychoanalytically informed cultural critique.

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Dr. Irvin Goldman is currently an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Windsor where he teaches courses in communication theory, research methods and cultural studies. He has published in many journals including Political Psychology and The Canadian Journal of Communication and presented at numerous learned societies such as The International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity and The North American Society for Psychotherapy Research. His education was at the University of Winnipeg, Purdue University and the University of Iowa.