MSPP Home         Announcements         Monthly Programs         Membership Form         Contact Us        MSPP History         MSPP  Sections      

Committees & Projects         Directory         Links        Newsletter Archives         MSPP News Subscription         Reading Room 

Archives:  •2010 •2009  •2008 •2007  •2006  •2005  •2004  •2003  •2002   •2001  •2000  •1999

  The Waves: Tensions Between Creativity and Containment

in the Life and Writings of Virginia Woolf

    Paper Presentation by Marilyn Charles, Ph.D.

The author explores tensions between creativity and containment in Virginia Woolf’s life and writings. The transformation from primary process thinking into more highly structured prose can be seen quite elegantly by tracing the development of the work that came to be known as The Waves, from the initial inspirations described by Woolf in her diaries, through the successive drafts, to the finished novel.  In these works, we can see the interplay between verbal and nonverbal modes of communication through her use of form and metaphor, and that between the underlying patterns Woolf found so inspirational and the containing process through which she ‘tamed’ these ‘wild thoughts,’ structured, and attempted to master them.

BIOGRAPHICAL  STATEMENT: Marilyn Charles is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in East Lansing, Michigan. Active in training with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council and as Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at Michigan State University, she is committed to mentoring the next generation of clinicians. Dr. Charles has presented her work internationally and has published extensively in psychoanalytic journals.  She is the author of Patterns: Building Blocks of Creativity (2002) and Learning From Experience: A Clinician’s Guide (2004), both published by The Analytic Press.  A third volume, Constructing Realities: Transformations Through Myth and Metaphor, is forthcoming in September by Rodopi. 

   Chinese Medicine and Psychoanalysis: The Mysterious Leap from the Mind to the Body Revisited

Paper presentation by Jay Abel-Horowitz, M.A., M.D.

In psychoanalytic drive theory, drives obtain their energy from instincts, which are derived from the soma.  This conceptualization arises from and promotes a dualistic notion of mind and body.  This has constituted a central problem for psychosomatic theory and technique. Unburdened by the Cartesian dichotomization of the mind-body, classical Chinese medicine evolved in a Weltanschauung of true mindbody holism.  Mind is distributed throughout the body.  Organ dysfunction implies psychological dysfunction.  The language of the body is the language of the mind.  The Chinese concept of Qi is an energy that is at once somatic and psychic. Chinese medicine offers a window on the "mysterious leap from mind to body" that takes us outside the Western paradigm for a fresh look at an old problem that has theoretical and clinical utility.

BIOGRAPHICAL  STATEMENT: Jay Abel-Horowitz, M.A.,M.D. is a psychoanalyst and practitioner of Chinese medicine.  He has taught numerous courses on psychosomatic medicine to psychiatric residents and at the Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute.  He is Past-Chair of the MPS Committee on Psychoanalysis and Medicine, as well as immediate Past-President of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Society.  He has been a student of Eastern philosophy and a meditator for over 30 years.

  VIDEO: The Therapeutic State: Past & Future 

Lecture by Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.,

Commentary by Ralph Slovenko, J.D., Ph.D.,

Moderated by Professor Ronald M. Swartz

The Thomas Szasz lectures at Oakland University provide commentary on questions such as:  Do the legal and medical practices in liberal democratic societies support and/or subvert the kinds of freedoms articulated in laws such as the First Amendment?  Have liberal democratic societies such as the United States and Canada endorsed laws that give medical practitioners such as psychiatrists a reasonable amount of power to control the behavior of those who are viewed as mentally ill?  Do the laws used to control the behaviors of those identified as mentally ill give too much power to psychiatrists? 

Is it wise for a society to use legally sanctioned medical practices as a means for dealing with and controlling behavior? What kinds of laws are necessary for guarding against and punishing dangerous deviant behaviors?  Who should decide when a deviant behavior is dangerous? How can a society protect the rights of those people who are deviant, but not dangerous?  Is psychiatry being used as a means for the social control of deviant behavior or is it a means for controlling illness?   Should liberal democratic societies such as the United States have laws which deny adults access to drugs that an individual wishes to use?

ABSTRACT: In the past decade the gay and lesbian community has had a very active political and legal program involving the major psychotherapeutic organizations. They attempted to prove that homosexuality is a normal alternative sexual and lifestyle. They had been successful in this activity with the American Psychological Association, The American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychoanalytic Association. In fact, they became so successful that they have been attacking any therapist that wishes to treat homosexuals. Their claim is that these therapists are not only anti-homosexual, but are psychologically ill with the symptom of "Internalized Homophobia". This paper deals with the scientific diagnosis of Phobia, and the specific diagnosis of Homophobia. It explores the claim of "Internalized Homophobia", indicating its lack of validity and its scientific distortion.

 BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Dr. Breiner is a Distinguished Life Fellow Of the American Psychiatric Association, Fellow the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst, Scientific Adviser to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, Associate Professor Psychiatry Michigan State University and Assistant Professor Psychiatry Wayne State University, and author of over 100 scientific articles and books. 

Wang Fo and an Ethic of Free Association: Poetic Imagination, Mythical Stories, and Moral Philosophy

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

ABSTRACT: As medicine articulates an ethic for the analyst as a healthcare professional, literature articulates an ethic for the analyst as an artist, poet, or philosopher. This essay examines the Taoist fable from ancient China, How Wang Fo Was Saved, in terms of the ethic and values embedded in its central organizing themes. Premised on the Zen Buddhist and Taoist texts,  an emotional, ethical, and intellectual way of being, knowing, and presencing in the analytic conversation is suggested. In the context of process material, consideration is given to how these values  might  enfold within an ethic of caring and moral obligation in the narrative story of Small Change Makes Cents,  the story of a  young man seen shortly after his third psychiatric hospitalization. The complex interweave of literature and narrative (analytic) story yields an Ethic of Free Association.

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 a visiting artist (in psychoanalysis) at the Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills), an adjunct  professor of psychology at the Center for Humanistic Studies (Detroit) and a consultant at the Veteran’s Administration (Detroit) and the Wyandotte General Hospital (Wyandotte). He is in the private practice of psychoanalysis in Farmington Hills, Michigan.  

               Self-disclosure Revisited: What Happens in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy  

                                  Paper Presentation by  Merton A. Shill,  JD, LLM, PhD.   

ABSTRACT: Most patients currently in psychoanalytic treatment are not being treated on the couch in classical analysis but are in some form of psychoanalytic psychotherapy with psychoanalytically or “psycho-dynamically” inclined clinicians who are not trained analysts.  A “widening scope” for psychoanalytic psychotherapy has also emerged for patients who may be suitable for analysis but who are not being treated in analysis. Technical considerations dating from the 1940’s concerning differences between psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are relevant in discussing therapist self-disclosure.  Most forms of psychoanalytic psychotherapy involve intrinsically and as a matter of technique and not therapist elective preference, certain types of technical interventions which may be described as therapist self-disclosure, here called technical self-disclosure.  The employment and management of the transference in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and the use of interpretation, clarification, suggestion, manipulation and reassurance may all potentially result in technical therapist self-disclosure.   

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Dr. Merton A. Shill is a graduate of the New York Freudian Society, a Training Analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council, Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School, and Clinical Associate Professor in Family Medicine in the School of Medicine, Wayne State University. He is in psychoanalytic practice in Ann Arbor and Walled Lake, MI treating children, adolescents and adults.

               CELEBRATING THE 25th ANNIVERSARY of DIVISION 39

with a paper first presented at a recent Spring Meeting of Division 39, entitled

Gender UnBound: A Critical Look at a Gender Free Case

Paper Presentation by Ellen L. K. Toronto, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT: I will begin with the gender-free case presentation. We selected the case because it presents a set of issues that are frequently exhibited by both men and women. Gender-related issues, i.e., doing more than a fair share  of the housework while working outside; an inability to express feelings;  having more responsibility for the children even though the major breadwinner; strong possibility of sexual abuse; anxiety about penetration  and a marked lack of a sense of agency, have been identified. Without the cohesive designation of gender, pulling together as it does a mass of  assumptions, unspoken or even unknown, about a person's status, body  image, experience and world view, we are challenged to revisit those biased and yet hidden beliefs that skew our perceptions and limit both our  patients and ourselves. 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Dr. Toronto is a Founding Member and Past President of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council. She is also Past President of the Section on Women and Gender of Division 39 of APA. Dr. Toronto is co-editor of Into the Void to be published by Brunner-Routledge in the spring. She maintains a private analytic practice in Ann Arbor. 

               Does Psychoanalysis Reproduce Evil?

   Paper Presentation by Marilyn Nissam-Sabat, Ph.D., MSW

ABSTRACT: In her book, The Reproduction of Evil, Sue Grand maintains that psychoanalysis has colluded in the reproduction of evil in failing to grasp the reality of the evil perpetrated by abusers and reproduced by their victims. Grand maintains that existing paradigms, e.g. positivism, relational theory, hermeneutics, and constructivism fail to appreciate and clinically metabolize the historical reality of the experiences of perpetrators and victims. Grand develops what she refers to as "a new epistemological paradigm" for psychoanalysis, one that she believes theoretically and clinically captures the historical reality of the evil perpetrated and suffered. In this presentation, I explicate and critique Grand's new paradigm and offer a framework that can provide a philosophically credible grounding for the notion of historical reality as used psychoanalytically by Grand.

 BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Marilyn Nissam-Sabat, Ph.D., M.S.W. is a clinical social worker in private practice in Chicago. She is professor emerita and adjunct professor in the Lewis University Philosophy Department. Dr. Nissam-Sabat received her doctorate in philosophy from De Paul University (dissertation: "Edmund Husserl's Theory of Motivation") and her MSW from the Jane Aadams College of Social Work of the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has numerous publications, including book chapters, articles, and reviews in both philosophy and psychoanalysis journals.  

MAY 2005

 

Competency Assessment, the Michigan Pilot Project

Paper Presentation by Melanie B. Brim, BS, MHA, Director, Bureau of Health Professions

Michigan Department of Community Health

 

ABSTRACT: Ms Brim will be presenting general information on "Competency" frameworks/models for regulating the professions, with emphasis on  a pilot project underway in the Department of Community Health in Michigan . This initiative covers four of 20 professions whose Boards are under her direction.  Ms. Brim is meeting with members of these professions for input from the professionals to be regulated. Part of the meeting will be set aside for discussion to garner our input.  Ms. Brim is circulating 6 questions about which she is seeking answers from the professionals to be impacted by this regulatory initiative. She would appreciate input from individuals and groups of professionals sent directly to her.

 

Follow this link to locate the 6 Competency Questions   along with Ms. Brim's postal and email addresses.

 

All psychologists are urged to participate. It is not necessary to wait for the meeting before sending input. All psychologists/other interested professionals ARE INVITED TO JOIN US at this meeting. 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT: Ms Brim has been with the Bureau of Health Services for the past 4 1/2 years, serving first as the Licensing Division Director and now as Bureau Director.  She has worked in a variety of settings, including acute, long term and ambulatory care, correctional and mental health care, and physician practice management.  She has a Bachelor of Science degree in medical record administration and a masters of health administration from Indiana University.