OCTOBER 2009

 

What Is Theory? Audio CD presentation

Christopher Bollas, Ph.D.

 

ABSTRACT: This CD records Christopher Bollas’ speech when he received the Leowald Award  from the International Federation For Psychoanalytic Education in November, 2006.   The CD also contains the discussion that followed the address and we will further discuss the address at our meeting. This address is currently published in a book “The Freudian Moment” (Karnac, 2007), where it is further elaborated.

 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT:  Dr. Bollas’ education covered many areas of study, including law, government, history, literature, psychology and psychoanalysis. He is a founding member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. His psychoanalytic bibliography is extensive. He has considerable writings in areas other than psychoanalysis, as well.  He currently (2007) resides in Pekin, North Dakota.  

 

 

JANUARY 2009

 

Are you an Analyst? Self Directed Education in Psychoanalysis:

Escape? Encounter? How about Escapade?

Paper presentation by Barry Dauphin, Ph.D.

 

ABSTRACT: Defining what a psychoanalyst is by means of criteria created by bureaucracies or via social norms risks undermining what is prized by the scholarly discipline of psychoanalysis as opposed to the profession of psychoanalysis. If we understand that there is a subversive quality to listening to individuals while striving to understand unconscious meanings, then it is contradictory to only aspire to define what is an analyst? by criteria created by the state or other institutions, no matter how involved psychoanalysts are in creating such criteria.

 

This paper offers self-directed education in psychoanalytic thinking as an escapade. From the Latin excappare-"to get out of one's cape; to leave a pursuer with just one's cape." An escapade means to engage in adventuresome activity that runs counter to socially approved conduct. How does the analytic community respond to those who engage in escapades, such as self directed study in psychoanalytic work? As rascals, perhaps? Can those who engage in escapades garner respect in the analytic community and should they want to? What do the self directed pursuers desire? What are the dangers of self directed study? Does self-directed mean alone or without others? Must it mean escape from legitimacy? Might those who engage in self-directed study perform a service for those who pursue the more traditional institute training, namely to encourage the legitimate analysts to truly encounter psychoanalysis? In order to address the central themes, the paper will be partly autobiographical, using pictures from the presenter's childhood, dressed as Mighty Mouse with cape.

 

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT:  Barry Dauphin, Ph.D. is assistant professor of psychology at the University of Detroit Mercy, recipient of the 2008 Faculty Achievement Award, and president of the Michigan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology. He has a private practice in Birmingham, Michigan.