Michigan Psychoanalytic Council

Pamela Orosan-Weine, Ph.D., is in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is a candidate in psychoanalysis at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council.

Saturday, April 8, 2006

Relational Psychoanalysis:
The Emergence of a Tradition

Lewis Aron, Ph.D.

9:00 A.M.-4 P.M.

LEWIS ARON, Ph.D. is the Director of the New York University, Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Dr. Aron is currently President of the Division of Psychologist-Psychoanalysts of the New York State Psychological Association (NYSPA). Dr. Aron was formerly President of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association as well as President of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP). He is on the Board of Directors of the Group for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Psychology (GAPPP) and is a founding board member of the Stephen A. Mitchell Center for Relational Psychoanalysis. He holds a Diplomate in Psychoanalysis from the American Board of Professional Psychology and is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and of the Academy of Psychoanalysis.

Dr. Aron is the author of A Meeting of Minds: Mutuality in Psychoanalysis (The Analytic Press, 1996). He is the Editor (with Adrienne Harris) of The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi, (TAP, 1993), the Editor (with Frances Sommer Anderson) of Relational Perspectives on the Body, (TAP, 1998), the Editor (with Stephen Mitchell) of Relational Psychoanalysis: The Emergence of a Tradition, (TAP, 1999) and the Editor (with Adrienne Harris) of Relational Psychoanalysis, II, Innovation and Expansion (TAP, 2005). He was one of the founders, and is an Associate Editor of, Psychoanalytic Dialogues: A Journal of Relational Perspectives and he is the series editor (with Adrienne Harris) of the Relational Perspectives Book Series, published by The Analytic Press. He is a member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, North American Editorial Board. He is in private practice in New York City and in Port Washington, Long Island, N.Y.

Hotel Baronette
Novi, Michigan

Directions to the Conference Center

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November 20, 2005

“That's Not Analytic”:
Theory Pressure or 'Chaotic Possibilites'
in Analytic Training.

Carol Levin, M.D.
Pamela Orosan-Weine, Ph.D., discussant

11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

Exploring the press to conform to a particular analytic theory in her training, often expressed in the pronouncement, "That's not analytic," the author uses a clinical example to illustrate how supervisory pressure risked constricting her work with a training patient and dampening the creation of her authentic analytic voice. she often found herself looking over her shoulder, so to speak, because supervisory stamps of approval were required for progression in training. Using concepts from chaos theory that are being integrated into psychoanalysis, she proposes that ana analytic process takes place in a vast, dynamic intersubjective field that optimally oscillates freely and provides the ground for creative analytic development.

Carol Levin, M.D. is a founding member of MPC who, before the founding of the Council, hosted the fiorst class that Murray Meisels taught in East Lansing. She considers MPC her first analytic home. More than two decades later, she graduated from her analytic training at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, of which she is also a member. She is a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Michigan State University and has a private practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and consultation in Okemos and Bloomfield Township.

January 15, 2006

From G. W. Pabst to Terry Gilliam:
Cinematic Visions of Freud’s ‘Royal Road’

Jerrold Brandell, Ph.D., BCD

Ann Arbor Women's City Club. 1830 Washtenaw
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Of the various psychoanalytic concepts and insights expropriated by the popular culture, dream interpretation has always generated special interest, a broad appeal not lost to screenwriters and movie directors. Using cinematic examples representing different genres and historical epochs, this paper selectively examines the various ways in which patients' dreams have been represented and interpreted in cinematic depictions of psychoanalytic treatment over the past eighty-five years.

Jerrold Brandell, Ph.D., BCD, is a Professor and chairperson of the Graduate Concentration in Interpersonal Practice at Wayne State University School of Social Work. He is the founding editor of the journal, Psychoanalytic Social Work, and author or editor of seven books, the most recent of which are Psychodynamic Social Work (Columbia University Press, 2004) and Celluloid Couches, Cinematic Clients: Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in the Movies (State University of New York Press, 2004). Jerry maintains a small private practice in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Ann Arbor, and is also very actively involved in clinical supervision and consultation.

February 19, 2006

Parallel processes, openings and closings in psychoanalytic training

Linda Young, Ph.D., Andrea Corn, Psy.D.,
and Michael Shulman, Ph.D.

11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

Panel Overview: This panel presents commentaries on the power of the parallel process as exemplified in personal experiences as well as a theoretical discussion highlighting the authority of the spoken and unspoken words. In this panel, two candidates who are currently in separate analytic institutes will share their perspectives on the supervisory process, especially with regard to the influence and presence of an upward and downward parallel process. In each paper, a particular case will be discussed along with the analysts' reflections as gleaned through self-inquiry. The third paper will offen an innovative and creative discussion of the case material, with an emphasis on the importance of language with regard to spoken and unspoken communications underlying parallel processes.

Paper 1 - by Linda Young

This discussion presents for consideration the power of parallel processes in a particular training case as reported by a supervisee within a training institute. The obscuring and dominating nature of this experience -- one which was experienced as compelling by the supervisee on the same level (albeit with different aspects) as the compelling intensity of his experience of transference to his own analyst -- is explored in detail as a function of parallels with authority which are gathered into, but may become invisible within, highly structured institute training. The conditions which stir the experience of such intense feelings within the supervisory encounter will be explored, as will implicaitons for training structures, conventions, and "rules." Conditions allowing fruitful work to be done, as well as those productive of fruitlessness, in learning from parallel processes in supervision are discussed in conclusion.

Paper 2 - by Andrea Corn

The paper examines the relationship and interplay between therapy and supervision as conducted within a trianing institute. this paper also explores how the therapist who has particular similarities to the patient brings her own defensive style as wll 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 patient, therapist, and supervisor. The paper describes in detail and upward as well as downward parallel process acted out by the therapist and patient in the transference-countertransference along with the supervisor's conscious and unconscious role in this process. Last, this paper also discusses ther therapist's reluctance to broach unpleasant feelings with her training supervisor.

Paper 3 - by Michael E. Shulman

The discussion will explore the notion that the art of psychoanalysis involves speaking to that which is unrecognized or left out in ordinary conversation. The discussant will identify key features of the supervisory experience having to do with that which is ostensibly left out, e.g. the patient who is not physically present in the supervisory material, highlighting the centrality of this idea of an ostensibly missing presence in psychoanalytic inquiry. Exploring the ways in which the self is actually articulated in the "other" (the patient's self is articulated by the therapist and brought to supervision; the supervisor's self is elucidated in the "other" of the patient being discussed), the discussant will explore the implications for a psychoanalytic discourse of the self which gets lived out through a dialiogue with and about the "other."

Michael Shulman, Ph.D is in the private practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, consultation and supervision in Ann Arbor. He is currently completing his psychoanalytic education at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Shulman has served on the faculties of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Madonna University, the University of Detroit-Mercy, the University of Toledo, and MPI's Extension Division. A Past President of the Southeast Florida Association for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy during his eight years of residence in that warmer clime, he is also a former Consultant to the Practice Directorate of the American Psychological Association. He's published and presented on topics in psychoanalytic metapsychology, psychoanalysis and film, and the impact of managed care on the thinking of the psychotherapist, and will be presenting a paper on the particular pleasures of psychoanalytic work and our history of their non-discussion at MPI on March 11, 2006.

Linda Young, Ph.D graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and received her Ph.D in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan. After that, she obtained a postdoctoral fellowship at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute and went on to hold a faculty position, working and teaching on the Adult and Child Inpatient and Outpatient Services. She hs many years of experience treating individuals who have been involuntarily hospitalized and has wirtten numerous papers on the topic of working psychoanalytically with individuals characterized as "difficult to treat." Dr. Young is a former Vice President of the Michigan Society of Psychoanalytic Psychology. She is also a founding member of the Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts and has servied as its Vice President since its inception. She has published several papers and has presented her wiork at local, national, and international conferences. Dr. Young has a psychoanalytic practice in Ann Arbor and Northville, Michigan, which includes providing supervision and onsultation to other professionals. In addition to her psychoanalytic practice, Dr. Young is involved in a professional singing and dancing troupe.

Andrea Corn, Psy.D recieved her Psy.D from Nova Southeastern University in 1994. Subsequently she has completed a two-year post-doctoral program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the Southeast Florida Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (SEFIPP). Currently, Dr. Corn is an advanced candidate in SEFIPP's Psychoanalysis Training Program. Since 1998, Dr. Corn has been active in the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) where she has served as Section IV, Local Chapter representative, Section IV President, and Section IV Representative to the Division (39) Board. In 2004, Dr. Corn was Co-Chair of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) Annual Spring Meeting in Miami Beach, Fl. Dr. Corn is in private practice at Child and Family Psychologists in Plantation, Fl., where she specializes in the treatment of children, adolescents, and families. Dr. Corn enjoys presenting and has several publications on diverse topics including anorexia nervosa, masochistic adolescents, and dreams. Another area of interest is in youth and adolescent sports. She is also a contributing writer for the National Alliance of Youth Sports (NAYS) and wites a bi-monthly column entitled, "Family Matters" for South Florida Parenting magazine.

March 26, 2006
(Note:this is a change from the
usual March meeting date)

"Failure to meet the challenges
of Late Adolescence"

Howard Lerner, Ph.D.
Brenda Lovegrove-Lepisto, Psy.D., discussant

Directions to Madonna University

Leave taking, both internal and external, can be thought of as the major challenge of late adolescence, particularly in our culture. The case presentation is based on the rich conceptual and technical framework for understanding and treating sadomasochistic psychopathology formulated by Jack and Kerry Novick. Specifically, the Novick’s “two-system” model of self regulation is applied to the treatment of a disturbed adolescent boy and his family. A narrative process summary of the clinical work is presented offering examples of “open” and “closed” functioning and the role of omnipotent beliefs and fantasies. Important details from the patient’s family history, including adoption, traumatization, and parental externalization, are explored. The clinical utility of the “two system” model, the pivotal role of the therapeutic alliance, and the significance of clinical work with the family through all stages of the treatment process are illustrated.

Howard Lerner, Ph.D. is a child, adolescent, and adult psychoanalyst in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and a faculty member of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a Family Consultant at the Allen Creek Preschool. He has written extensively on the Rorschach, the Borderline diagnosis, and clinical work with disturbed adolescence.

Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto, Psy.D, is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in East Lansing. She is an adjunct professor at Michigan State University in the College of Human Medicine and teaches at Hurley Medical Center in the internal medicine residency program. Dr. Lepisto is also an adjunct professor in the MSU Psychology Department where she supervises clinical psychology doctoral students. Currently she is President-Elect at MPC and is developing a child psychoanalysis and child psychoanalytic psychotherapy training track at MPC.

The Michigan League
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Directions to the Michigan League

April 30, 2006

Oral History and

Echoes of Cataclysms Past

Henry Krystal, .D.

11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

Oral history is constructed from the structure that arises out of the demands of severe trauma. Posttraumatic Alexithymia, with its prosody, accounts for the way that the most horrible things can be told.

Distortions, wish fulfillment, defenses, and elaborations are similar in all forms of oral history as well as in individual clinical history. Peoples' memories of traumatic events are controlled and modified to prevent them from becoming causes of future retraumatization. Severe trauma compromises and/or eradicates both the capacity to complete mourning and the capacity to create good idealized objects.

In considering the UNIVERSALLY appearing story of the Deluge, or "Flood," for example, we find that a maneuver is made in the minds of the survivors to retain an omnipotent and benevolent God. Those who perished in the calamity are declared sinners so hopeless that they had to be "uprooted." It is, perhaps, no coincidence that "ausgerrotten," i.e. "uprooted" was one of Hitler's favorite words. When idealized objects cannot be restored and/or mourning is not completed, aberrations of life and love enter the picture. In Genesis, the daughters of Lot undertake the "perpetuation of the line" in a perverse way.

Drawing heavily on work with holocaust survivors, this paper will focus on the structure and vicissitudes of oral history whether

found in the Bible, myth, or fairy tales.

Henry Krystal, M.D. is a psychoanalyst, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Michigan State University, and faculty member of both the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. He is a pioneer and distinguished author in the fields of trauma, post-traumatic sequels, alexithymia, addiction and somatization. His publications include Integration and Self-Healing, Drug Dependence, and Psychic Traumatization. Some of Dr. Krystal’s other interests include researching and writing about applied psychoanalysis, problems of aggression, creativity in relationship to transitional objects and functions, as well as psychoanalytic views of creativity in relationship to neuroscience and chaos theory. In addition, he has published 76 papers in the field so far. Recently, Dr. Krystal, as a pioneer in the field of trauma, was invited to write an autobiographic essay which was published in the book Mapping Trauma And Its Wake.

After the restitution laws in Germany were passed, Dr. Krystal became involved in a research project which included examining many of his fellow Holocaust survivors, follow up with hundreds of reexaminations, and some treatments. This research program was finalized when a historian at U of M Dearborn became involved in a "Testimony" program in which 150-200 survivors, including Dr. Krystal, were interviewed and videotaped. These interviews are available at

https://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/index.html

Dr. Krystal has been sitting in on history in the making and all against the background of his 50 years in the field of psychoanalysis. His work has been guided by the importance of “the recognition that neither as healers nor as patients could we deal with anything else but our own psychic reality.”

Madonna University
Kresge Hall

May 21, 2005

Psychoanalysis as a Spiritual Path
Frank Sollars, Ph.D.
11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

Psychoanalysis as a Spiritual Path examines and attempts to unsettle the apparent contradiction between psychoanalysis as a science and psychoanalysis as a spiritual discipline. Correlations are drawn between Eastern concepts of Maya and duality and the psychoanalytic notion of conflict. Concepts of Nirvana, unitive consciousness and divine communion are correlated with the psychoanalytic concepts of the real self and conflict free ego functioning. Although Freud believed that religion was an illusion with no future many psychoanalysts have felt that analysis, if not a religious experience, is a deeply spiritual one in which people feel liberated from internal conflict and strife and develop greater feelings of joy, pleasure and gratitude in their lives. It is suggested that psychoanalysis can be more directly refocused to overtly claim a position as a spiritual path by emphasizing transformation of duality with the aim of liberating inhibitions to unitive consciousness and conflict free ego functioning.

Frank Sollars, Ph.D, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Birmingham, MI working with adolescents and adults. He is a supervising and training Analyst with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council and has had a keen interest in bringing MPC’s presence to the Detroit area. He leads a monthly supervisory group in Birmingham and teaches for the Council. Dr. Sollars supervises graduate interns for the University of Detroit-Mercy and Madonna University.

Note: a luncheon for new MPC members will follow the presentation.

September 19, 2004

Gender Unbound

June, 2006
June Banquet

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Additional information may be obtained by contacting (517) 484-5065

(2004 - 2005)

Ellen Toronto, Ph.D.

11:00 A.M.-1 P.M.

The paper will present case material with all identifying data except gender. The material was chosen 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. The discussion will focus on two related issues, the first being that by eliminating crucial information about gender we may be able to listen to the data in a new way and recognize those possibly skewed assumptions that we automatically bring to bear when we learn that a person is male or female. The paper will then address the seemingly innate and compelling need that we have to know a person's gender and will offer possible explanations for the etiology of our anxiety about gender..

Ellen Toronto, Ph.D. is a psychoanlayst in private practice in Ann Arbor. She is a Founding Member and Past President of MPC and has also been Past President of the Section on Women and Gender in the Division of Psychoanalysis of APA. She has published in the areas of women and gender with particular interest in the non-verbal communication of mother and child as it becomes manifest in the clinical setting. Dr. Toronto is lead editor of a book entitled Into the Void which has recently been accepted for publication by Brunner-Routledge. The book is a compilation of articles by Section III members with current commentary centered around a gender-free case.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Reflections on Transference and Countertransference Issues when Patients Return for Analytic Work

Steven Cooper, Ph.D.

9:00 A.M.-4 P.M.

Dr. Cooper will explore a variety of issues related to the patient's return to analysis, particularly with his former analyst. Among the issues that he will explore are the complex tensions between hope and limitation that accompany the patient's return. He suggests that returning patients often seem to reflect a kind of post-oedipal relationship toward their former analyst to the extent that they may see the analyst a bit more clearly through the transferential woods.

Dr. Cooper examines decisions between patient and analyst regarding the constructed attitudes that each hold toward the nature and value of the therapeutic regression. He will also explore a concept he terms "infinite regret." The ubiquitous nature of regret requires the analyst and patient to examine the sorts of conscious and unconscious fantasies that the patient holds in regard to changing and undoing previously held decisions and self-stances which he or she might regret. Dr. Cooper posits that resumed analysis can serve to perpetuate unconscious fantasies or allow for a further grieving and mourning process to help in their resolution.

Steven H. Cooper, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising analyst, the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; Supervising Analyst and Faculty, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis; Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Hospital; Corresponding Editor, Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Author: Objects of Hope: Exploring Possibility and Limit in Psychoanalysis; Private Practice, Cambridge, MA.

Doubletree Hotel
Novi, Michigan

Directions to the Doubletree Hotel

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November 14, 20034

“I NO LONGER BELIEVE”:
Did Freud Abandon the Seduction Theory?

Karin Ahbel-Rappe, Ph.D., MSSW

Recent histories of the seduction theory and its abandonment have emphasized the continuity of Freud’s work before and after the seduction theory, claiming that Freud did not give up his concern with the event of seduction but rather came to appreciate that an understanding of phantasy was also critical. This claim will be challenged. It will be shown that Freud left behind his early interest in reconstructing unconscious infantile incest and focused instead on later, conscious seduction, primarily among children; that he at times clearly reduced paternal incest to phantasy; that he turned away from the phenomenology of incest; and that he theoretically nulllified the difference between real and phantasied seduction. It will also be shown that concern with actual seduction need not detract from concern with phantasy and infantile sexuality, but rather leads right to the capacity for phantasyzing, to the core of the Freudian psyche. In this way the intuition of the seduction theory that there is something of particular psychoanalytic significance about incest finds support.

Karin Ahbel-Rappe, PhD,MSSW is in independent practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is a candidate in psychoanalysis at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council. Her current research focus is Freudian theory and language. **Note time change from regular third Sunday of the month.

Ann Arbor Women's City Club. 1830 Washtenaw
Ann Arbor, Michigan

January 16, 2005

“I Became a Human Being:”

Treatment of a Severely Traumatized Child

Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto, Psy.D.

This presentation will focus on the treatment of a child who manifested deficits and conflict resulting from early abuse and neglect. Disruption of attachment and trauma compromised this child’s development, capacity for relatedness, and affect regulation, leaving him prone to aggressive outbursts, magical thinking, tremendous fear and anxiety, a chronic lack of pleasure, alienation from others, and a sadomasochistic line of development. Over the course of two consecutive years and with his return to treatment several years later, this child and I discovered a way to work together in spite of his grave mistrust of others, paranoia, aggression, and sadistic impulses. This case offers the opportunity to examine a child treatment where progress was made despite severe trauma, unstable living environment and serious psychopathology. There will be ample time to discuss the case material.

Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto, Psy.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in East Lansing. She is an adjunct professor at Michigan State University at the College of Human Medicine and teaches at Hurley Medical Center in the internal medicine residency program. Dr. Lepisto is also an adjunct professor in the MSU Psychology Department where she supervises clinical psychology doctoral students. Her publications and research interests include: children and adolescents' perceptions of their experiences, outcome studies using the Rorschach, and the use of empathy in treatment. Currently, she is researching and writing a book on the mutual individuation process that occurs between mothers and their children.

February 20, 2005

Four Modes of Therapeutic Listening

David Klein, Ph.D.

Ann Arbor Women's City Club. 1830 Washtenaw
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Listening to the patient is our central activity in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. The capacity to be an effective listener is the single most significant factor for our work. In this paper I will discuss four different modes of therapeutic listening. The four modes are: Conversational Listening; Listening for Flow; Listening for Encoded Meaning; and Listening Within One’s Self. It has been helpful to me to identify these modes, to study each of them, and to be aware when I am using each in my clinical work. If our patients are to feel “really listened to”, it is important to utilize these multiple modes of listening. No one mode is sufficient in itself. Each of these modes has been discussed to some extent in the literature. However, to my knowledge there has not been a systematic effort to discuss the benefits and limitations inherent in each mode, and to identify the different forms of intervention which tend to emerge from each mode. This paper will attempt to do so. As well, issues involved in flexibly shifting from one mode to another will be discussed. Clinical examples will be used to illustrate the concepts.

David B. Klein, Ph.D., practices psychotherapy and psychoanalyis in Ann Arbor, working with children, adolescents and adults. After serving as MPC Treasurer for 5 years, he is currently President-elect; as well as the Editor of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council Bulletin. Currently he is the instructor for MPC course on Development.

March 20, 2005

Pattern as Inspiration and Mode of Communication

in the works of Vincent Van Gogh

Marilyn Charles, Ph.D.

Van Gogh’s use of colour is so striking that it is easy to overlook the intensity of the pattern that underlies his work. A recent exhibit in Arles, however, interspersed drawings of Van Gogh with quotations from letters to his brother Theo, highlighting the kinetic energy of the patterning in these black and white renderings (see Van Gogh, 2003). Van Gogh seems to be caught in the realm of primary experience, desperately trying to translate it sufficiently that he might communicate some of its splendour. We find him poised between immersion in the experience and the need to distance himself sufficiently from that very experience, that he might capture it and also, ultimately, survive. We also find him poised at the beginning of a new era in the history of art, making it important to appreciate the cultural and historical factors impinging on this artist at the time. Guided in her efforts by an appreciation of nonverbal communication, through which art achieves its power, the author looks at pattern as an element in the work of Van Gogh. Using conceptualizations from modern art, from Schachtel’s (1976) explications of differences between the experience of colour versus form, and from the writings of Van Gogh, himself, we can begin to form ideas as to the constraints that Van Gogh experienced in relation to his art. Looking then, at his use of pattern in his drawings, we can begin to formulate ideas regarding the tensions and constrictions he experienced and the ways in which he attempted to articulate these tensions, emotions, and dilemmas through the use of form.

Marilyn Charles, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in practice in East Lansing, Michigan, working extensively with artists, writers, and musicians. As an analyst with MPC and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at Michigan State, she is committed to mentoring the next generation of clinicians, enjoying both teaching and supervision. Marilyn has a particular interest in British Object Relations theories, participating in a yearly seminar in London with noted Kleinian analysts. She has been invited to write a review of the two volume set Building on Bion, as well as a clinical chapter on Klein to be published by next year in Jon Mills’ edited volume: Other Banalities: Exploring the Legacy of Melanie Klein. She plans to teach a seminar titled “Klein, Bion, and Beyond” for MPC during the 2005-2006 course year. Dr. Charles has presented and published widely, and has served as an editor for several journals. She has become known for her work on nonverbal communications and has been invited to teach a seminar on this subject by the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. Her book Patterns: Building Blocks of Experience (2002: Analytic Press) has been nominated for the Goethe Prize in Psychoanalytic Scholarship. She is also the author of Learning From Experience: A Clinician’s Guide (2004:Analytic Press) and Constructing Realities: Transformations in Myth and Metaphor (2004: Rodopi).

Directions to the St. John's Golf & Conference Center

April 24, 2005

Mourning a Ghost- Finding A Pathway From Despair

Robert Hooberman, Ph.D.

Discussant: Karen Baker, MSW

11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

Psychoanalysis is the treatment of choice for those patients who have experienced severely damaging early childhood experiences, as so eloquently described by Shengold as ‘soul murdered’. These people often lead sterile, unsatisfying lives, cut off from emotionality and vitality.

Identification of patients who feel so lost often occurs through the countertransference since they tend to not affectively engage, resulting in the analyst feeling what the patient so often experiences, a desert of emotional sterility. Therapy with the disaffected can be very unsatisfying since the patient makes progress at glacial speed and conveys an atmosphere of deadness that is stultifying. Abhorrence of the ‘nameless dread’ can also push the analyst toward acting out, typically by premature termination. Patients with this lost presentation often drift through life, either experiencing internal desolation or trying to enliven themselves through attachments to exciting part-objects. Helping the patient to achieve a solid sense of connection with objects creates a sense of loss, hastens the movement toward the depressive position and ultimately replaces despair with sadness.

Robert Hooberman, Ph.D. is a psychologist/psychoanalyst practicing in Ann Arbor. He is Past-President of MPC. Currently he is working on a book aimed at an integrative approach to interpretation. He has published two previous books, Character Transformation through the Psychotherapeutic Relationship and Managing the Difficult Patient (with Barbara Hooberman). Dr. Hooberman works with adolescents and adults and has a special interest in working with those who are often characterized as “difficult”.

Karen Baker, MSW is a Clinical Social Worker/Psychoanalyst in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she sees adolescents, adults and couples. She is a supervisor, faculty member and training analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council where she also serves as Member-at-Large on the Board. She is a Family Consultant at the Allen Creek Pre-school in Ann Arbor. Ms. Baker currently serves as Board Secretary of the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work.

St. John's Golf & Conference Center
Wisdom Room
44045 Five Mile Rd.
Plymouth MI

May 15, 2005

Empathy
Directed by Amie Siegel
Discussants: Teresa Bernardez, M.D. and Marilyn Charles, Ph.D.

Empathy is a feature film that explores the tricky intimacy between psychoanalysts and their patients. Empathy interweaves a fictional narrative, documentary interviews, screen tests and a parodied television documentary of the analyst's favorite piece of furniture - the Eames Chair. A prrovocative mosaic of genres that looks at power, manipulation and the promise of empathy, patient and therapist disclosure, performance and identity, exploitation,and the boundaries between truth and fiction.

A $15 donation is requested to help defray the costs of the presentation.

DISCUSSANTS

Teresa Bernardez, M.D. is a psychiatrist and a training and supervising analyst at MPC. She was Professor of Psychiatry at the College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University from1871 to 1989. Previously she had been a staff psychiatrist at the Menninger Clinic, a training and supervising faculty at The Menninger School of Psychiatry, a Faculty and Clinical Associate of the Tavistock Clinic in London, and a Fellow of the Bunting Institute, Harvard University. She is a film and Jazz lover, considering them the arts "par excellence" of the 20th century. She uses film to explore gender stereotypes and gender variations across cultures and over time.

Marilyn Charles, Ph.D, is a training and supervising analyst with MPC and adjunct faculty of clinical psychology at Michigan State University. She is the author of three books: Patterns, Learning Through Experience, and Constructing Realities. She maintains a private practice in East Lansing. An artist and a poet herself, she works extensively with artists,musicians, and writers, and is particularly interested in how culture is expressed and re-visioned in the arts.

September 22, 2002

Resilience

June, 2004
June Banquet

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Additional information may be obtained by contacting Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto, Psy.D. at or (517) 333-0332

Henry Krystal, M.D.

11:00 A.M.-1 P.M.

A retrospective study of thirty-five-year follow-ups of survivors of the Holocaust and other genocidal tragedies, this paper asks the question, "What attributes allow individuals to survive and master lethal trauma, and what characteristics favor successful resumption of 'normal' life?" Resilience is built on the conviction of one's security, lovability, and safety. The nature of affects and ways in which they serve as signals in information processing, alerting and preparing one for a response to danger, are involved in the prevention of traumatic surrender and psychogenic death when trauma cannot be avoided. The ways in which one's psychic reality is maintained in the constricted trauma sheds light on the function of signal affects and the nature of registration and recall. Unconscious and repressed memory traces are not preserved intact but are subject to complex modifications. For survivors of the Holocaust, use of disavowal, repudiation, and suspension of mourning was essential. The most severe challenges involved dealing with God, rage, guilt, shame, and the necessity to restore an acceptable schema of world order. Restoring access to benign introjects is one part of regaining one's capacity to love. Love is everyone's life power.

Dr. Krystal is a psychoanalyst, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Michigan State University, and faculty member of both the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council. He is a distinguished author in the fields of trauma, post-traumatic sequels, alexithymia, addiction, and somaticization. His work has been guided by the importance of "the recognition that neither as healers nor as patients would we deal with anything else but our own psychic reality."

October 20, 2002

Effects of Divorce on Children

Ira Schaer, Ph.D.

11:00 A.M.-1 P.M.

This paper examines current research on the impact of divorce on children and adolescents from a psychoanalytic perspective. Particular difficulties in object relations development and ego functioning will be explored. Treatment issues and the specific problems these clients manifest in therapy will be discussed.

Ira Schaer, Ph.D. is an instructor for MPC, most recently teaching a course in adolescent development. He served on the staff and faculty of the Children's Service at Detroit Psychiatric Institute for over twenty years. During this time, he was involved in studying the effects of chronic, multiple trauma in inner city children and exploring applications of psychodynamic treatment with this population. He currently has a private practice in Huntington Woods, specializing in the treatment of children and adolescents, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit-Mercy and an instructor at Madonna University. Dr. Schaer is also a member of the Michigan Society of Forensic Psychology and a consultant to the Oakland County Probate Court.

November 17, 2002

The Contribution of Mothering to the Lifelong Individuation Process

Brenda Lepisto, Psy.D.

The unique aspects of the process in mothering that foster individuation in the mother will be explored in this presentation. Women are in the unique position to individuate, separate, and then go through the process with their children beginning most commonly with pregnancy and lasting through the lifespan. Hence, there are points at which the mother-child relationship can be enhanced or go awry due to the constantly evolving nature of the emotional connection between mother and child. An overview of individualtion will be discussed as well as clinical interventions that can be used with mothers who are either patients or have children who are patients.

Dr. Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in private practice in East Lansing. She received her Psy.D. in clinical psychology from Central Michigan University. She completed her internship in The Deveraux Foundation and at Michigan State University, child clinical psychology post doctoral fellowship at Hurley Medical Center in the internal medicine residency program. Dr. Lepisto is also an adjunct professor in the MSU Psychology Department, where she supervises clinical psychology doctoral students. Her publications and research interests include: children and adolescents' perceptions of their experiences, outcome studies using the Rorschach, and the use of empathy in treatment.

January 19, 2003

ABSTRACTION:
The Analyst's Escape from Psychoanalysis

Bertram Karon, Ph.D.

What is most valuable in psychoanalyis is specific and concrete but painful. As Ferenczi pointed out, the two most useful words for a psychoanalyst are "for example." Abstractions can serve as a defense against pain, but frequently at a cost for the patient. Psychoanalysts and patients can talk about abstractions all day without trouble, but the real material is difficult to stay with. Nonetheless, good analysts use abstractions for rough guidance in a sea of confusion, but do not let them get in the way of hearing the patient. Clinical examples will be given.

February 16, 2003

On Mourning

Franklin Sollars, Ph.D.

Working through, the cornerstone of psychoanalytic change, involves the mourning of trauma which resurfaces in the transference. The mourning process requires three distinct tasks for its completion. The first is the resolution of unconscious resistance, the second is an expansion of the self representation through a de-externalization of the bad-object experience and thirdly, is the gradual implementation of affect tolerance and cognitive expansion to enable change. The author draws on an eclectic array of psychoanalytic schools to present his position.

Franklin Sollars, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council. He has had a keen interest in bringing MPC’s presence to the Detroit area. He leads a monthly supervisory group in Birmingham and teaches for the Council. Dr. Sollars supervises graduate interns for the University of Detroit-Mercy and Madonna University.

March 16, 2003

The Role of Episodic and Procedural Memory in Transference:
Implications for Unconscious Affect and Consciousness

Howard Shevrin, Ph.D.

Recently efforts have been made to redefine transference as the enactment of procedural memories, a concept drawn from cognitive memory research. A critique of this approach will be addressed both clinically and experimentally with particular emphasis on the place of unconscious affect and the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes in transference experiences.

Dr. Howard Shevrinis a professor of psychology in the departments of Psychiatry and Psychology and faculty member of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. His analytic training was obtained at the Topeka Institute of Psychoanalysis. Dr. Shevrin has devoted a considerable portion of his career to research on unconscious processes. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and Neuro-Psychoanalysis. Recent publications have appeared in Consciousness and Cognition, JAPA, and IJP.

April 13, 2003

Transformation from Malevolent to Benevolent Living:
Healing the Traumatic Experience

Elizabeth Waiess, Psy.D.

Using clinical vinettes, this paper explores the component of refuge provided by the psychonalytic relationship and the idea of reconnecting mind and body which have been psychologically disconnected during traumatization. The emergence, use and meaning of hallucinations in working with massively traumatized individuals is discussed as a positive step in the recovery process.

Dr. Waiess is a psychoanalyst and psychologist in full-time private practice in East Lansing. She also teaches part time for Lansing Community College and is an adjunct instructor at Michigan State University. She specializes in the area of massive psychic trauma. She has worked clinically with adults, children and adolescents for 20 years.

Discussants

Sandra Brown Wiersma, M.A. is a psychoanalytic psychologist in private practice. She specializes in the analytic treatment of patients who have experienced severe psychic trauma. Ms. Wiersma has served as an adjenct instructor in psychology for Aquinas College and has taught at University of Detroit as a teaching Scholar in Psychology.
Edward P. Schmitt, Ph.D. is in full time private practice in psychodynamic and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy in Jenison, Michigan. He is the director of a small, psychodynamically oriented psychology practice which operates outside the managed care environment. He has been involved with MSPP and MPC for nearly two decades, via attending programs, course work, and supervision. Dr. Schmitt's interests include psychoanalytic psychotherapy and clinical and economic issues related to functioning outside the managed care environment.

Airport Hilton
4747 28th Street
Grand Rapids, Michigan

May 18, 2003

Early Maternal Loss:
From Cannibalistic Fantasy Play to Sad Affect

Barbara Streeter, M.S., L.P.C.C.
Hannah Perkins School, Cleveland

The presentation is of the beginning analysis of an adopted child who suffered maternal loss and reported sexual abuse during her first year. This is a child with a severe and early disturbance whose analytic treatment was made possible through two and a half years of preparatory work in the treatment-via-the-parent in conjunction with attendance at the Hannah Perkins School. The paper illustrates the way in which very primitive feelings and urges conveyed in play and interactions with the therapist were addressed and linked to the early experiences. It also show how interpretations of defenses resulted in gradual integration of the personality structure and the capacity to experience sadness in relation to separation from the therapist.

Barbara U. Streeter, M.S., L.P.C.C. qualified as a child and adolescent psychoanalyst through the Cleveland Center for Research in Child Development. She is currently the Director of Therapy for the Hannah Perkins School, Associate Director of the Hannah Perkins Center (HPC) Extension Division and on the Faculty of the HPC. She helped develop the HPC/TRW Early Childhood Intervention Alliance, a national day care consultation project; is co-editor of the Newsletter of the Association for Child Psychoanalysis; is the past president of the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Society; and is currently Secretary of the Board of the newly established Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center. Prior to becoming a psychoanalyst, Ms. Streeter was a teacher in the Hanna Perkins Kindergarten. She has an M.S. in Special Education from Bank Street College in NYC and graduated with honors from Brown University.

February 17, 2002
About Cruising and Being Cruised

Dennis Shelby, Ph.D.

June, 2003
June Banquet

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Additional information may be obtained by contacting Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto, Psy.D. at or (517) 333-0332

September, 16 2001
Evolutionary Biology and Psychoanalysis:
A Symposium

Evolutionary Biology and Psychoanalysis
Murray Meisels, Ph.D.

Evolutionary Thinking: Clinical Relevance?
Anne Eisen, M.D.

Did Repression Evolve Because It Makes
Commitments Possible?
Randolphe Nesse, M.D.

11:00 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Michigan Union
Ann Arbor, Michigan

October 21, 2001
Bilingual Analysis of the Transference
And Its Impact on the Recovery of Memories

Teresa Bernardez, M.D.

11:00 A.M.-1 P.M.

University Club
East Lansing, Michigan

November 18, 2001
Trauma and Its Attempted Mastery
Strange Interlude

Alvin Curtis Spindler, M.D and
Evangeline Spindler, M.D

11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

Michigan League
Ann Arbor, Michigan

January 20, 2002
Clinical Implications of Learning Disorders
for Psychoanalytic Treatment

Joseph Palumbo, Ph.D., M.S.W.

11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

University Club
East Lansing, Michigan

R. Dennis Shelby received his MSW from Loyola University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from the Institute for Clinical Social Work. He is the author of two books based on qualitative research and his clinical experience: If A Partner Has AIDS and People With AIDS and Those Who Help Them, and many papers on clinical social work with HIV related problems and psychotherapy with gay men. He is a memeber of the Faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work and an advanced Candidate at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is the senior Editor of the Hawthorn Press series on Psychosocial Issues in HIV/AIDS and on the editorieal boards of the Journal of Homosexuality and The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy. He maintains a psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and consultation practice in Chicago.

This paper explores the phenomenon of cruising for sexual encounters from the perspective of self psychology. Previous papers on the subject have viewed cruising as a homosexual act and offered elaborate libidinal dynamic explanations that offer little details as to the treatment as a whole or outcome. The author offers evidence that cruising is a human act that is quite common in our society. The central theme of the paper is that when cruising is approached in libidinal terms, the emphasis is on sexual acts and not the needs of the self. By approaching cruising from the standpoint that the self is destabilized, and that cruising is an emergency measure employed to prevent further fragmentation, the emphasis shifts to the need to search. In this view the person is "lost" and and needs to be found in the transference. Clinical examples are offered to illustrate how the need to cruise was viewed as a manifestation of distress and the destabilized self was brought into the transference. The result was a deepening of the transference and a more complex and empathic understanding of the self of the patient.

April 21, 2002
Adolescent Case Presentation

March 17, 2002
A Beautiful Mind

Marilyn Charles, Ph.D.

11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.

The film is an apt medium for exploring the line between fantasy and reality in that it encourages us to leave aside our comfortable moorings in our own reality for an alternative view. The maker of the film A Beautiful Mind make explicit this tension by inviting us into the life and mind of Nobel-prize winning mathematician, John Nash, as he struggles to maintain his sanity while also testing the limits of his mind and imagination. This film encourages us to consider the dilemma of the gifted individual, when excessive tension arises between absorption in one’s medium versus the need for recognition.

Marilyn Charles, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in East Lansing. She is currently serving as Vice-President of Programs for MPC and is an adjunct professor of psychology at Michigan State University. A few of Dr. Charles’s most recent publications include “Bion’s Grid” for Le Mouvement Psychoanalytique, “Monogamy and Its Discontents” for American Journal of Psychoanalysis, “Through the Unknown, Remembered Gate” for Psychoanalytic Review, “The Outsider” for Free Associations, and “Repetition of the Remembered Past” for Psychoanalytic Psychology. Her chapter on women and psychotherapy in film will soon be published in The Celluloid Couch (ed. J.R. Brandell) by SUNY Press, and her book Patterns: Essential Building Blocks of Experience is in press.

University Club
East Lansing, Michigan

Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto, Psy.D.

This adolescent case presentation illustrates the psychoanalytic work that can be accomplished despite mitigating factors of maternal loss, drug abuse, parental dysfunction and acting out. The male adolescent, Jevon, was forced into treatment as an alternative to residential placement. He was able to form a therapeutic alliance, develop insight, and improve relationships with his peers. Specific techniques to engage this adolescent in the process will be highlighted. History of the case and excerpts from process notes will be read to give a flavor of the therapeutic relationship and how it developed over time.

Dr. Brenda Lovegrove Lepisto is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in private practice in East Lansing. She received her Psy.D. in clinical psychology from Central Michigan University. She completed her internship at the Devereux Foundation and at Michigan State University, child clinical psychology post-doctoral fellowship at the Hurley Medical Center and the Donald Whaley Children's Center. She is an adjunct professor at Michigan State University in the College of Human Medicine in the internal medicine residency program. Dr. Lepisto is also an adjunct professor on the MSU Psychology Department where she supervises clinical psychology doctoral students. Her publications and research interests include: children and adolescents' perceptions of their experiences, outcome studies using the Rorschach, and the use of empathy intretment. Currently, she is researching and writing a paper on the mutual individualtion process that occurs between mothers and their children.

Discussant: Robert Hooberman, Ph.D.

Robert Hooberman, Ph.D. is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in private practice in Ann Arbor, specializing in the treatment of adolescents and adults. He is currently the President of MPC. Dr. Hooberman is co-author of Managing the Difficult Patient and the author of the forthcoming book, Characterological Transformations and the Psychotherapeutic Relationship.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

May 19, 2002
What If There Are No Ghosts:
A Dissociative Perspective on The Sixth Sense

Linda Sherby

The Sixth Sense is a movie about a nine year old boy, Cole, who sees ghosts. They are scary ghosts, ghosts who get him into trouble and make him feel like a freak. But the truth is there are no ghosts. The only ghosts that exist are the ones inside our minds. For most of us, these ghosts, the ones inside of us, can be understood as the internalized self and object representations when have taken in, projected, and reinternalized over the course of our lives. We are haunted by many of these specters. The criticize us, taunt us, humiliate us. Many of us have more benign ghosts as well, those that soothe and comfort. For others, because of a confluence of external trauma and internal capacities, these ghosts become dissociated self-states, each with their own structure and autonomy. Cole can be understood in this light, as a severely traumatized child who has responded to his trauma by dissociating into relatively stable, enduring parts. Each of the ghosts in the movie representing a different personality state or alter of the child identified as Cole. Cole is not a freak. He is a child with a dissociative identity disorder.

Linda Sherby, Ph.D. is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in Boca Raton, Florida. She is past president and current secretary of the Southeast Florida Association of Psychoanalytic Psychology, as well as a faculty member and supervising analyst of the Southeast Florida Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Dr. Sherby practiced in Ann Arbor for eighteen years before moving to Florida and received her certificate in psychoanalysis for the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council.