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DR. JEFFREY SEINFELD MEMORIAL   PSYCHOANALYTIC LICENSE  MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS  NEURO-PSYCHO-EDUCATION

AMERICAN OBJECT RELATIONS SCHOOL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

2nd Trimester of the One-Year, Two-Year and the Full Training in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
(can be also taken as an individual post-graduate certificate course; no pre-requisites)

Course instructor: Susan Kavaler-Adler, PhD, ABPP, NCPsyA

Post-graduate psychoanalytic education credits offered: 12.5 hours

Dates: January, 14, 21, 28; February 4, 11, 18, 25; March 4, 11, 18 2020 (Thursdays, 8:45pm – 10pm)

Tuition: $450/ 10-week course/ trimester (can be paid in 2 installments, upon request). Registration: $25/course (waived for candidates in training)
- can be paid by CC via PayPal - follow the link: PayPal.Me/ORINYC . Additional registration fee ($25) for non-candidates.

Location: Virtual participation ONLY – via audio/video or audio only (with minimal technical requirements).

To Register for the course, follow the link HERE
To Register for one of the Training Programs, follow the link HERE

              This course studies the human psyche striving for connection, by looking at the profound pathological factors that undermine and subvert such a striving – through the lens of the Object Relations theories. Readings from nine American Object Relations theorists illustrate the clinical applications of Object Relations theories that we can trace back to Fairbairn, D. W. Winnicott, Melanie Klein, and Michael Balint.

            We will look at some of the clinical theories of Elizabeth Howell, Otto Kernberg, David Celani, and Jeffrey Seinfeld. We specifically look at the treatment of the Borderline condition, with related primitive defense operations of splitting and projective-identification. Also, with Jeffrey Seinfeld, we look at  how the Negative Therapeutic Reaction makes it so difficult to establish a holding environment for the gradual and eventual internalization of a “good object,” as we must be pressured into the projections and enactments of bad object addiction. We will then proceed to the integrative work of James Masterson, who helps us encounter the dissociation of Fairbairn, with a clinical awareness of the fusion of primal self and maternal dissociated parts, perpetuated and alternately persecutory, within our internal world of fantasy and psychic structure.

               Like Masterson, Althea Horner’s books emphasize the external dynamics of Margaret Mahler and the internal psychic manifestations of the disruption of these healthy developmental dynamics. Horner’s last book also informs us of how a developmental perspective allows us to view resistance as the external enactment of a core relationship problem housed within the internal world.  Horner allows us to view transference and countertransference resistance, as well as the pervasive phenomenon of sexualization.

When we arrive at Robert Grossmark’s insights, we see how Michael Balint’s work on “Basic Fault” is carried forward, helping us engage with pre-symbolic patients as an “Unobtrusive Relational Analyst” (Robert Grossmark). We learn about how to intentionally participate in enactments through “psychoanalytic companioning.”

With Frank Summers, we come to the focus of subjectivity in the analyst through “psychoanalytic vision,” which also overlaps with Thomas Ogden’s view of the development of subjectivity within the “Depressive Position.” In looking at the theoretical contributions of  Susan Kavaler-Adler, we will read some of her in-depth case studies that reflect the integration of Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, D. W. Winnicott, James Masterson, and Michael Balint  into the journey of “Developmental Mourning”-- resolving psychic structure dissociation through attunement to the affects and psychic fantasy of that journey.   

COURSE SYLLABUS

WEEK #1:

From the work of Elizabeth Howell’s book on “The Dissociative Mind” (2005):

Chapter 8: Projective Identification: Blind Foresight (pp. 178-195)

Chapter 9: Concepts of Psychic Processes, Defense, and Personality Organization (pp. 194- 218)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: analyze the Projective-Identification process; compare Repression and Dissociation as contrasting and interactive psychological defense processes.

WEEK #2:

From the work of Otto Kernberg on “Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism: Borderline Personality Disorders (1975):

Chapter 1: The Syndrome (pp. 3-48)

Chapter 2: Countertransference (pp. 49-68)

Chapter 3: General Principles of Treatment (pp.69-110)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: analyze the psychic structure of Borderline Personality Disorders; describe the use of countertransference in the treatment of Borderline Personalities.

WEEK #3:

From the work of David P. Celani, who translated Fairbairn’s ideas to American Object Relations understanding of the treatment of Character Disorders – reading from Celani, D. (2010). Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting:

Chapter 5: Working with the Borderline Patient and the Battered Woman (pp. 153-184)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: describe the Negative Therapeutic Reaction of the Borderline Patient; analyze the relationship between the containing of the negative bad object projections (Fairbairn’s Antilibidinal Ego), the patient’s ability to see it, and the beginning internalization of a “Good Object.”

WEEK #4:

From the work of Jeffrey Seinfeld, “The Bad Object: Handling the Negative Therapeutic Reaction in Psychotherapy” (1993):

Chapter 1: The Negative Therapeutic Reaction (pp. 3-20)

Chapter 2: Manifestations of the Bad Internal Object (pp. 21-60)

Chapter 8: Interpreting the Tie to the Bad Internal Object (pp. 189-218)

Chapter 9: Interpreting the Bad Object Transference (pp. 219-238)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: construct Seinfeld’s view of the tie to a Bad Internal Object; describe the “Bad Object Transference,” as illustrated by Seinfeld.

WEEK #5:

From the work of James F. Masterson, “The Personality Disorders” (2000):

Chapter 2: The Role of the Mother or Primary Caretaker in the Borderline Personality Disorder (pp. 33-56)

Chapter 3: Diagnosis — A Psychodynamic Approach to the Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Personality  Disorders (pp. 59-74)

Chapter 6: Working through Dissociative Defenses and Mourning the Loss of a Father (pp. 141-165)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: construct Masterson’s image of the Borderline mother; describe the role of the mourning process in the self-integration of the Borderline.

WEEK #6: 

From the work of Althea Horner, “Dealing with Resistance in Psychotherapy” (2005):

Chapter 1: The Core Relationship Problem in Resistance (pp. 1-14)

Chapter 2: Constructing the Developmental Hypothesis (pp.15-26)

Chapter 3: Countertransference Resistance and Therapeutic Impasse (pp. 27-34)

Chapter 4: Transference Resistances of the “Good Boy” and the “Good Girl” (pp. 35-44)

Chapter 5: The Sexualization of the Core Relationship Problem as Resistance (pp. 45-52)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: construct a “developmental hypothesis” for a patient, either one of Horner or of your own;

describe two  countertransference resistances; utilize understanding of a core relationship problem as resistance. 

WEEK #7:

From the work of Robert Grossmark, “The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst” (2018):

Chapter 1: The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst (pp. 13-39)

Chapter 2: The Flow of Enactive Engagement (pp. 40-53)

Chapter 3: Psychoanalytic Companioning (pp. 54-75)

Chapter 4: The eloquence of action: unobtrusive relational companioning, and the growth of Mind and Self (pp. 76-85)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: describe enactive engagement; analyze “psychoanalytic companioning”; utilize the “Unobtrusive Relational Analyst” clinical approach.

WEEK #8:

From the work of Frank Summers, “The Psychoanalytic Vision” (2013):

Chapter 1: The Subject of Psychoanalysis (pp. 3-19)

Chapter 2: Psychoanalysis, the Tyranny of Objectivism, and the Rebellion of the Subjective (pp. 20-30)

Chapter 3: The Emerging Psychoanalytic Ethic (pp, 31-44)

Chapter 5: Unconscious Psychic Acts and the Creation of Meaning (pp. 63-82)

Chapter 7: The Other as Transcendental Experience (pp. 95-108)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: 1)     contrasting the subjective and objective psychoanalysis; 2)     analyze “the creation of meaning.”

WEEK #9:

From the work of Susan Kavaler-Adler, “The Anatomy of Regret: From Death Instinct to Reparation and Symbolization in Vivid Case Studies” (2013):

Chapter 2: Conscious Regret in Clinical Treatment Engendering a Critical Turn towards Love and Creativity, Healing a Schizoid Woman and Her Family: The Case of Sharon (pp. 25-72)

Chapter 3: From Crime to Regret: An Affect Level View of Psychic Transformation and the Capacity to Love” (pp. 73-96)

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: 1) analyze the libidinal and antilbidinal ego enactments in the internal world of Sharon and Alicia;

2)     construct a view of regret concerning aggression leading to heartfelt mourning within a separation process.

WEEK #10:

From the works of Susan Kavaler-Adler, the following articles:

“The Case of David: On the Couch for Sixty Minutes, Nine Years of Once-a-week Treatment,” 2005, American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 65 (2), 103-134.

“’My Graduation is My Mother’s Funeral’: Transformation from the Paranoid-Schizoid Position to the Depressive Position in Fear of Success and the Role of the Internal Saboteur,” 2006, International Forum of Psychoanalysis (IFP), 15(2), 117-130.

Learning Goals: Upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to: 1) describe the Developmental Mourning process; 2) analyze how the Internal Saboteur is transformed as mourning and self integration progress.

Short Bio of the Instructor:

Susan Kavaler-Adler, Ph.D., ABPP, D.Litt., NCPsyA, is a Clinical psychologist and Psychoanalyst, who has been in practice in Manhattan for over 40 years. She is a Fellow of the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis, and is the Founder and Executive Director of the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (ORI). She is a Training Analyst, Senior Supervisor, and active faculty member at the ORI, a New York State chartered psychoanalytic training institute, which now trains people all over the world through its online virtual program. Dr. Kavaler-Adler is a prolific author, having published six books, and over 70 articles, most of which address issues of Object Relations theory and Psychoanalysis.  She has received 16 awards for her writing. Dr. Kavaler-Adler is also on the editorial Board of the International Journal of Controversial Conversations. 

Five of her six books are related to her psychoanalytic work and theories: The Klein-Winnicott Dialectic: Transformative New Metapsychology and Interactive Clinical Theory (Karnac/Routledge, 2014); The Anatomy of Regret: From Death Instinct to Reparation and Symbolization in Vivid Case Studies (Karnac/Routledge, 2013); Mourning, Spirituality and Psychic Change: A New Object Relations View of Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2003, Gradiva® Award from NAAP,2004); The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoes Frenzy to Love and Creativity (Routledge, 1996; ORI Academic Press, 2014, Gradiva® Award nomination); The Compulsion to Create: Women Writers and Their Demon Lovers (Routledge, 1993; ORI Academic Press, 2013). In addition, Dr. Kavaler-Adler has an Honorary Doctorate in Literature, and has an ongoing monthly writing group in her practice, a monthly online experiential supervision group, and a monthly “Meditative Visualization Therapy and Support Group.”

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