The Forth Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld Memorial Lecture:

The Klein-Winnicott Dialectic: Continuing Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld's Tradition of Dialectical Clinical Thinking

Presenter: Susan Kavaler-Adler, PhD, ABPP, NCPsyA, D.Litt.

Discussant: Jack Schwartz, PsyD, LCSW

Moderator: Jeffrey Lewis, PhD

Co-sponsored by St. John's University's Psychology Department and the Office of Postgraduate Professional Development Programs

Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015, 11 am - 2 pm

Location: St. John's University, Manhattan Campus, 101 Astor Place, NYC, 10003

This event is free, but RSVP is required. To RSVP, please email to Admin@ORINYC.org , call 646-522-1056 or 646-522-0387.

For the film of the event, please contact ORI administrator at the above email.

Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld was an active scientific faculty member and one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Object Relations Institute since its founding in 1991. For two decades since then, Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld and Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler shared their mutual interest in integrating and teaching the theories of the British school of object relations thinking.  They both believed that teaching the dialectical relation between Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Ronald Fairbairn, and other British theorists – rather than polarizing them – would offer the greatest contribution to helping psychotherapists and psychoanalysts with their critical clinical work. 

The subject of dialectic goes back to Melanie Klein’s view of projective identification and to Ronald Fairbairn’s view of the failed dialectic seen in the splitting situation of primal trauma, where self parts are merged with two “bad” part-objects.  These split self/object parts are not in dialectic, but rather in a sadomasochistic relationship with one another.  Following Fairbairn, Jeffrey Seinfeld saw the healing of trauma in the therapeutic situation as the route to forming a dialectic of self-and-other relations in one’s internal world (Fairbairn’s endopsychic situation), and consequently in one’s external world. 

Jeffrey Seinfeld also contributed to dialectical understanding of the objective (or induced) countertransference phenomenon, in which the psychoanalyst experiences (through projective identification) sadomasochistic enactment of patient’s primal trauma situation during the therapy session. While Heinrich Racker and Otto Kernberg spoke of the psychoanalyst experiencing only one side of the patient’s split psyche (e.g., parent part or child-victim part), Jeffrey Seinfeld spoke about the analyst experiencing both sides at once. This is not yet dialectic, but if understood, it can lead to the dialectic of self- and-object in the therapist; and this can be used to understanding the patient, and then helping the patient move to dialectic. 

Jeffrey Seinfeld was on a similar course as Thomas Ogden in expanding Melanie Klein’s original concept of projective identification and understanding the intersubjective experience in treatment. He was also on similar course with Susan Kavaler-Adler and her theory of psychic health in relation to love-creativity dialectic and the Klein-Winnicott dialectic in the clinical treatment situation.  In her 2014 Karnac book The Klein-Winnicott Dialectic:  New Transformative Metapsychology and Interactive Clinical Theory, Dr. Kavaler-Adler continues this tradition of dialectical clinical thinking.

By speaking about surrendering Melanie Klein’s metapsychology of the death instinct in favor of a metapsychology based on symbolization, Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s book inspires a broader developmental perspective that can integrate Klein and Winnicott in meaningful clinical dialectical process.  This broader developmental perspective also resonates with the concerns of academic psychology, particularly at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels.

BIOs:

Susan Kavaler-Adler, PhD, ABPP, D. Litt., NCPsyA is in practice as a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst - with the object relations psychoanalytic approach - for almost 40 years. She is the founder and executive director of the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in NYC, where she serves as the training and supervising analyst and senior faculty member, after teaching and supervising for many other institutes, including NIP.

Dr. Kavaler-Adler is a prolific author, with five published books and 60 peer-reviewed psychoanalytic articles written from the position of an object relations theorist and practitioner, with the main focus on character pathology, grief, mourning, developmental mourning, the demon-lover complex, creative blocks, psychic anorexia, self-sabotage, and relationship issues. Dr. Kavaler-Adler received 15 awards for her psychoanalytic writing. In her work with individuals and groups, she utilizes unique techniques of meditative psychic visualization, and she utilizes role-plays in her study and supervision groups.

Jack Schwartz LCSW, PsyD, NCPsyA is a nationally certified psychoanalyst and a faculty member, lecturer, and control analyst at the New Jersey Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis. While maintaining a full private practice in Northern New Jersey, Dr. Schwartz is a regular contributor and writer for a variety of clinical journals and is the author of a psychoanalytic novel called Our Time is Up.  Dr. Schwartz has been a regular presenter for ORI, NJI and NAAP.  His recent published article on Freud’s “Irma Dream” lead to the creation of his new multi-media project designed to offer a unique learning experience about the origins of psychoanalysis.

Jeffrey Lewis, PhD is psychoanalyst in full-time independent private practice, Ferenczi scholar, editorial board member of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis, faculty and board member of the Object Relations Institute, and full clinical professor in the doctoral program at St. John’s University.

For Registration Form, click HERE.

For more information, please contact the ORI administrator, Dr. Inna Rozentsvit, at 646-522-1056 or by email, at admin@orinyc.org .

ORI Academic Press is announcing call for papers related to work of Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld.

Paper selection will be finished by December 31st, 2015, and selected paper(s) will be published in the MindConsiliums.

The authors will be given the opportunity to present the selected paper(s) at the Annual Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld Memorial Lecture/Workshop in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years.