Psychoanalytic Grand Rounds @ ORI
Fairbairn’s Paradigm Shift to Developmental Model of Psychoanalysis
as a Method and a Clinical Tool

PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION:

This three hour introduction to the psychoanalytic theory of W.R.D. Fairbairn will focus on three key issues that emerge from his revolutionary model. The first is Fairbairn’s sensitivity to the developing infant and child’s absolute need for empathic and attuned parenting. The infant and child’s fundamental need is to feel safe and nurtured by his/her all important maternal object. The feeling allows normal development to unfold in a timely manner. Any disruption to the sense of secure attachment to the mother registers as a trauma and has to be erased from the child’s awareness so his feeling of safety can continue. The child’s only defense against early disruptions of his secure attachment to his mother is dissociation, which erases the memory of the interruption and forces it into the child’s unconscious. In families lacking empathy the child has to dissociate one interpersonal parenting failure after another, and these memories accumulate in the child’s unconscious and coalesce into memories of him/self in relation to an unempathic parent.

The internalized and dissociated memories of self and others live in the unconscious and engage in dialogues with each other as the events of childhood are remembered and replayed over the years. These dissociated memories  create the individual’s inner world, which varies in strength according to how many events had to be forced into the unconscious. The internal dialogues between the self and the internalized object can be projected onto external objects and thus produce transferences and enactments. This presentation will give the attendee a careful tour of the structure of the unconscious and to ways of  dealing with it as it emerges in the treatment setting.

The third part of this educational event will emphasize the practicality and usefulness of Fairbairn’s model as a treatment tool. In the past, Fairbairn’s model was seen as a theoretical and philosophical challenge to Freud’s model that had little practical value. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fairbairn’s structural theory gives the clinician a valuable tool that allows them to assess the patient’s inner world, and monitor the individual’s progress toward separation from toxic objects as well as progress integration of previously dissociated memories from childhood.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Analyze Fairbairn’s developmental model with its focus on the child’s absolute dependency on his parental objects for all his psychological needs.
• Compare Fairbairn’s model of Object Relations to other psychoanalytic models.
• Discuss how early parental failures inhibit child’s differentiation and keep the child excessively attached to the bad objects later in life.
• Analyze a child’s psychological modes of operation that protect him/her from awareness of childhood trauma.
• Discuss how dissociated child’s memories create subpersonalities in the child that provoke transferences and repetition compulsions based on these subpersonalities.
• Analyze how subpersonalities create resistance to treatment and change.

SHORT BIO OF THE WORKSHOP LEADER:

REGISTRATION AND FEES:

Registration is FREE (until 6pm EDT on October 1st, 2022)

Registration ‘at the door’ (after 6pm EDT/NYC time on October 1st, 2022)
$40 regular/ $25 grad students & candidates/ $10 undergrad students.

Please Note: If CEs are requested — there is a mandatory fee of $25 (can be paid on the day of the conference or in advance).

SPECIAL SCHOLARSHIPS are available for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for retired or disabled practitioners, or need-based or/and those who live outside of the USA.
To apply for your scholarship, please go to the registration form below.