Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)

Carl Jung (1875 – 1961)

W. Ronald D. Fairbairn (1889 –1964)

Melanie Klein (1882-1960)

Donald Woods Winnicott (1896 –1971)

Sandor Ferenczi (1873 – 1933)

Harry J. S. Guntrip (1901-1975)

Wilfred Ruprecht Bion (1897-1979)

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981)

Hanna Segal (Born in 1918)

Betty Joseph (1917-2013)

John Bowlby (1907- 1990)

Michael Balint (1896 – 1970)

James F. Masterson (1926 -2010)

Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld

Transference Evolution of Concept Worldwide

Course Description

Since its introduction in the Studies on Hysteria, the notion of transference has gradually broadened, referring to a constitutive process in the psychoanalytic treatment, a process in which unconscious wishes, infantile conflicts, and traumatic wounds become re-actualised in the here-and-now of the relationship with the analyst.

Such developments, from Freud, through the many core and derivative object relations contributions, lead to the contemporary baseline thesis: TRANSFERENCE is the patient’s mostly unconscious response to the analyst, as it is shaped by the patient’s early life experiences, which may include internalized self and object representations affected by adjacent traumas, passions, fantasies and conflicts; and, importantly, it can be an expression of a wish to revivify or actualize internal archaic and infantile object relations fantasies.

The variety of formulations reflect a plurality of theoretical conceptualizations of both repetitive and interactive aspects of Transference, in regard to the content(s), mechanisms, and methodology of clinical engagement within the context of psychoanalytic setting. This course first follows the multiply dimensional evolution of the concept and concludes with outlining some convergences in the current theoretical and clinical plurality across the continents (IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopaedic Dictionary, www.ipa.world).

Throughout the course, the pertinent clinical illustrations from the assigned literature, from the instructor’s clinical practice and, when available, from the clinical experience of the participants, will be discussed, in order to be able to fully appreciate and master the theory in it clinical application.

Learning Goals

Upon the completion of this advanced level course, the participants will be able to

– Analyze the evolution of the Freudian and various post-Freudian theories of Transference;

– Apply the knowledge about the evolution of the Freudian and various post-Freudian theories of Transference to their work with patients/ clients;

– Analyze the evolution of theories of the British Object Relations school on Transference;

– Apply the knowledge about the evolution of theories of the British Object Relations school on Transference to their work with patients/ clients;

– Analyze the evolution of theories of the French Relational school on Transference;

– Apply the knowledge about the evolution of theories of the French Relational school on Transference to their work with patients/ clients;

– Analyze the evolution of thought of the North American psychoanalytic schools on Transference and its vicissitudes;

– Apply the knowledge about the evolution of thought of the North American psychoanalytic schools on Transference and its vicissitudes to their work with patients/ clients;

– Analyze the clinical utility of diverse contemporary conceptualizations of the concept of Transference;

– Apply the theoretical knowledge about the clinical utility of diverse contemporary conceptualizations of Transference to their work with patients/ clients.

SYLLABUS:

First Class: October 12, 2018

1. SIGMUND FREUD – EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT: CLINICAL THEORY AND TECHNIQUE

The 1st class will concern with:

1. The Evolution of the concept in Freud’s thought: Transference as a mental error (in relation to traumatic/repressed memory and Nachträglichkeit), as a displacement of infantile Oedipal wishes and disappointments onto the present analytic situation and the analyst; positive and negative transference, ‘unobjectionable positive transference’ (root of the concept of working alliance) and ‘love/erotic transference’; ubiquity of transference, as a ‘return of the repressed’, transference activates libidinal and aggressive/destructive wishes, desires, impulses and thoughts; transference-resistance: acting in and out of transference, negative therapeutic reaction; relation of the transference phenomena to Nachträglichkeit (theoretical angle);

2. Evolution of Freud’s Technical armamentarium of clinically working with transference and transference interpretations: interpretative challenges with both ‘transference love’, as well as with negative transferences (disappointments, unconscious wishes for revenge and other aggressive impulses and wishes; importance and clinical art of transference interpretations and extra-transference interpretations; interpretations as constructions and/or reconstructions; relation of the working with and interpreting transference to the phenomenon of Nachträglichkeit (clinical angle).

3. Gradual broadening of the concept in the work of Abraham, Ferenczi, Strachey and Macalpine.

2. EARLY BROADENING of the TRANSFERENCE CONCEPT in the work of ABRAHAM, FERENCZI, STRACHEY AND MACALPINE

Mandatory Readings for the 1st class will include but not limited to:

Works of Sigmund Freud: a) Studies of Hysteria – Anna O.(1895); b) Interpretation of Dreams (1900); c) Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria: Dora (1905) ; d) The Dynamics of Transference (1912); e) Remembering, Repeating and Working Through (1914); f) Observations on Transference-Love (1915); g) Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937); h) Mourning and Melancholia (1917); i) Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920); j) The Ego and the Id ( 1923); k) Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926); l) Constructions in Analysis (1937)

Works of Freudians: a) Karl Abraham (especially his ideas on transference in the area of psychosis); b) Sandor Ferenczi (Introjection and Transference, 1909); James Strachey (“The nature of the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis,” 1934); Ida Macalpine (The Development of Transference, 1950).

Further descriptions – pending

BIO of the instructor

Eva D. Papiasvili, Ph.D., ABPP has been a Senior Clinical Faculty and Supervisor in the Doctoral program of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University in New York, for the past 30 years. She is the past Executive Director and Dean of the Institute of the Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society where she has been a Training and Supervising Analyst since 1996; Teaching, Supervising and Training Analyst, Object Relations Institute; Founder and Chair of the Psychoanalysis, Art and Creativity, www.psychartcreativity.org, an Affiliate of the International Association for the Arts and Psychology; Editorial Board member of the International Journal for Group Psychotherapy; a Guest Editor and Reader for the International Forum for Psychoanalysis and for the Psychoanalytic Inquiry. In 2014, she has been appointed a Co-Chair for North America (USA, Canada, Japan) of the IPA Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis Task Force. Dr. Eva Papiasvili is a Member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and its Committee for Psychoanalysis and the Arts; American Psychological Association and its Divisions for Psychoanalysis (39) and Clinical Psychology (12); International Psychoanalytical Association; and International Group Psychotherapy Association. She has been awarded an Honorary Membership of the Czech Psychoanalytic Society (IPA), and an Honorary Membership of the American College of Psychoanalysts. Originally from the Czech Republic, she lives and works in New York.

For more information, visit Dr. Papiasvili’s ORI Faculty profile HERE.