PSYCHOANALYTIC GRAND ROUNDS @ STANFORD 2008-2009
Please join us for a series of talks about psychoanalytic ideas in a relaxed setting once each month.
The meetings are free and open to all mental health professionals and interested parties from various disciplines.
The meetings are the LAST Wednesday of each month from 6:15-7:30 pm in the Stanford Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Building, 401 Quarry Road, Room 2209.
CE credits available for $10.00. Only cash and checks will be accepted.
Questions? Call Maureen Smith Ruffell, M.D. 650-329-8834
September 24, 2008
In the Land of the Wild, Wild Wood: The Unconscious Fantasy of a Latency Age Boy
Nancy Peters, M.S.W.
A nine year old boy had a nightmare that terrified him and began to have obsessive thoughts about “drunk” people. The terror he felt about “drunks” was revealed and understood in his play where he elaborated oedipal strivings and sado masochistic imaginings about sexuality. After visiting the “Wild, Wild Wood,” the boy resumed latency stage development manifested as renewed interest in games and puzzles.
October 29, 2008
Alienation, the Dread of Invasion and Sado-Masohism in Perversion
Era Loewenstein, Ph.D.
In this presentation I will explore three aspects of the perverse structure as they reveal themselves in the psychotherapeutic process: (a) the refusal to feel and think with the analyst in an emotionally alive and meaningful way, (b) the refusal to experience and introject the analyst as a separate and generative object, and (c) the unconscious sexualization of this refusal resulting in a sado-masochistic and perverse transference-countertransference. I view these three aspects as defensive maneuvers employed, unconsciously, by the perverse patient in an effort to protect himself against the dread of annihilation. I also view these strategies as protective routines used to ward off the terror of invasion and its opposite: the dread of abandonment. I will discuss these defenses in detail and show how easily and inevitably the analytic dyad is prone to unconscious enactment of this sexualization.
November 19, 2008
A Tour of the PDM (Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual)
Neil Brast, M.D.
Two years ago the ground breaking Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual was published under the sponsorship of five major psychoanalytic organizations. It is a large, dense, complex work that provides a framework for appreciating and describing the full range of human mental functioning. It is based on accrued clinical knowledge and recent research in cognition, neuropsychology, nosology, and treatment outcome. In this presentation, Dr. Brast will take us on a tour of the PDM. We Will delve into its organization, conceptual structure, and handling of the concepts of personality and personality disorders, including the term “borderline.”
January 28, 2009
A Psychoanalytic Encounter with Architecture
Robert Harris, M.D.
This exercise in applied psychoanalysis will be an account of Dr. Harris’ own responses to the Basilica of the Mission Dolores in San Francisco. After having a strong emotional response to this building, Dr. Harris returned many years later to try to understand what it was that he was responding to in the architecture. He recorded his associations— feelings, images, thoughts— on repeated visits. In the process he discovered many previously unrecognized reactions to elements of the building; he found that these gradually organized themselves into more comprehensive narratives. Dr. Harris will show slides of the church to illustrate the features he discusses.
February 25, 2009
What do we mean by ‘perversion’ and why do we care about it anyway?
Lee Grossman, M.D.
The term “perverse,” which used to be restricted to the description of certain sexual practices, has been broadened in recent years, adding both clarity and confusion to the psychoanalytic literature. In this seminar we will try to sharpen our understanding of the term, with special emphasis on making a clinically important distinction between neurotic and perverse processes. We will use case vignettes to illustrate the distinction and its implications for the therapist’s approach to the patient.
March 25, 2009
From Shared Bodies to Nursing Couple: Developmental implications in the movement towards weaning
Angela Sowa, Psy.D., M.F.T
Every successful nursing experience is a life-preserving event that is much more than a feed and a development of a relation to an 'other'. It is a place from which to start, to open out from, to the family as first witness and then, upon weaning, to the world. Acceptance of the body as incomplete is a requisite of weaning, stirring the desire to know, to create, and to live in community with other(s). The presentation will explore how an infant begins to make sense of the world based on the particularity of these earliest experiences. The sense of feeling "at home" in one's own body, of feeling sometimes fixed, at other times fluid will be explored through detailed vignettes taken from weekly observations of infants and toddlers at home with their families. Breakdowns of the nursing and weaning experiences, particularly concerning the libidinalization of the body and of the world will be explored.
April 29, 2009
MPD, Satanic Abuse, and Alien Abduction: Have Therapists Learned the Lesson?
Brant Wenegrat, M.D.
Historical studies show that the illness behaviors signified by "Hysteria" in the 19th Century were fostered and shaped by physicians pursuing valued social and professional goals. Several recent phenomena show that like illnesses can also be shaped and fostered in today's society and in modern medical settings. Epidemics of Multiple Personality Disorder and so-called recovered memories of Satanic Abuse or Alien Abduction, which reached their peaks in the 1990's, closely resembled the earlier outbreaks of hysteria and can be understood in similar terms. These epidemics--and the social phenomena they demonstrate--present fundamental challenges to psychiatrists and psychotherapists.
May 27, 2009
Analyzing the Unanalyzable: Learning from Bion
Lynn Alexander, Psy.D.
Though it is not widely recognized, Bion was one of the founders of intersubjectivity. He conceived of the development of the mind as something that can only happen within an emotional interaction between two people. With his introduction of such concepts as container/contained, the obstructive object, and the value of interpretation from the vertex of the patient, he transformed psychoanalysis. Prior to Bion the analytic task was seen as investigating and resolving conflicts. Bion transforms this task into one of enabling the growth of the mind. In this talk Dr. Alexander will describe some of Bion’s key contributions and how they allow us to work with previously unanalyzable patients.
