Sample Advanced Elective Offerings
Brain Science and Psychoanalysis
Recent advances in the brain sciences including studies of neurodevelopment, neurochemistry, Neuro-imaging, and neurobiology will be explored in an effort to see how results of these studies enlarge our understanding of cognitive and social learning, memory, affect regulation, response to trauma, and dream theory. In each session, findings in the brain sciences will be integrated with the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Ten monthly meetings are planned during the year, following the "salon" format in which participants rotate as discussion leaders. Center members are urged to participate in this effort to synthesize new knowledge. Candidates and members from the Baltimore-Washington Center also participate.
Contemporary Gender Theory and Clinical Implications
This course will study contemporary gender theory and clinical implications. Emphasis on recent psychoanalytic gender literature, especially since 1990, from diverse contemporary psychoanalytic theoretical perspectives.
Psychoanalytic Perspective on Literature
This course will explore psychoanalytic perspectives on fiction, considering both what the analyst can learn about the human condition from the author and the understandings that psychoanalysis can bring to the text. For each meeting we will read a short story, a novella, a play, or a manageable section of a novel; works may be selected from both the classical and contemporary literature. The members of this course will be drawn from both the faculty and advanced candidate group. Each participant will be responsible for selecting the reading for one of the sessions and for initiating the discussion. Enrollment limited to five advanced candidates.
Psychoanalytic Theory of Creativity
Historically, this long-standing group has studied the contributions psychoanalytic literature and thought can make to the understanding of creativity, particularly in literature, the arts, history, film-making and biography, and has focused on outstandingly creative people in these fields. We have less frequently undertaken studies of scientists and scientific discoveries. Most of our efforts have been directed toward the lives, works, and wider societal contexts of creative people.
Now we would like to adopt a somewhat different frame of reference, less the study of creative individuals than of the contexts in which creative people and creative outcomes have demonstrably arisen. We plan to begin with studies of companies and corporations in which "innovation" in research and development has become, both psychologically and economically, a major priority. Eventually we hope to be able to draw broader than individually-based conclusions about what fosters creativity or sets a spark to its arousal. This approach will certainly include the psychoanalytic study of group processes, and what frees or inhibits "thinking outside the box." We meet on the first and third Saturdays of the month, from 10:00 to 11:30 am.
Introduction to Andre Green
An introduction to the work of this French psychoanalyst, focusing on his thoughts about narcissism and borderline personality.
In Treatment
A discussion group will meet monthly and each time will watch and discuss a clinical session from the In Treatment TV series. We will follow the adolescent case through the course of the treatment. The videos are about 25 minutes long, each a complete session of a nine week treatment. The viewing will be interspersed with fifty minutes of discussion. This material will allow us to discuss alternative treatment strategies within a single clinical hour, focusing on the moment to moment process between therapist and patient. We will discuss our rationales for our various approaches to the immediate clinical material.
Couple Psychotherapy Case Discussion Group
On a voluntary basis, the format would be a rotating case presentation of a brief couple case summary and a session of process notes for the group to discuss. The purpose would be to explore couple dynamics, strengthen theoretical understanding, and explore perspectives for intervention. It would be ideal for psychoanalysts who have some experience in working with couples in therapy and would like the opportunity to discuss this with others who have a similar psychoanalytic background. The group size will be limited to eight participants who are psychoanalysts and candidates affiliated with the Center as full or corresponding members.
Group and Organizational Dynamics Study Group
We have spent our first year doing a series of readings (3 books over the course of the year), which we discuss, alongside discussion of group dynamics in organizations with which group members are familiar. We are particularly interested in the question of what a psychoanalytic perspective can add to organizational consultation. This group is open to analyst and candidate members and interested others with permission of the group. Please contact David Cooper if you might be interested in joining.
The Baby in All of Us: Learning about primitively organized patients, as well as our own primitive states, through the lens of infant observation.
Being with a primitively organized patient can be a frightening and sobering experience. How do we find words to help the patient who curls up into a ball during his or her session? How do we work with the patient who has rage attacks in our offices? Medication is one answer but not the only one. By observing infants in primitive states and coming to understand the principles underlying Infant Observation, as conceptualized by Esther Bick in London in 1948, one can learn a great deal about technique with seriously disturbed patients.
This seminar will include introductory articles that describe infant observation and its rationale. We will also watch video excerpts of infant observations, and listen to actual observations done by people who have observed infants. Clinical material of seriously disturbed patients will also be presented so that we can discuss similarities that exist in both groups. We will
explore how one contains anxieties stirred up while in the presence of infants in distress and patients in extremely regressed states. We will also challenge ourselves to understand better how one can make use of our experiences in order to provide meaningful interventions that can be of use to our primitively organized patients who often have no words to describe their pain and suffering.
Neuropsychoanalysis
This group has been meeting for about a decade and has included members of both our Institute and the Baltimore-Washington Institute. Our current format is to read and discuss four books a year, which means reading about 125 pages a month. The books chosen are not highly technical and thus should be accessible to the non-medical reader.
This past year, for example, we read "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Disorders, and Coping" by Robert Sapolsky; "Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind" by V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee; "The Physiology of Truth: Neuroscience and Human Knowledge" by Jean-Pierre Changeux; and parts of "The Dalai Lama at M.I.T." ed. by Anne Harrington and Arthur Zajonc.
Case Conference
This case conference for graduate analysts is devoted to deepening the analyst's understanding of classical technique. Earle Baughman, MD, a senior T.A. at the BWI (and a corresponding member of our own society) will present a case for 5 sessions. (Sept, Oct, Feb, Mar, April with May as an inclement weather date). The course will meet at 8:15 in the large conference room during the 3rd Wednesday of the month. Stephen Rosenblum, MD, a senior T.A. at the WCP will be the discussant. Both are highly regarded clinicians and teachers in their institutes. And, both have taught in the joint BWI and WCP advanced seminar.
Relationship Between Theory and Clinical Practice, a Kleinian Perspective
The plan is to study a combination of Kleinian thinking and technique using material presented by participants, and in parallel develop five main concepts: projective identification, interpretation, transference and counter transference, paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, and setting.
Study Group on Psychoanalytic Understanding, Treatment, And Research of Anxiety and Panic
Anxiety disorders are widespread among all social groups and are treatable within the psychoanalytic approach. Historically, understanding of the sources of anxiety and its transformations was central to the development of psychoanalytic theory and technique. Current research data support long held the belief that psychoanalytic therapy is effective for the treatment of panic disorder.
I suggest the group start with reviewing classical Freuds understanding of anxiety, and then follow the developments of psychoanalytic thinking on the subject up to the present time. I suggest that since a lot has been written on the subject the precise reading list for the year could be determined by the group according to the specific interests of its members.
Case Conference
This case conference for graduate analysts and advanced candidates is devoted to deepening the analyst's understanding of technique. Richard Waugaman, MD, an emeritus training analyst, will present a case for 3 sessions. The course will meet from 8:00 to 9:30 PM in the large conference room during the 3rd Wednesday of the month. Judith F. Chused, MD, a senior training analyst will be the discussant. The group will work with the clinical material from a series of sessions, trying to understand the meanings of the communications between analyst and patient, and the ways in which one might choose to respond to those meanings.
This course was offered in 2008-2009, and will be offered in similar format in 2009-2010 with a specific focus on classical technique.
History of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute
This study group will discuss the history of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute and Society and the development of the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis. In this, the second "semester" of the group, the split of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute into the Washington and Baltimore Institutes in 1948 will be the initial topic of discussion. The course will next explore the atmosphere after the end of WW II in which psychoanalysis flourished. We will examine the attempt to establish the Washington Association for Psychoanalytic Education in the 1970's and the development of the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis in the early 2000's. If time permits, we will consider those public ethical infractions that have had a major impact on the Psychoanalytic Institute.
The goal of this study group is to know the factual history of the Institute, to understand the factors that contributed to organizational changes, and to consider the long term implication of these changes, many of which are reflected in the life of the Institute and Center today. A belief that understanding the history of the organization will better allow it to achieve its goals and avoid repeating earlier problems is the foundation of the curriculum of this study group.
The group will meet on the third Wednesday of the month, for 7 weeks. If we do not complete the full curriculum in 7 weeks, the study group will continue during the next semester.
Objectives:
- At the completion of this study group, participants will be knowledgeable about the history of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute from 1948 to the present.
- The participant will be able to identify the impact of past organizational difficulties on the current functioning of the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis
Seminar on Dissociative Processes
The Seminar on Dissociative Processes will meet from 6:30 until 7:45, once monthly, for three months starting on January 21, then February 11, and ending on March 11, 2009. In this brief survey seminar, we will work with material presented in workshop format with PowerPoint, focused reading (see bibliography appended), and look at some videotaped patient interviews. Lyons-Ruth has shown that the best predictor of adult dissociation is "emotional unresponsiveness," not 'blunt' traumatic experience like beatings or rape. How do we understand this? Models of mind that rely upon states of mind, and/or self-states, as building blocks for the development of an adult mind parsimoniously provide explanations of both normal behavior and those perennial "theory busting "problems of sadomasochism, self-harming behaviors, eating disorders, and the addictions. We will use data from infant research, attachment research, affective neuroscience and an amalgam of cognitive and psychoanalytic theory to study dissociative process.
This seminar was offered in 2008-2009 and will not be offered in 2009-2010.
Couple Psychotherapy Case Discussion Group
Time: 8:00-9:30 PM, Third Wed of the month: September through April
The group is designed for those interested in discussion of clinical case material with couples. The purpose is to explore couple dynamics, strengthen theoretical understanding, and explore perspectives for intervention. It would be ideal for those who have some experience in working with couples and would like the opportunity to discuss this with others who have a similar psychoanalytic background. The format would be a rotating case presentation of a brief couple case summary and a session of process notes for the group to discuss. The group size will be limited to eight participants to optimize in depth discussion.
Primo Levi's Contribution to the Understanding of Human Nature
Seven meetings at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute consisting of a close reading of Primo Levi's, Survival in Auschwitz" and parts of his book, "The Drowned and the Saved," to examine the effects of the extreme conditions of the concentration camp on the victims and the perpetrators. In order to survive the victim needed to suppress his previous moral compass, had to endure profound shame and guilt and isolation, had to be alone in his struggles because where fellow victims were more than not, his adversaries, had to live where a single mistake could be fatal. He might have to delude himself in various ways to keep his spirit alive. He might have to act in ways that he would later prefer to forget. The perpetrators also would need to delude themselves and also need to delude others afterward about what they had done and why. Although this extreme condition may at first seem foreign from the usual work of psychoanalysts it is not. It will be demonstrated that it is relevant to other work with those patients who grew up in homes where there was, severe abuse which they either endured and witnessed. Primo Levi's natural style in coping with his 11 month experience also offers us insights about treatment of our patients and about aspects of human nature which lies beneath he surface. Case material will be presented.
