Friday Workshops 2012-2013

Dancing with the “Other”: Culture, Race and Psychoanalytic Therapy

Friday, September 28, 2012,   12:30pm – 3:30pm
Presenter: Cherian Verghese, PhD
Culture and race, as bedrock experience, are gaining recognition as central to all human interactions. In the United States, our history and continuing experience of painful race relations have complicated dialoguing across cultural/racial differences. Racialized differences have been historically experienced as dangerous. When and how these can be safely and meaningfully addressed in therapy is a complex clinical challenge. Only our own willingness as psychotherapists to face the existence of racism and other realities in our patients’ and our own lives – including our complicity in maintaining our “unearned privileges” – will enable us to engage our patients in potentially healing dialogues. So… join us: let’s have a clinical-relational dialogue across our differences.

Educational Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to identify how the power differential between therapist and patient is made more complex and challenging when cultural and racial differences are present in the therapeutic dyad.
2. Participants will be able to identify at least three specific values that they hold about their own race and/or culture which is at variance with specific patient or patient population and how that might impact the work of psychotherapy.
3. Participants will be able to name and articulate challenges faced by immigrants and cultural minorities in the US in accessing and/or engaging in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Presenter: Dr. Cherian Verghese is a Psychologist in private practice in Washington DC for over 20 years. He is on the faculty of the Washington School of Psychiatry (Supervision Training Program), and the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis where previously he also was Coordinator of the Psychotherapy Training Program. In addition, Dr. Verghese is a clinical consultant and a training psychologist at several area university counseling centers, including at the American University and the University of Maryland -College Park. His paper “Culture as Context: Implications for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy” is scheduled to be published in an upcoming, Summer – 2012, issue of Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy. In 2005, Dr. Verghese founded the Washington DC based networking and dialoguing group SAMHA-South Asian Mental Health Association.

Someone Like You

Friday, November 9, 2012,   12:30pm – 3:30pm
Presenter: Rochelle Kainer, PhD
What is the deeper meaning of “fit” (or lack of “fit”) with patients? Psychoanalysis originally called for the therapist’s neutrality in the face of patient’s libidinal and aggressive drives. We now recognize that each patient (and therapist) has an inner subjective world that is brought into the work. The art of listening to, understanding, and articulating the inner world of our patients for the purpose of mitigating the effect of internalized bad objects and object relationships is our therapeutic task. Ideally we help free them from their internalized bad objects. One factor that can aid or hinder our work is the often unconscious identification or disidentification with the patient’s inner world. Seminar members are invited to explore the deeper subjective meaning of their comfort/discomfort with particular patients.

Educational Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to understand and define the concept of an internalized bad object.
2. Participants will be able to understand and definite concepts of identification and disidentification.
3. Participants will be able to apply these concepts to their clinical work and identify how these concepts effect the therapist-patient fit with at least one of their cases.

Presenter: Rochelle Kainer was one of the organizers of WSPP and one of its original faculty members, teaching object relations and self psychology in its early training program. She was the director of clinical training at the DCIMH and on the faculty of the Washington School of Psychiatry for many years as a teacher of self psychology and as a supervisor. She has written extensively and her well-reviewed book, The Collapse of the Self and Its Therapeutic Restoration, is part of the relational series at The Analytic Press. She has taught on this subject nationally and internationally and was a Fulbright Scholar in Russia. She is now writing for a non-clinical audience, and working on her second novel which she believes has introduced the genre of “grande dame lit.” Dr. Kainer currently writes and practices in Washington, DC.

Minding the Body, Mending the Mind

Friday, January 11, 2013,   12:30pm – 3:30pm
Presenter: Stephen Stein, PhD

This seminar will describe how the convergence of psychodynamic theory, mind-body principles and neuroscience enhance the therapeutic encounter. Through didactic and experiential components, we’ll explore the important role neural integration has in therapy and psychological well-being. Topics include: 1) reviewing the neocortical and limbic system, brain stem and left brain-right brain functioning, 2) how neural development is sculpted through interpersonal relationships, 3) the effects of stress in relation to neural functioning, behavior and psychological well-being, 4) the impact of therapy upon neural integration, limbic revision and executive functioning to promote neural plasticity and healing, 5) how neuroscience integrates with central concepts from object relations theory, self-psychology and intersubjectivity.

Educational Objectives:

1. Describe the parts of the brain that play a crucial role in neural integration.
2. Discuss the effects of stress upon cortisol levels and its impact on: A) the Brain and B) Behavior and interpersonal functioning.
3. Discuss the relationship of empathic attunement to mirror neurons,and limbic revision.
4. Discuss the effect of psychotherapy and mind/body approaches upon neural integration and neuro-plasticity.

Presenter: Stephen Stein, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist in Washington D.C. and Maryland and holds a certificate of professional qualification in psychology granted by the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. Dr. Stein has been in practice for 30 years and provides individual, group, couples therapy, supervision, consultation and training to psychologists and other mental health professionals. He is the current Chair of the Ethics Committee for DCPA and had been the previous chair from 1991 to 2006. He is currently Vice President for Operations for DCPA. He has also been Vice President for Professional Affairs for DCPA from 2005 to 2007. From 2006 to the present, Dr. Stein has conducted study groups, training programs, and workshops for the following institutions: The University of Maryland, the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and the Counseling Center at Catholic University of America, and his private practice. These programs were designed for the clinical application of an integration of Neuroscience and contemporary psychotherapeutic approaches combining theory, scientific findings and the effective application of mind/body techniques to enhance clinical practice and personal experience. Dr. Stein’s past positions include the following: Chair of Clinical Psychology Externship Program from 1983 to 1987; Supervising Psychologist for DC Institute for Mental Hygiene from 1980 to 1987. In addition, he was also on the senior staff of the Counseling Center at Catholic University of America from 1976 to 1979.

Savage Civility, Civilized Savages

Friday, March 22, 2013,   12:30pm – 3:30pm
A dramatic reading of the play God of Carnage by the Red Well Theater Group (comprised of DC therapists), will illuminate themes of authority, ethical leadership and democratic processes within groups. The play portrays two couples who have come together to mediate a violent altercation that occurred between their 11 year-old sons. Their conversation begins in a civilized manner and then takes a turn toward savagery and chaos as the characters’ true natures are revealed. The audience and actors will share their subjective experience of the play in dialogue with one another to discover the themes of the play and compare them with their correlates in group therapy.

Learning Objectives:

1. Compare and contrast the play’s characters, plot and dramatic action with a therapy group’s members, presenting problems and unconscious enactments that unfold over time.
2. Identify theme content and relate to a group therapy situation.
3. Discuss one’s experience of the here-and-now of watching the play.
4. Contrast one’s experience of watching the play with the act of bearing witness in a therapy group.
5. Identify ethical dilemmas in the play and consider their relevance to the group therapy situation.

Presenters:

The Red Well Theater Group was formed in 2008 by Washington, D.C. by psychotherapists who share a love of theater and an understanding of dynamic group processes. Red Well Theater Group contributes to the professional development of group therapists through educational presentations at conferences, professional meetings and training programs. Our experiential learning format features a dramatic reading of a stage play using Group members as the actors, followed by a moderated discussion between the audience of group therapists and the acting ensemble. This sequence of theater and discourse is intended to deepen the therapist’s emotional and cognitive understanding of themes related to mutual recognition and communal wellbeing in and beyond the therapy group. More information is available online at www.redwelltheater.com.

Self States in Normality, in Pathology, and in Creativity

Friday, April 26, 2013,   9:30am – 12:30pm
Presenter: Richard Waugaman, MD
This seminar will examine self states in normality, pathology, and creativity. Bromberg’s important work has familiarized many of us with the concept of multiple self states. Dr. Waugaman will discuss the way that various ego states manifest in all of us. We have ego states that stay “awake” while “we” sleep, and our dreams constitute the thoughts of those ego states. While some creative artists may have DID, many do not, but seem to have unusual access to ego states that are unavailable to most people. Extending his previous work in DID, Dr. Waugaman will explore these self/ego states.

Educational Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to define self states.
2. Participants will be able to recognize self states in their clinical work.
3. Participants will be able to apply their understanding of self states to creative literature.

Presenter: Richard M. Waugaman, M.D. is Training and Supervising Analyst, Emeritus at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University; Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at USUHS; and Reader at the Folger Shakespeare Library. He has 30 years of clinical experience in the intensive treatment of patients with dissociative identity disorder. He was formerly Director of the Dissociative Disorders Program at Chestnut Lodge. 45 of his more than 100 publications are on Shakespeare and the psychology of pseudonymity. Most of the former can be found at www.oxfreudian.com. He has also written ten publications on dissociative disorder.