Our 2023-2024 Five Friday topics and presenters are listed below. ** Please note that for 2023-2024, four of the Five Friday seminars will be in person, at the BCC Service Center in Bethesda, MD. For our zoom webinar on January 12, 2024, zoom links for seminars will be sent to all registrants on the Monday before the seminar. Be sure to register by the Sunday prior (earlier is even better) to receive the Zoom link.
Stuck in the Middle with You
September 29, 2023 from 9:30am-12:30pm at the BCC Service Center
Stephanie Schechter, PsyD and Susan Kattlove, MD
Note: This seminar earns 3 CE’s in ethics.
As clinicians we often struggle to discuss professional ethics. We tend to think about ethics as a set of right and wrong actions as opposed to complex moment-to-moment analytic decisions. Consciously and unconsciously, we often carry shame about clinical situations in which we have fallen short of our expectations for our work. Yet we have all faced situations in which there is no clear path, where every turn carries the risk of an ethical breach. While these are the decisions we’re likely to hide, they are precisely the moments we need to think clearly, thoughtfully, and perhaps seek consultation.
This workshop has been developed to address the aversion to thinking and talking about ethics. We will use lively, experience-near fictional vignettes which depict complex, thorny ethical dilemmas. This workshop will focus on ethical dilemmas endemic to psychotherapy training situations and difficulties managing boundaries given the multiple overlapping roles trainees and their therapists and supervisors play.
Three Learning Objectives:
- Participants will be able to identify at least two unconscious pressures which can affect the therapist’s ability to set appropriate physical and emotional boundaries.
- Participants will be able to explain competing ethical and clinical values that arise in relationships among trainees, therapists, and supervisors in training settings.
- Participants will learn to identify potential conflicts around referral sources.
Presenter Bios:
Stephanie Schechter is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Cambridge, MA. She is on the faculty at Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute where she teaches Ethics, as well as Erotic Transferences and Countertransferences. She and Dr. Kattlove present frequently at The APsaA National meetings, as well as institutes around the country, on the topic of “Ethical Dilemmas in Psychoanalytic Institutes.” She is a contributing author of the Psychoanalyst Casebook.
Susan Kattlove is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Cambridge, MA. She is on the faculty of Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and is the co-chair of the Ethics Education Committee there.
Close Encounters of the 2-D Kind: Transference on the Small Screen
November 3, 2023 from 11:30am – 2:30pm at the BCC Service Center
Macaria Giraldo, PhD
Covid-19 has powerfully influenced the delivery of mental health services. The interruption of in-person appointments and the replacement by virtual meetings has created a movement towards virtual delivery of services in both private and institutional settings. In this workshop, we will examine this trend within the context of social media and its potential impact on the Transference and its derivatives of time, presence, and absence of patient and therapist. The psychoanalytic context for our discussion will be based on Freud’s illuminating discovery of the meaning of his grandson’s game of Fort-Da and on Lacan’s concept of the Gaze as central for the understanding of the object relation in psychoanalysis.
Three Learning Objectives:
- Participants will be able to explain Freud’s infant observation of his grandson and the implications in the formation of the object relationship.
- Participants will be able to compare Freud’s comments with Lacan’s additional insights into the dynamics of Fort-Da.
- Participants will be able to describe the role of the Gaze in the object relationship.
- Participants can assess the difference between the role of intentionality in the object relationship and the object cause of desire in the Lacanian Psychoanalysis.
Presenter Bio:
Macario Giraldo, Ph.D: After finishing his Master’s in Applied Linguistics at Georgetown University (1964), Dr. Giraldo obtained his doctorate in clinical psychology at the Catholic University of America (1972). Dr. Giraldo is a founding member of the Lacanian Forum of Washington, D.C. and has been faculty at the Washington School of Psychiatry since the early 70’s.
Dr. Giraldo has lectured extensively presenting papers and conducting groups in many cities of the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and lately in Cairo, Egypt. His book, The Dialogues IN/OF the Group: Lacanian Perspectives on the Psychoanalytic Group (Karnac, 2012) is recognized as a primer in the application of Lacanian psychoanalysis to the psychoanalytic group.
Unpacking Implicit Bias: Behavioral Health’s Professional Responsibility
January 12, 2024 from 9:30am – 12:45pm EST via Zoom
IMPORTANT – note that this is a zoom seminar, and we will be meeting until 12:45pm (not 12:30pm). Zoom links and materials will be sent to all registrants on the Monday before the seminar. Be sure to register by Sunday, January 7th, 2024 to receive the Zoom link.
Gisele Ferretto, MSW, LCSW-C
Note: This seminar earns 3 CE’s in cultural competence and implicit bias. This seminar is sponsored for the APA of psychologists (and social workers in DC) and by the NASW MD for Maryland social workers and psychologists.
This seminar counts toward one-time Implicit bias training requirements in Maryland social workers and psychologists.
This three-hour workshop is focused on the exploration of the common, yet complex ethical issues concerning implicit bias that behavioral health professionals face in their practice. Content will cover the following: the legal definition of implicit bias, identification of implicit bias in behavioral health practice, establishing and maintaining a practice of self-awareness, use of self, and examination of implicit bias for effective outcomes. Current legal references will be provided concerning relevant statutes and the ethical codes of practice for behavioral health professionals.
Learning Objectives:
- Examine the meaning of implicit bias and its impact on the delivery of behavioral health services.
- Explore the role of ethics when delivering services to diverse clients and working with diverse co-workers.
- Examine the Use of Professional Self for addressing and controlling for implicit bias in practice.
- Review the Maryland statutes and regulations that govern ethical professional behavior and implicit bias including Health Occupations §19 (Social Workers), §17 (Professional Counselors and Therapists), §18 (Psychologists), Health General § 20-1301, and COMAR 10.42.03, 10.58.03 and 10.36.05.
Presenter Bio:
Ms. Ferretto has over 30 years of social work experience in both clinical and macro practice areas. Her areas of expertise include: policy and leadership development, field education, child welfare practice, professional ethics, confidentiality, and curriculum development. Ms. Ferretto is currently full-time faculty at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and serves as their Director of Public Policy and Manager of Training for the Office of Field Education. Her work at the SSW has included administrative positions in the Title IV-E Education for Public Child Welfare Program, Child Welfare Academy, and Social Work Community Outreach Service (SWCOS). Prior to coming to the SSW she served as administrator at the Maryland Department of Human Resources for 11 years in the following programs: Child Protective Services, Office of Equal Opportunity, and the Office of Staff Development and Training.
Ms. Ferretto also provides consultation and training for private and public agencies on various topics related to behavioral health, professional ethics, implicit bias, and supervision.
Fairbairn, the Forgotten Father of Relationality
March 22, 2024 9:30am – 12:30pm at the BCC Service Center
David Celani, PhD
This presentation will focus on the psychoanalytic theory of W.R.D. Fairbairn, which emerged in a series of papers spanning the years 1940-1958. Fairbairn’s psychoanalytic theory, and in particular, his structural model offers the clinician a window into the patient’s history of trauma, dissociation, and patterns of attachment to “bad objects”. It was one of the earliest models of “Relational” psychoanalysis and most of his concepts have been adopted by other models. Fairbairn’s focus was on the dependency and neediness of the child on his/her mother and to his/her sensitivity to empathic failures, which if consciously understood would destroy the needed bond to the parent. The empathic failures are dissociated and four internal structures coalesce, each consisting of a view of the self in relation to the object. The two pairs of unconscious structures do not know about each other, though each pair engages in inner dialogues with its partner. The structural model is extremely useful as a clinical tool as it allows the clinician to identify which split off self is relating to him/her at any given moment. These internal structures, when projected on to external objects are responsible for both transferences and enactments.
Learning Objectives:
- Discuss the importance of early maternal care, and the psychological consequences of empathic failures and emotional trauma that are forcibly dissociated into the infant’s unconscious, and the further consequences from the dissociated material on the development of the child’s personality.
- Define the early splitting defense, which is a consequence of the central ego’s inability to integrate and process traumatic memories of abandonment and abuse..
- Identify at least 2 examples of how the analyst can gradually introduce these split off “truths” to the central ego.
- Apply the understanding of how the mostly unconscious split off ego structures emerge in the treatment session and how the analyst should best respond to them.
Special Clinical Follow-Up: A Consultation Group with Dr. David Celani, PhD
March 22, 2024 1:30 – 3:30pm *** SOLD OUT ***.
This session is for members only and limited to 12 registrants. We will further explore the morning’s themes as a follow-up to the morning’s session (attendance at the morning session is required). Registration is on a first-come, first serve basis for members only (non-members are welcome to become members at any time). Dr. Celani is a highly respected scholar on Fairbairn. We anticipate that this afternoon section will fill up. The cost of the afternoon session is $60.
Presenter Bio:
David Celani received his BA in psychology from Rutgers College in 1968 and his MA and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Vermont in 1972 and 1974. He then practiced in Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski Vermont for 25 years, specializing in the borderline patient. He simultaneously held adjunct teaching positions at UVM from 1976 to 1984 and was an adjunct faculty at the Saint Michael’s College program for MA in clinical psychology from 1984 to 1991. He was a ten year supervisee of Robert Barasch, Ph.D from whom he learned the Sullivanian model. In 1983 he was introduced to the work of W.R.D. Fairbairn from reading Greenberg and Mitchell’s book on object relations and began working with Fairbairn’s model with his patients. His first publication on Fairbairn was The Treatment of the Borderline Patient: Applying Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting, 1993, International Universities Press. This text was followed by The Illusion of Love: Why The Battered Woman Returns to Her Abuser, 1994, Columbia Universities Press. In 2005 he published Leaving Home: How to Separate From Your Difficult Family, Columbia Universities Press, and in 2010 he published Fairbairn’s Object Relations In The Clinical Setting, Columbia Universities Press. He is currently working on his fifth text on Fairbairn for Routledge. He has also published in the following journals: Contemporary Psychoanalysis, American Journal of Psychoanalysis, American Journal of Psychotherapy, and The Psychoanalytic Review. He currently presents workshops for The Object Relations Institute in New York and in London for Confer.UK.com.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE? THAT IS THE QUESTION (and what a question!): The Existential Sensibility and Psychodynamic Therapy
May 3, 2024 from 9:30am – 12:30pm at the BCC Service Center
Jane Prelinger, MSW & Michael Stadter, PhD
Click here to register
An existential sensibility focuses on fundamental themes of being human, and the joys and suffering inherent in existence. This sensibility is not prescriptive nor is it a pathology model. It is individual for therapist and patient. Important themes include, for example, life, death, joy, vitality, absurdity, serious illness or disability, trauma, isolation, loss, aging, identity, and the search for meaning. The seminar will include contributions from existential philosophy and existential therapists. During this seminar, we will discuss some of these themes, our own clinical work, and invite participants to offer clinical vignettes as well.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe characteristics of an existential therapeutic sensibility
- Define Yalom’s 4 existential therapy themes
- Give an example in therapy of Sartre’s concept of Bad Faith/Good Faith
Presenter Bios:
Jane Prelinger, MSW is the Founder of the Center for Existential Studies and Psychotherapy, and is a Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Washington DC, offering individual and couple psychotherapy and clinical supervision. She is on the faculty of the New Washington School of Psychiatry, and formerly served as Director of the Eugene Meyer Treatment Center, Faculty of the International Psychotherapy Institute, and guest faculty at the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. In addition to various presentations, Jane has taught in China several times. She is especially interested in issues of relationship and isolation, meaning and purpose, freedom and choice, and how these issues inform her clients’ lives.
Michael Stadter, PhD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Bethesda, MD and Washington, DC. His faculty positions include: Founding Faculty Member of the International Psychotherapy Institute, Faculty of the New Washington School of Psychiatry, and Faculty at the Center for Existential Studies and Psychotherapy. Additionally, he has been frequently invited to teach nationally and internationally. Dr. Stadter has authored a number of publications including 2 books, Presence and the Present: Relationship and Time in Contemporary Psychodynamic Therapy (2012) and Object Relations Brief Therapy: The relationship in Short-term Work (1996/2009). Formerly, he was Psychologist-in-Residence, Dept. of Psychology, American University, Washington, DC and Director, University Counseling Center, also at American University. His latest publication is “Who am I and what time is it? A book review essay” (2023) in Psychodynamic Practice.