June is a beautiful time of year to visit Washington, D.C. and I hope these program highlights will entice members from around the country to travel to the capital for APsaA's 99th Annual Meeting.
Joseph Lichtenberg chairs the Friday afternoon panel, “How Do Contemporary Analysts Treat the Past?” Darlene Ehrenberg, Glen Gabbard, and Alexandra Harrison will each discuss the role of the past in their model of therapeutic action. Saturday morning's panel, “Clinical Challenges: How the People in the Patient's Life Inhabit Our Minds,” explores the variety of experiences analysts have in relation to the patient's “objects.” Chaired by Henry Smith, the panelists are John Steiner, Shelley Orgel, and Nancy Kulish. Dialogue between John Steiner and Henry Smith will continue Saturday afternoon, as they present their distinct approaches to enactment in the panel, “Thought, Word, and Action: Can the Analyst Think While Enacting?” Chaired by Jennifer Stuart with a discussion by Donald Moss, this will be a unique opportunity to learn about a current debate in psychoanalytic technique. Working psychoanalytically with severely disturbed patients presents clinicians with special challenges and, as Sunday morning's panelist will describe, significant rewards. Chaired by Eric Marcus, “Psycho-analytically Informed Psychotherapy for Psychosis,” features Michael Garrett, Andrew Lotterman, and Marlene Kocan, all analysts who treat psychotic patients.
Clinicians treating patients with childhood onset medical illnesses will be especially interested in the child and adolescent panel, “Psychoanalysis with Children and Adolescents Who Have a Chronic Physical Illness.” Chaired by Christine Kieffer, this Saturday morning panel features a case presentation by Helene Keable of a teenage girl with juvenile diabetes, with discussions by Monisha Akhtar and Robert Galatzer-Levy.
One of the highlights of an APsaA meeting is the opportunity to hear experts from other fields in dialogue with psychoanalysts. This annual meeting also features prominent psychoanalysts who draw on contributions from other fields and areas of interest in their professional endeavors.
Following up on the success of January's University Forum on Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, June's University Forum will turn its attention to Shakespeare's King Lear. Meredith Skura, Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English at Rice University and author of Shakespeare the Actor and the Purposes of Playing (1993, University of Chicago Press), and Michael Mack, associate professor of English and director of the Honors Program at the Catholic University of America, are the celebrated Shakespeare scholars who will discuss the play. Henry Smith, who has a special interest in Shakespeare, and Paul Schwaber, professor of English at Wesleyan University, will provide psychoanalytic commentary.
In the Symposium, “Psychoanalysis and Space,” scholars from the social sciences and humanities who draw on psychoanalytic theory in their approach to literary theory, human geography, and sociology, will discuss the relationship between psychic and social space. Sheila Cavanagh, associate professor of sociology at York University in Toronto, with interests in gender, sexuality, transgender studies, and queer theory; Paul Kingsbury, associate professor of geography at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, whose interests include cultural geography, tourism and consumption, and aesthetics; and Heidi Nast, professor of international studies at DePaul University, a cultural geographer and author of Concubines and Power: Five Hundred Years in a Northern Nigerian Palace (2005, University of Minnesota Press) and co-editor of Thresholds in Feminist Geography (1997, Roman & Littlefield) will join chair Virginia Blum.
The Gertrude and Ernst Ticho Memorial Lecture is given by an early to mid-career analyst who is currently making contributions to psychoanalysis and shows promise of making significant future contributions. Julie Jaffee Nagel will give this year's lecture, “Melodies in My Mind: The Polyphony of Mental Life.” Prior to becoming a psychoanalyst, Nagel, a Juilliard graduate, spent many years as a concert pianist and music educator. In this lecture Nagel merges her passions and professions as she uses the “Tonight Ensemble” from West Side Story, to explore the complex interplay of music and psychoanalysis.
Vamik Volkan, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and emeritus training and supervising analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, has devoted a significant portion of his career to the study of international relations and working with diverse cultural groups in times of conflict and peace. In his plenary address, “Culture, International Relations and Psychoanalysis,” Volkan will describe his work with an interdisciplinary team that brought enemy representatives together for long-term dialogues, and the role of culture and history in international relations.
Gary Grossman, Ph.D., is a member and faculty at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, where he also serves as chair of the Community Education and Service Division, and is a member of APsaA's Program Committee.
The highly acclaimed film, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, will be the starting point for an exploration of the opportunities and obstacles in working with people from America's underclass who have experienced intergenerational trauma. Psychoanalysts Bruce Skalrew (chair), Sandra Walker, and Carlotta Miles will be joined by Annelle Primm, a psychiatrist and deputy medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, in a discussion with the audience after viewing this evocative film.
Donnel Stern, considered one of the pioneers of interpersonal psychoanalysis, is a training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute and the former editor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Stern will summarize his new book, Partners in Thought: Working in Unformulated Experience, Dissociation, and Enactment (2009, Routledge), followed by commentaries by Stanley Coen and Jack Foehl, with Bonnie Litowitz as chair.
We are fortunate to have a diverse offering of clinical workshops for the June meeting, representing self-psychology, contemporary ego psychology, and neo-Kleinian perspectives. Irene Cairo chairs the workshop with featured discussant Anna Ornstein. Ornstein, a graduate of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, studied with Heinz Kohut in Chicago and is emerita professor of child psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, a training and supervising analyst at the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute, and a supervising analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Anton Kris will be the featured discussant in the workshop chaired by Nancy Chodorow. Kris, author of Free Associations: Methods and Process (1996, Routledge), is training and supervising analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and well known for his contemporary approach to classical conflict theory and ego psychology. Sharon Zalusky Blum chairs the workshop featuring John Steiner A member of the British Psychoanalytic Society, Steiner's Psychic Retreats: Pathological Organizations in Psychotic, Neurotic and Borderline Patients (1993, Routledge) is considered a classic in the contemporary Kleinian tradition.
The psychotherapy workshop, chaired by Alan Pollack, features discussant Shelley Orgel. A training and supervising analyst at the NYU Psychoanalytic Institute and associate editor of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Orgel is well known for his contributions to psychoanalytic theory and education. Christine Kieffer chairs the child and adolescent workshop with Robert Galatzer-Levy, a child, adolescent, and adult training and supervising analyst at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. A developmental self-psychologist, Galatzer-Levy is also highly acclaimed for his work in child custody decisions.
With the plethora of offerings, including over 40 discussion groups, several scientific papers, committee sponsored workshops, programs for psychiatric residents, psychology, and social work students, and a variety of social events, attendees will be faced with some tough choices. In addition to the educational opportunities at the Renaissance Washington D.C. Downtown Hotel, the Freud Archives at the Library of Congress, including home movies of Freud, will be available for viewing between 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. on Friday, and a special session on psychoanalysis and baseball is being planned with an opportunity to attend a Washington Nationals-Pittsburgh Pirates game along with a private tour of Nationals Park. Clearly D.C. is the place to be this June.