The APsaA National Meeting this January in New York marks the 100th anniversary of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States. In honor of our centennial, the January meeting will feature several programs and events that acknowledge the Association's history and highlight developments in psychoanalysis over the past century.
An excellent opportunity to learn about the origins of our Association is by attending the Oral History Workshop on Thursday morning. Sanford Gifford, Nellie Thompson, Paul Mosher, and Arnold Richards will discuss APsaA's development, progression, and controversies from its quirky beginnings to the present day.
Past-president Prudence Gourguechon's Friday morning plenary address, “Citizen Psychoanalyst: Advocacy and Social Commentary in Psychoanalysis,” challenges the historical notion that a psychoanalytic organization should not take a position in culture wars, and makes a case for the heightened importance of individual analysts and the Association's involvement in contemporary social issues.
We are very privileged to have Freud's great-granddaughter, Jane McAdam Freud, presenting at Friday afternoon's presidential symposium, “Sigmund Freud and Jane McAdam Freud: Old Dreams New Interpretations—An Artist's Perspectives” McAdam Freud, an internationally recognized sculptor and the daughter of artist Lucien Freud, will speak about her great-grandfather's conscious and unconscious influences on her art.
Which of Freud's ideas are no longer tenable in light of the current knowledge in our field and in other disciplines? This far-reaching question will be addressed in the meeting's first panel on Friday afternoon, “Freud Then and Now.” This roundtable discussion, chaired by Glen Gabbard, features panelists Priscilla Roth and Peter Fonagy, both guests from London, along with Warren Poland and Jay Greenberg.
Psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and historian George Makari will give Friday evening's plenary address in honor of our Association's centennial. Speaking on “The Paradoxes of Enlightenment: Reflections on the Past and Future of Psychoanalysis,” Makari will explore some of the forces that have been generative and destabilizing in the psychoanalytic community over the past century. The author of the internationally acclaimed history, Revolutions in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis, Makari is professor of psychiatry and director of the Institute for the History of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Historians and psychoanalysts will join together in Sunday morning's panel, “Influences of American Culture on Psychoanalysis.” Chaired by Robert Michels, this panel concludes the Centennial Celebration Program at the National Meeting, and features Adrienne Harris, Jonathan Lear, Elizabeth Lunbeck, and George Makari discussing the influences of American ideals and values, such as optimism and individualism, on the development of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.
Theories of the development and expression of gender and sexuality have been among the most contested and revised within the psychoanalytic canon, and the January National Meeting offers ample opportunity for attendees to become immersed in contemporary contributions. Among the discussion groups exploring sexuality and gender are “Perversions: Psychoanalytic Concepts and Treatment,” “Postmodern Feminism: Women in Groups,” “Understanding Homophobia in the Analysis of a Young Gay Man,” “Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Gender Identity Disorder in Boys,” “Female Sexual Development: A Child Case Presentation,” “Love, Sex, and the American Psyche: What is Compulsive, Addicted, or Perverse about Sex?”, “Masculinity: What Does a Man Want?”, and “Psychoanalytic Approaches to the Child with Atypical Gender Preference.” The Thursday morning workshop of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues will present the recipient of the 2010 Ralph Roughton Paper Prize, which explores an original and outstanding contribution to the psychoanalytic understanding and/or treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered individuals. The 2011 award goes to Barbara F. Marcus and Susan McNamara for their paper “Strange and Otherwise Unaccountable Actions: Category, Conundrum, and Transgender Identities.”
This year the Program Committee has scheduled two Meet-the-Author panels. The first features Nancy Kulish and Deanna Holtzman discussing their book, A Story of Her Own: The Female Oedipus Complex Reexamined and Renamed. The second panel will feature Ken Corbett, author of Boyhoods:
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.
Rethinking Masculinities. Attendees will not want to miss the provocative special symposium featuring Melissa Febo, author of Whip Smart: A Memoir, a compelling account of her four-year experience working as a dominatrix in Manhattan. Chaired by Adrienne Harris, “Whip Smart: Sex, Sado-Masochism, and Psychoanalysis,” brings analyst Muriel Dimen and Avgi Saketopoulou, a candidate at NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and the audience together in conversation about the meanings of “consent,” the erotics of power, and its abuses in and outside the consulting room.
This January inaugurates the annual Artist/Scholar-in-Residence Program, sponsored by APsaA's recently formed Education Department, whose mission is to promote exchanges between psychoanalysts and educator-scholars at every level of the American education system. Chaired by Stephen Sonnenberg, this new program brings a distinguished individual to the National Meeting to conduct seminars and other exercises for analysts in attendance. This year's artist-in-residence is Martin Espada, professor of English, University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has been called “the Latino poet of his generation” and “the Pablo Neruda of North American authors” and has published 17 books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator, with two more forthcoming. His 2006 collection of poems, The Republic of Poetry, received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Espada will conduct three workshops throughout the meetings, beginning Thursday evening, covering the writing of poetry, the use of poetry in psychoanalytic education, and the reading of poetry and its parallels to the analytic situation. In addition, Espada will give a reading of his poetry on Saturday afternoon.
The university forum continues in its psychoanalytic exploration of Shakespeare's plays with Antony and Cleopatra. Moderated by Stanley Coen, Friday afternoon's forum features two celebrated scholar-teachers. Edward W. Tayler, Lionel Trilling Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Columbia, and Arthur W. Marks, '19 Professor of Comparative Literature and director of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at Princeton, will discuss the play along with analyst Paul Schwaber and the audience.
The APsaA meetings provide a venue for us to learn from and converse with other analysts from different parts of the country and world, but it is also a unique opportunity to engage with scholars and professionals from other disciplines. This interdisciplinary exchange is a key component of the symposia programming and there are several to choose from in January, covering topics such as bullying in schools, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the challenges facing psychoanalytic institutes, analytic work within military culture, the effects of Hurricane Katrina on therapy and therapists, and a research symposium reviewing the empirical evidence for unconscious motivations.
This is only a selection of the exciting programs scheduled for the National Meeting, so look for the Preliminary Program in your mail or view it on APsaA's Web site beginning October 18 to learn about the popular Clinical Workshops in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, panels, papers, Special Programs for Mental Health Trainees, workshops, and the over 100 discussion groups. Finally, be sure to attend APsaA's 100th Anniversary Party on Wednesday night.