DALLAS
SOCIETY FOR PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY
Exploring and promoting the psychoanalytic perspective
| Volume XVII Number
7 |
March
2001 |
Contents
Editor's
Note
Why They Kill: A comment by Peter Fonagy
March Workshops
Arts Event
Announcements
EDITOR'S
NOTE
Art, school violence,
psychoanalytic research---how are they related? For DSPP, they represent
some of the rich special events available to the psychoanalytic community
during the month of March.
The DSPP Arts Committee
continues to offer a moving variety of activities open to psychoanalytic
exploration. On Saturday, March 10th members were treated to a home studio
tour and talk with local artist Jim Woodson.
Earlier in the month the
nation was once again faced with the tragedy of youth violence erupting in
schools and our communities. Before we had time to understand the specific
circumstances surrounding the shootings in California and Pennsylvania, the
news media was pregnant with public outrage and declarations of cowardice
and evil projected onto the youth who confront us with an almost unspeakable
reflection of our internal shadows. On March 15th, Peter Fonagy, Ph.D. and
Stuart Twemlow, M.D. will address the issues precipitating youth violence
and preventive measures centered on the individual and the community
collective in a professional seminar and public forum.
DSPP members will then be
treated to Dr. Drew Westen's unique speaking style during our Spring
Workshop on March 24th. Dr. Westen will examine the psychoanalytic
perspective and the efficacy of the more traditionally defined
"empirically validated therapies."
As DSPP continues to explore
and promote the psychoanalytic perspective, I hope you'll join us.
DSPP Bulletin Editor
Cheryl Martin RN, LPC ( Return
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MARCH
WORKSHOPS
DSPP Community Relations
Committee
Presents
PETER FONAGY, PH.D.
STUART TWEMOW, M.D.
Preventing Mass Murder in Schools:
Understanding Violent Children from “Peaceful” Families
Afternoon Professional Seminar
Evening Public Program
March 15, 2001
The National Campaign Against Youth Violence suggests the best time to stop youth violence is before it starts. The Dallas Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology has invited Dr. Peter Fonagy and Dr. Stuart Twemlow to share their expertise regarding this critical issue confronting our communities. They will present a coordinated look at violence in schools, integrating work on the significance of early social relationships (attachment) with that of power dynamics, and suggest interventions to reduce violence in schools.
Visit
Workshop Page
Complete details available on the website www.dspp.com
For questions or additional information contact:
Cheryl Martin RN, LPC Community Relations Chair
214-384-2395 or brandy_p_miller@yahoo.com
DSPP SPRING WORKSHOP
DREW WESTEN, Ph.D.
AND
THE WINNER IS?
The Psychoanalytic Perspective
vs.
"Empirically Validated Therapies"
March 24, 2001
Dr. Westen has long been a sophisticated advocate, in academic as well as clinical circles, for the validity of psychoanalytic thinking. "The most fundamental assumption of psychoanalytic theory and practice is no longer a matter of scientific debate. Critics cannot continue to make pronouncements about the lack of scientific merit in psychoanalytic ideas without themselves offering scientific counter-evidence. The data are incontrovertible: consciousness is the tip of the psychic iceberg that Freud imagined it to be." Dr. Westen backs up such assertions with compelling empirical evidence.
Visit
Workshop Page
For questions or additional information contact:
Pat Wood, Ph.D. DSPP President
214-361-5556 or pwood@advico.com
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WHY
THEY KILL
A comment by Peter Fonagy,
Ph.D.
Psychoanalysts
traditionally are no good with violence. While we feel comfortable
when talking about aggression and destructiveness, we are far less
creative when it comes to genuine instances of interpersonal violent
behavior: social violence. It is as if the possibility of these
behaviors in themselves created such intense fear and helplessness
that the mere act of thinking about them comes to be inconceivable.
Violence is impossible to contemplate precisely because it is
ultimately an act of humanity. We wish to avoid that which is
potentially a part of all of us. We therefore, err on the side of
over-elaboration, create mystiques, intrigues, or dramatize and
glamorize the acts. This serves to detract attention from their
ordinariness, and ultimately meaninglessness. Or, alternatively, we
demonize the violence, creating monsters who depart from normality to
such a degree that by definition, they must elude human comprehension.
Both the glamorization and the denomination of violence serve to make
the ordinary into the extraordinary - to make us feel distant from an
experience that may not be far from any of us. Perhaps far more
importantly, these strategies serve to help us avoid having to try to
understand the violent mind, but while failing to explore intrapsychic
factors may assist us in obscuring the similarities between our sense
of ourselves, and our sense of a violent human being, it also prevents
us from knowing much about how these individuals feel, think, react,
know, desire and so on. We must enter the violent person's psychic
reality, not just in order to be able to offer treatment, but also to
better anticipate the nature of the risks they embody both to
themselves and to Society. The most important and urgent tasks of
modern psychoanalysis are not in the clinic or consulting room but in
the social world where our clinics are located, in providing
comprehensive understandings of the violent mind, to truly know the
answer to the question "why they kill?"
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DSPP
ARTS EVENT
Dallas
Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology
Arts Committee
presents
ALAN
GOVENAR, Ph.D.
Gallery Tour
and Talk
"Tattoo:
Art and Impulse in the Western World"
(Click on image for
larger view)
Saturday,
April 28, at 6:00 p.m.
5501 Columbia Gallery
Dallas
View
article on web page
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Interdisciplinary Psychoanalytic
Consortium
Saturday
March 17, 2001
Arrival: 9:30 AM
Meeting: 10-11:30 AM
"An
Origin of the Inhibition of the Imagination"
Jeffry J. Andresen
Primary Discussants
Jeffry J. Andresen, M.D.
Professor, UTSWMC
Steven V. Daniels, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, SMU
Followed By:
Lacan Seminars Reading Group
12 Noon
Southern Methodist University
RSVP 214-369-7104 for papers
You are invited to the
North Texas Society for Personality Assessment's
Spring Workshop and Annual Business Meeting!
Cosponsored by the Psychology Department,
University of North Texas
Dr. DREW WESTEN: ASSESSING OBJECT RELATIONS
Friday, March 23rd, 2:15-5:30
3 CEUs for Texas psychologists
Location
UT-Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry
Hines Blvd. Room D1.502 (underneath the library).
For further
information
call Steve Huprich, Ph.D.
(254) 710-6759 or email skhuprich@aol.com
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The
Dallas Foundation for Psychoanalysis Spring Forum
Children and Psychiatric Medication:
Diagnostic, Developmental and Ethical Considerations
Featuring
Dr. Glen Pearson
and
Dr. James Bennett
Wednesday, April 11,
2001
7:00PM - 9:00PM
The Shelton School
15720 Hillcrest Road
For
additional information please call Elizabeth Buchanan 214-691-6054
www.dalpsa.org
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