DSPP 2007-2008 PROGRAM The Freudian Unconscious: (Un)Contested and Alive September 19, 2007 Introduction to the 150 Anniversary Program Freud meets Buddha, Boss, Heidegger, and Sartre – An Imaginary Dialogue on Being Human Participants: Scott Churchill, Ph.D., Marc Rathbun, Ph.D., Neil Ravella, Ph.D., Wolfgang Rosenfeldt, M.D., Angelica Tratter, Ph.D. Wednesday, September 19, 2007 7:00-9:00 PM 8340 Meadow Road (Pecan Creek Office Park) October 17 , 2007 Are We Driven? Reconstructing Drives and Object Relations Discussants: Larry Thornton, M.D., and Diane Fagelman Birk, M.D. Wednesday, October 17, 2007 7:00-9:00 PM 8340 Meadow Road (Pecan Creek Office Park) November 2, 2007 Invited Speaker Reception Friday evening reception for Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau Friday, Nov. 2, 2007 November 3, 2007 We Are Driven: Modern Drive Theory and Practice Fall Workshop with Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau, Ph.D. Training and supervising analyst, lecturer at University of Zurich, faculty at Boston and New England Psychoanalytic Institute and Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis Saturday, November 3, 2007 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM University of Dallas, Lynch Auditorium 1845 East Northgate Drive Irving, TX 75062 Map to the auditorium (marked with the red marker) November 28, 2007 Politics in the Belly: Unexpected Unconscious Controversies Presenter: Rhoda S. Frenkel, M.D., Discussants: Dale Godby, Ph.D., and Jerry Melchiode, M.D. Wednesday, November 28, 2007 7:00-9:00 PM 8340 Meadow Road (Pecan Creek Office Park) January 23, 2008 Culture, Time and the Unconscious: Historical and Philosophical Commentaries on the Freudian Unconscious Discussants: Gerald Casenave, Ph.D., Scott Churchill, Ph.D., and Angelica Tratter, Ph.D. Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 7:00-9:00 PM 8340 Meadow Road (Pecan Creek Office Park) February 20, 2008 Lacan, the Subject and the Self Discussants: Dennis Foster, Ph.D., and Nina Schwarz, Ph.D. Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 7:00-9:00 PM 8340 Meadow Road (Pecan Creek Office Park) March 7, 2008 Invited Speaker Reception Friday evening reception for Judith Feher Gurewich Friday, Mar. 7, 2008 March 8, 2008 The Lacanian Unconscious in America Spring Workshop with Judith Feher Gurewich, Ph.D. Psychoanalyst and Associate Professor at NYU, former director of the Lacan Seminar at Harvard University, publisher of Other Press, editor of the Lacanian Clinical Series Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 Saturday, Mar 8, 2008 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM April 12, 2008 Therapeutic Constructions and Our Multiple Selves Closing workshop with Kenneth Gergen, Ph.D. Leading social constructionist thinker, Mustin Professor of Swarthmore College, Affiliate Professor of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, Director of Taos Institute. Saturday, Apr 12, 2008 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

The Freudian Unconscious: (Un-)Contested And Alive

 

Program Introduction

 

The year 2006 marked an important milestone for Austrian as well as broader Western cultural history: Not only did we celebrate the 250 anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart but also the 150 anniversary of Sigmund Freud. Thus, a century and a half after the birth of psychoanalytic history it seems well worthwhile to re-evaluate the cornerstone of the Freudian heritage: the unconscious, das Unbewusstsein.

 

What is today’s understanding of the Unconscious? And how does it influence our clinical practice? Donald Spence (2005) claims that since Freud’s crucial 1915 paper on the unconscious, hundreds of publications appeared that featured the term in the title, however, with very little consensus regarding relevant features that would warrant the concept as particularly “Freudian” or “psychodynamic”. Instead, there seem to be varieties of loosely ‘commonsensical’ and folk-psychological references to the notion of the unconscious. To make matters worse, much of contemporary neuroscience of the brain introduced its own notions of pre- and unconscious processes, to be distinguished from Freudian repression reservoirs.

 

In a recent talk on Freud’s heritage, Gerald Melchiode asserted, that any piece of the psychoanalytic developmental and drive theory can be dispensed with as needed, if it seemed outdated or falsified, but that the basic tenets of unconscious motivation will always be appreciated as the sine qua non of the psychoanalytic enterprise. As well known, this was precisely Freud’s own view regarding the significance of his constructs about the unconscious as laid down in the metapsychology. Moreover, in light of the seminal controversies between Anglo-Saxon intersubjective and self-psychologies and the more classical, inner-psychic conflict and drive theory orientations, it has become increasingly ambivalent what we are to understand under the concept of the unconscious. Add to this the wholly “other languaging” about the unconscious developed by the influential French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, as well as the significant yields of the richly productive Decade of the Brain and we are challenged with notions about the workings of the unconscious that, while never counter-intuitive, are foggy at best.

 

Further, within philosophy of science it has become an increasingly accepted notion that no theoretical constructs can ever be truly a-historical, i.e. conceived outside any cultural-historical contingencies. The psychoanalytic theories of the unconscious would be no exception to this. For example, the philosophical psychologist Suzanne Kirschner grounds Freudian and in particular post-Freudian intersubjective and self-psychological approaches in the broader cultural heritage of American individualism with its associated values of self-efficacy and autonomy. As a case in point, she demonstrates how the Viennese psychoanalyst Margaret Mahler was dependent on the American cultural context for her developmental theories on separation/individuation to take on fertile plausibility. Moreover, numerous historical, anthropological and philosophical scholars, have argued that the notion of the bounded self, as introduced by Heinz Kohut, has culturally limited relevance and is demonstrably most popular in the United States. Thus, we could ask: What happens with our efforts to help clients/patients increase their autonomy, independence, self-efficacy? Are we at risk, as admonished by Lacan, to degrade the psychotherapeutic journey into an exercise in psycho-engineering and adjustment to the local socio-cultural mainstream? Therefore increasing, rather than decreasing repression/oppression? Indeed, what are we doing, when helping clients/patients with their “low self-esteem”? What is implied and tacitly accepted, by simply participating in the self-esteem discourse? Could there be other, more socio-culturally sensitive and communally healing ways of understanding and working through issues of apparent self-alienation, self-fragmentation and self-hatred? And what about the treatment of culturally diverse populations?

 

In a different voice, Donald Spence analyzes the Central European socio-political landscape during the conception period of Freud’s 1915 inaugural metapsychological essay on the unconscious. In a paper titled “Freud’s Wartime Unconscious”, presented as an invited address at the 2004 Convention of the American Psychological Association, he traces the influence of the First World War environment on Freud’s remarkably conflict-focused model of the drives and the Unconscious. In comparing the conceptual armament employed in the 1915 essay with earlier formulations in The Interpretation of Dreams, Spence argues that much of the new emphasis on adversarial forces and conflict in Freud’s description of the unconscious is more a reflection of Freud’s own state of mind during wartime Vienna than an adequate depiction of universal features of the human psyche. Thus, are we falling prey to historically all too contingent, theory-dependent depictions of client/patients struggles and iatrogenic constructions of inner-psychic conflicts? 

 

Of course, we have had  many supporters as well as detractors ever since the inception of psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, what are we to make today of the unconscious? Is it fact or fiction? An archaic metaphor soon to have outlived its usefulness? A Ptolemaic delusion?  A Wittgensteinian ladder to higher (think ‘deeper’) levels of knowledge?  An indispensable clinical bag of tricks?  Or all to the contrary, a notion filled with enduring epistemological and practical wisdom? 

 

In this year’s program we may ponder some answers. We will consider current clinical appraisals, as well as philosophical, cultural-historical and political dimensions of the unconscious. As highlights for the Fall and Spring Workshop we will look at two contrasting contemporary frontiers in reevaluating and reformulating the Freudian unconscious, with special interest in its consequences for our clinical practice. Finally, to situate our inquiries within a postmodern context, we will enter a constructionist dialogue with regards to concepts of the self and the unconscious.

 

Program Description

 

Prelude to the 150th Anniversary Program

 

To set the mood and guide us into the perennial questions of the human psyche, DSPP will launch the program year with an imaginary dialogue between some famed and founding figures of existential philosophy, psychoanalysis and spirituality: the seminal Continental philosopher Martin Heidegger, his French ‘pupil’ and founder of the existentialist movement Jean-Paul Sartre, the founder of existential psychoanalysis Medard Boss, the eminent representative of Eastern wisdom and spirituality, the Buddha, and, of course, Sigmund Freud. In half serious, half playful fashion, this dialogue will give us an opportunity to muse (and smile!) about how Freud’s views interface with some other prominent perspectives on the human condition. (A note for psychosexual enthusiasts: Sigmund is short for Sigismund which translates as “victorious mouth” or “victory mouth”; and Freud as short for Freude, means “pleasure”, “joy” – what’s in a name!).

The original version of this program has previously been presented at the 2004 Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association under the title of “Dialogue with Boss, Heidegger, Freud, Sartre and Buddha - On Being Human”. DSPP thanks the following authors/presenters for permission to present a slightly adapted version of their dialogue: Steven L. Bindeman, PhD, Belinda Siew Luan Khong, LLB (Hons), PhD, Scott D. Churchill, PhD, Edwin L. Hersch, MA, MD, and Louise K.W. Sundararajan, PhD, EdD.

September 19, 2007 Wednesday 7-9pm

Freud meets Buddha, Boss, Heidegger, and Sartre - An Imaginary Dialogue on Being Human Participants: Scott Churchill, Ph.D., Marc Rathbun, Ph.D.,Neil Ravella, Ph.D., Wolfgang Rosenfeldt, M.D., Angelica Tratter, Ph.D.

Transforming the Driving Forces of the Unconscious

 

While many psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic scholars have either pledged allegiance to versions of classical drive theory or embraced object-relation, self or recent relational theories, the Zuerich-trained and now Boston-based German psychoanalyst Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau has developed a formalized consistent model of drive and structure theory that is compatible with scientific models of the mind. In her reformulated modern drive theory, which she considers as necessary and relevant for today’s clinical practice, she recaptures and reevaluates Freud’s “self-preservation drive” to stand in antagonistic position to Freud’s original libidinal or sexual drive. Consequently, the place of aggression shifts from being viewed as a primary drive by Freud to being conceptualized in a reinforcing role, operant in both, libidinal as well preservative urges. In carefully traced clinical case examples, Schmidt-Hellerau demonstrates the appropriateness and utility of her emphasis on self- and object preservation as a primary driving force. She also shows this to be consistent with some of Freud’s earlier formulations on psychic energy. This reevaluation of drive theory will bring us anew to the core of the unconscious, since the basic motives of our psychic life always carry our healthy as well as troubling needs and desires – whatever conscious rationalization we come up with.

As a prelude to the Saturday workshop, Larry Thornton and Diane Fagelman Birk will discuss drives and object relations based on Schmidt-Hellerau’s ideas and their own clinical work.

October 17, 2007 Wednesday 7-9pm	Are We Driven?  Reconstructing Drives and Object Relations Discussants: Lawrence Thornton, M.D., and Diane Fagelman Birk, M.D.
November 2, 2007	Invited Speaker Reception Friday evening reception for Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau
November 3, 2007 Saturday 8:30am-4pm	We Are Driven: Modern Drive Theory and Practice Fall Workshop with Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau, Ph.D. The Fall Workshop location is determined to be University of Dallas, Lynch Auditorium, 1845 East Northgate Drive, Irving, TX 75062 (across Texas Stadium and Loop 12, off Hwy 114/John Carpenter Frwy, Braniff exit, well labeled, drive towards university tower, parking nearby)

Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau is a Training and Supervising Analyst, Lecturer at University of Zurich, Switzerland, faculty, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, Psychoanalytic Institute of New England, and Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She has published numerous papers on her work, both in German and English, as well as several books. Larry Thornton is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern, teaching faculty at the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center and Assistant Director of the Faculty Outpatient Clinic at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Diane Fagelman Birk is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center and Clinical Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

 

Unconscious Dimensions of Political Controversies

 

We know from David Hume’s philosophy of the passions that no matter how rational our arguments and belief systems may appear, there is always that pull of very personal, emotional forces driving our reason and raison d’ etre. These driving forces are not limited to individual, psychological processes and lives but may be particularly virulent in the context of heightened civic conflict, such as the ongoing abortion controversy and terrorism debate. The November monthly meeting will feature Rhoda Frenkel documenting a case from her analytic work, where not only one or the other position of the pro-choice/pro-life dispute has unconscious correlates, but where the entire controversy was found to be reflected within the psychic conflicts of a young feminist woman. In addition, she has also scrutinized the psychosocial history and hypothetical unconscious conflictual forces at work in the public violence acts of the Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. Dale Godby and Jerry Melchiode will serve as discussants.

November 28, 2007 Wednesday 7-9pm

Politics in the Belly: Unexpected Unconscious Controversies Presenter: Rhoda S. Frenkel, M.D., Discussants: Dale Godby, Ph.D., and Gerald A. Melchiode, M.D.

Rhoda Frenkel is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a Training and Supervising Analyst in both Adult and Child Psychoanalysis at the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center. Dale Godby is a psychologist and group psychotherapist at the Dallas Group Psychoanalytic Practice and a Clinical Assistant Professor and supervisor for the Psychology Graduate Program at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Jerry Melchiode is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center and clinical faculty at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Historicizing the Freudian Unconscious

Over the years, a number of scholars such as Henri Ellenberger and Philip Rieff have contributed to illuminate the cultural-historical heritage of Freud’s ideas and the psychoanalytic movement. More recently, the philosophical psychologist Suzanne Kirschner traces the Romantic, Christian-mystic and Ptolemaic sources of Freud’s theory of the unconscious. Indeed, from a historical and philosophical perspective, we can strengthen our understanding of our deeply rooted connection to ideas of the self and the unconscious as well as critically appreciate their limitations. In our January meeting, Gerald Casenave and Angelica Tratter will discuss some historical and philosophical critiques of the unconscious. In turn, Scott Churchill will turn the historical perspective ‘on its head’ and demonstrate the surprisingly current interest of an early, little known case story of Freud.

January 23, 2008 Wednesday 7-9pm

Culture, Time and the Unconscious: Historical and Philosophical Commentaries on the Freudian Unconscious Gerald Casenave, Ph.D., Scott Churchill, Ph.D., and Angelica Tratter, Ph.D.

Gerald Casenave is a Clinical Associate Professor, Acting Chair of Rehabilitation Counseling Psychology, Assistant Director of Clinical Ethics in Medicine, Regional Psychological Consultant for DARS: Division of Rehabilitative Services, Staff Psychologist at HealthSouth Medical Center. Scott Churchill is Professor and Graduate Program Director for Psychological Studies at the University of Dallas. He is Editor-in-chief of the Humanistic Psychologist and a senior film critic. Angelica Tratter is a Psychologist and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Adjunct Assistant Professor for the Graduate Program for Psychological Studies at University of Dallas, and clinical supervisor for the Psychology Graduate Program at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

 

The Lacanian Reformulation of the Unconscious

 

Following in the footsteps of a previous program on Lacanian psychoanalysis with Francis Hofstein, M.D., we want to revisit and deepen our understanding of Lacan during our spring workshop with the help of Judith Feher Gurewich. Feher Gurewich has become an important cultural mediator between French-European Lacanian psychoanalysis and the American clinical field and is very attuned to the place Lacan occupies in the US, both in the clinical and academic worlds. While in academia Lacan has been criticized for his phallocratic bent, among American psychoanalysts Lacan's ideas are viewed as too intellectual and divorced from clinical concerns. Taking account of these objections, Feher Gurewich attempts to place Lacanian theory in the context of American psychoanalysis and its present vicissitudes. In the past, she has made a point to demonstrate that Lacanian concepts, once demystified, can be very useful for clinical practice. In this workshop Feher Gurewich will be discussing her own integration of Lacanian psychoanalysis, with particular emphasis on the American cultural context as well as gender-sensitive issues. Her emphasis will be on the use of transference, on dream interpretation, and what it means in a Lacanian context to "put a patient to work".  She will draw on her own clinical practice to illustrate these key points and will also discuss how her thinking on Lacan has changed over time.

The Saturday workshop will be preceded by a monthly mini-workshop during which Dennis Foster and Nina Schwarz will discuss some of Feher Gurewich’s published work along with central Lacanian ideas on the subject and the self.

February 20, 2008 Wednesday 7-9pm	Lacan, the Subject and the Self Discussants: Dennis Foster, Ph.D., and Nina Schwarz, Ph.D.
March 7, 2008	Invited Speaker Reception Friday evening reception for Judith Feher Gurewich
March 8, 2008 Saturday 8:30am-4pm	The Lacanian Unconscious in America Spring Workshop with Judith Feher Gurewich, Ph.D.

Judith Feher Gurewich is a Lacanian psychoanalyst and  Associate Professor at the Postdoctoral Program of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at NYU, former director of the Lacan Seminar at Harvard University, and publisher of Other Press. She has published a number of articles in French and American journals and books and is editor of the Lacanian Clinical Series.  Dennis Foster is the D.D. Frensley Professor of English at Southern Methodist University, with a focus on contemporary literature, psychoanalytic and critical theory. Nina Schwarz is Associate Professor and Vice-chair of English at Southern Methodist University, with focus on literary theory, interdisciplinary and psychoanalytic studies.

 

A Constructionist View of the Self and the Unconscious

 

Kenneth Gergen, who is a leading contributor to constructionist theory, research and practice, has long challenged the myth of the “monolithic self”, the widespread view of a healthy self as singular, cohesive, and consistent which, he claims, ignores the rich multiplicity within us. He argues that this view distorts our everyday experience of ourselves and restricts clinical effectiveness, limiting our flexibility and therapeutic responses within our practice repertoire. In this workshop, Dr. Gergen demonstrates how to discover a range of different voices, with concrete strategies for evoking and framing them, thus enriching our bipolarity of the conscious versus unconscious mind. Drawing on principles from Buddhism and narrative therapy, he shows us how to bring our understanding more in sync with the complex and multiply-storied nature of our reality.

DSPP thanks the Reunion Institute of Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers for its generous cosponsorship of this program.

April 12 2008 Saturday 9am-12pm

Therapeutic Constructions and Our Multiple Selves Workshop with Kenneth J. Gergen, Ph.D.

Ken Gergen is the Mustin Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College, Director of Taos Institute, Affiliate Professor of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and director of the Taos Institute. He is internationally recognized as a leading postmodern social constructionist thinker and has published prolifically within a broad range of the social sciences, including social psychology, personality theory and postmodern therapies. His books include, among others, The Saturated Self, Realities and Relationships, An Invitation to Social Construction, and Therapeutic Realities. He is currently working on a book on Relational Being.

 

 

Postgraduate Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

 

This year DSPP will also continue its collaboration with the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center, the Dallas Society for Psychoanalytic Social Work, and UT Southwestern Medical Center, Division of Psychology, in offering an upcoming Two-Year Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program. This unique program offers seasoned practitioners and postgraduates from diverse disciplines and educational backgrounds the opportunity for further understanding and training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The opportunity to acquire broadened perspectives on psychoanalytic psychotherapy is enhanced through co-instruction by faculty drawn from various disciplines represented in the collaboration. Classes begin September 11, 2007, and meet weekly on Tuesday evenings from 6:30pm—9:45pm. Clinical supervision of individual psychotherapy cases and personal psychotherapy or psychoanalysis are strongly recommended for participants.

DSPP thanks its members who have contributed to this program in past years and have committed to teaching in the coming year.

 

DSPP President – Angelica M.D. Tratter, Ph.D., LMFT

 

PROGRAM SITES

 

All DSPP Wednesday evening monthly mini-workshops will be held at Pecan Creek Office Park, 8340 Meadow Road in Dallas. The Pecan Creek Office Park is near the intersection of Walnut Hill Lane and Greenville Avenue across from Presbyterian Hospital. Drinks and snacks will be served at 7pm, presentations begin at 7:30pm.

 

The Fall and Spring Workshop will be held at University of Dallas, Lynch Auditorium, in sponsorship by the Department of Psychology, and/or at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry (depending on the number of registrants). The Invited Speaker Receptions will be hosted at the DSPP president’s home via RSVP – further information will be announced at a later date.

 

Finally, the Closing Workshop with Ken Gergen will be held at the Reunion Institute of Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers on 106 East Tenth Street in North Oak Cliff, Dallas (just east of Beckley Avenue).

 

Maps for all program sites as well as updates will be available on the DSPP website at www.dspp.com.

 

READINGS AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

 

The annual program guide with all recommended primary readings will be available at the fist Wednesday meeting for those who purchase the readings and return a completed registration by September 7, 2007. No readings are needed for the first program. Additional suggested papers and references of interest will be posted on the DSPP website at www.dspp.com.