Student Outreach Seminars 2004-2005
San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute & Society

These seminars are offered as a community service intended to supplement local training with
psychoanalytic clinical instruction. The courses are offered free of charge to pre-doctoral and post- doctoral psychology interns, psychiatry residents, and MFT and social work interns currently in clinical placements. Please call the SFPI&S Extension Division Coordinator at to register. If you would like more information about the East Bay Program, please call Alice Feller, M.D. or Robin Deutsch, Ph.D. the East Bay Co-Chairs. If you would like information about other Student Outreach seminars, please call Linda Lagemann, Ph.D., Chair of Student Outreach, at . You will be called 2 weeks prior to class to coordinate getting the readings.

San Francisco Program

*The seminars below will take place at SFPI&S. (Parking is free in the SFPI&S parking lot.)

Course Title: Three Theories: Freud, Ferenczi, and Lacan
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:15, October 27, Nov. 3, 10, 17, Dec. 1, 8
Description: This is the second in a three-course sequence on psychoanalytic theory, but note, one does not need to have taken the first course to enroll in this one-they can be taken in any order. In this course, we will continue to look at ways psychoanalytic theory helps guide the analyst in understanding her patients and also think about ways it
might take her off course. We will consider a range of questions: Could we understand our patients without theory_ Are theories versions of absolute truths about the psyche or are they "culturally" bound and open to revision_
Are some theories better for some analysts_ If so, how do they take shape in relation to the analysts internal object world_ Are some theories "better" for some patients, periods of treatments, or some developmental problems_ We will proceed by examining short texts from three or four of the following: Freud, Ferenczi, Lacan and Aulagnier. Process notes from sequential
sessions of a single clinical case will be introduced as time allows to help articulate and discuss our intuitive theories about patients.
Instructor: Eric Glassgold, M.D. Advanced Candidate, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society; Full-time private practice, San Francisco; Dr. Glassgold has taught numerous courses at UCSF and for psychoanalytic organizations in the Bay Area.

Course Title: Psychoanalytic Process
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, January 5, 12, 19, 26
Description: Using readings and clinical material, this seminar will examine the elements of psychoanalytic process such as resistance, interpretation, and insight. We will study one treatment in depth to illustrate how change becomes apparent in the course of psychoanalytic work.
Instructor: Laura Dansky, Ph.D. Member, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society; Private practice, San Francisco.

Course Title: Autistic Mechanisms
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, February 2, 9, 16, March 2
Description: In this class we will study some of the analytic ideas about autistic states. I will use clinical material to highlight some of the autistic concepts that we will be reading about. A number of interesting questions relevant to work with non-autistic patients should be stimulated by the course. For example, how might we contrast autistic mechanisms with mechanisms found in psychotic patients_ Would we consider a severely withdrawn patient to be utilizing autistic mechanisms_ Participants will be encouraged to share their clinical material as well as their ideas.
Instructor: Michael Bronzo, M.D. Member, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society; Private practice, San Francisco.

Course Title: Psychoanalytic Work with the Difficult Patient: Pathological Organizations
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, March 9, 16, 23, 30
Description: This four week course will focus on the theory and clinical treatment for patients who are trapped in a complex defensive organization that on the one hand offers the individual some relief from anxiety but, at the same time, stifles ongoing personal development. These patients are confused about what is helpful and growth enhancing and what is not conducive to psychological growth. In fact, efforts toward psychological growth can feel threatening instead of helpful making the therapeutic experience with these individuals especially difficult. Self-defeating behaviors including addictions are common for these patients. An introduction to neo-Kleinian theory will be presented along with the concepts of pathological narcissism, masochism, envy, omnipotence, and negative therapeutic reaction
Instructor: Margot Chapin, M.F.T. Candidate, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society; Adjunct Faculty, JFK University and USF; Private practice, Oakland.

East Bay Program

*The seminars below will take place at Herrick Hospital, 2001 Dwight Way, Berkeley.

Course Title: Psychoanalytic Approach to Working with the Difficult Patient
Dates: Monday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, October 4, 11, 18, 25, November 1, 8, 2004
Description: In this six-week class we will use Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion's theoretical concepts in working with difficult patients. We will begin with an introduction to neo-Kleinian ideas about unconscious phantasy, object relations, splitting, projection identification, envy, pathological narcissism and the paranoid schizoid and depressive positions. Next we discuss ways to help the therapist understand the highly emotional and confusing experience between herself and the patient who, at times, uses more primitive defense mechanisms to ward off painful anxieties. Wilfred Bion, Robert Caper and Betty Joseph's ideas and papers will be used to elucidate these concepts. Finally I we will consider the interpretive process with patients who oscillate between needing us to contain and make sense of their unsymbolized experience and then next need us to recognize their shift to a higher level of psychological functioning.
Instructor: Margot Chapin, M.F.T. Candidate, SFPI&S, Adjunct Faculty, JFK University, Private practice I Oakland, CA

Course Title: Relational Psychoanalysis
Dates: Wednesday evenings 7:30pm-9:00pm: January 19, 26, February 2, 9, 16, 23, 2005
Description: This six-week class explores a distinctly new tradition, generally associated with the term relational psychoanalysis, which has emerged over the last two decades within American psychoanalysis. The focus of this class will be on understanding the fundamental concepts of relational psychoanalysis and their clinical implications. We will explore the way in which relational theory conceptualizes psychological phenomena not as products of insolated intrapsychic phenomena, but as the interplay of reciprocally interacting subjectivities. The work of contemporary relational theorists, including Stephen Mitchell, Jay Greenberg, Irwin Hoffman, Jessica Benjamin, Lewis Aron, and Robert Stolorow will be considered.
Instructor: Louis Roussel, Ph.D., Candidate, SFPI&S; Core Faculty and Clinic Director, New College Graduate Psychology Department; Private practice, Oakland, CA.

Course Title: Tales of Aggression, Violence and Terror in the Therapeutic Setting
Dates: Monday evenings, 7:30PM - 9:00PM November 15, 22, 29, December 6, 2004
Description: Neither breeding nor training can create a person who cannot go astray, and while
we are all capable of harboring destructive wishes, only some relinquish civilized control and act on those wishes, and can do so to an awful effect. The seminar will review the development and clinical relevance of the concepts of aggression, and the related phenomena of hatred and destructiveness. The emphasis will be on observing these in the actual clinical situation, but consideration will be made for current global problems, such as violence and terrorism and to the question of evil. The indirect expression of anger and hatred within the clinical setting will be discussed, with particular attention paid to the handling of conscious and unconscious efforts to undermine the therapeutic process and the therapist's ability to conduct treatment. This seminar will also address the dual responsibilities that characterize clinical work. The basic task of conceptual understanding of the different expressions of aggression will be critically evaluated in terms of the 'distance' between theoretical concepts and the realities of the clinical situation. Contemporary theories that emphasize the role of trauma and environmental failure in the development of destructive behavior will be contrasted with a psychoanalytic understanding of the internal factors in the emergence and establishment of aggression, hatred and violence. This will be accomplished by discussing case material presented by the participants against the background of assigned readings.
Instructor: Ricardo Winkel, Ph.D. Member, SFPI&S; Faculty, California Pacific Medical Center; Private practice, Berkeley and San Francisco

Workshop Title: The Language Of Transference
Dates: Saturday, February 5, 2005 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Description: Transference, one of our most powerful clinical tools, is hard to detect, seemingly ubiquitous, and operates in mysterious ways. Whatever setting you may do your work -
clinic, school, hospital, social services, or private practice - transference and its echo,
countertransference, can have a dramatic impact upon you and your client. tn this workshop we will discuss the ways that we can reach below the surface of everyday speech and hear the deeper
and older languages that transference communicates. We'll examine the multiple ways that we can listen to and respond to these communications so that we open up the possibility of a greater range of emotion and perception in our work.
Instructor: Jeanne C. Harasemovitch, LCSW, Member, SFPI&S; Faculty, Access Institute, SFPI Extension Division; Private practice, Berkeley, CA

Workshop Title: Mourning, Mania and Melancholia
Date: Saturday, March 12, 2005 9:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m.
Description: Experiences of loss both reflect and create mental processes. In this class, we will explore multiple types and meanings of loss from a psychoanalytic perspective. Our reading and discussion of Freud's seminal paper Mourning and Melancholia will be a starting point for understanding concepts such as internalization, melancholia, manic defenses, and psychic structure. We will consider developmental htmlects, clinical applications, and subsequent theoretical contributions from other psychoanalytic schools of thought.
Instructor: Sabina Morganti, MFT; Advanced Candidate, SFPI&S; Private practice, San Ramon, CA

Course Title: Working With Countertransference: The Use Of The Therapist's Reactions To The Patient
Dates: Monday evenings 7:30PM - 9:00PM March 7, 14, 21, 28, 2005
Description: Few terms in psychoanalytic theory have proved more elusive or generated more controversy than countertransference. This course will fill the need for a practical account of how
to understand and work with this clinical phenomenon. The course will review the evolution of the concept of countertransference and its place in psychoanalytic theory, from Freud's initial view of it as a liability, to contemporary perspectives that regard it as an inevitable and most useful therapeutic tool.
With an eye on the more disturbed patient, participants will have the opportunity to openly discuss the intense, sometimes intolerable, reactions experienced by the therapist, the risk factors that can lead to enactments and boundary violations and the ways to turn those reactions into levers for therapeutic change. The use of countertransference as a source of information about the patient and as a vehicle for therapeutic change will be demonstrated using actual case material provided by students and the instructor, and close attention will be paid to processes in the interaction with the patient that unconsciously influence the activity of the therapist, and to ways in which those influences can be used to enhance the treatment. Special topics will include the management of erotization and aggression in the countertransference.
Instructor: Susana Winkel, Ph.D.; Member,SFPI&S; Faculty, SFPI&S Extension Division; Faculty, Wright Institute; Private practice, San Francisco and Berkeley, CA

Peninsula Program

*The seminars below will take place at Stanford in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Building at 401 Quarry Road in Room 1206. ( first floor, behind the café )

Course Title: Mourning and Melancholia: The Clinical Understanding of the Difference between Mourning and Depression
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, October 20, 27, November 3
Description: Freud's paper entitled Mourning and Melancholia begins his elucidation of an object relations theory which sheds light on how depressive character develops. This class will describe the difference between normal mourning and depression; and the development of a personality structure organized around depressive pathos (e.g., moral masochism). Clinical examples will be used to clarify concepts and students are encouraged to bring their own examples and questions.
Instructor: Dena Sorbo, L.C.S.W. Advanced Candidate, San Francisco Psychoanalytic
Institute and Society; Private practice, Los Altos.

Course Title: Psychoanalytic Listening
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, November 10, 17, December 1, 8
Description: This course will focus on a central activity of psychoanalytically informed treatment, listening. We shall study how we actually listen and what psychoanalysis teaches us about how and to what we should listen. In so doing, we will touch on the related topics of psychic versus objective reality, empathy, intuition, countertransference, the role of theory, and the analytic attitude.
Instructors: Shela Fisk, Ph.D. Member, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society; Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavior Medicine, Stanford University Medical School; Faculty, Stanford University Continuing Studies Division; Private Practice, Palo Alto.

Course Title: The Psychoanalytic Approach to Treating Adolescents
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, February 9, 16, 23, March 2, 9, 16, 2005
Description: Beginning with an outline of the psychoanalytic understanding of adolescence as a transitional stage of development, this course will examine the nature of the treatment relationship adolescents can utilize across varying levels of ego functioning. A practical outline for conducting treatment from initial evaluation and treatment planning through termination will be presented, with special emphasis given to concepts of analytic space, resistance, interpretation, containment, and to the therapeutic use of the transference-countertransference interplay. To facilitate the move from theory to practice, participants are strongly encouraged to present clinical material that highlights difficulties in treatment.
Instructor: Michael Loughran, Ph.D., Advanced Candidate, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute; Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Faculty, Center for Adolescence, Stanford University; Private Practice, Palo Alto.

Course Title: Magical Thinking
Dates: Wednesday Evenings, 7:30-9:00, March 23, 30, April 6, 13
Description: Magical thinking precedes symbolic thinking and persists into adulthood. We will define magical thinking, its developmental function in childhood, explore its manifestations in clinical practice and look at treatment issues. Clinical material will be presented to illustrate the concepts and students are encouraged to bring their own examples and questions.
Instructor: Mark Snyder, M.D. Member, San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society; Private practice, San Jose.