Managing loss is a complicated and intense process and one that brings people — directly or indirectly — into treatment. What if what has been lost cannot be seen, cannot be found? This course will explore this world: the inability to mourn one’s own internal objects. These tenacious internal losses include those who are ambivalent about separating; odes to the dead mother (and the dead father); those who are the receptacles for other's unprocessed loss; and those who try to protect themselves from managing pain by cutting themselves off from any real, alive feeling within. We will discuss some of the seminal ideas about mourning and then look at its clinical impact with both child and adult patients. Using key analytic papers, clinical examples, and film, we will begin to lay out the treacherous terrain of pain and loss utilizing the thinking of Bion, Ferro, Freud, Green, Ogden, and Winnicott.
- Participants will be able to apply at least one key theoretical contribution on understanding mourning and loss to their clinical work.
- Participants will be able to describe Green’s concept of the dead mother and apply it to clinical material
- Participants will be able to formulate an idea of how to use one’s countertransference to speak to loss in clinical work.
This mid-level course is open to NCSPP Members, intermediate and advanced students of psychoanalytic psychotherapy as well as members of the lay public.
Enrollees who cancel at least SEVEN DAYS prior to the event date will receive a refund minus a $35 administrative charge. No refunds will be allowed after this time.
For program related questions contact Karisa Barrow, Psy.D. at (415) 640-0134 or karisa@drkarisabarrow.com.
For questions related to enrollment, locations, CE credit, special needs, course availability and other administrative issues contact Michele McGuinness info@ncspp.org or 415-496-9949.