"SAYS WHO?"      

A clinical research conference will be held in San Francisco, October 19 & 20, 2013.  Sponsored by the IPA, PINC and SFCP. Panelists: Marilia Aisenstein, Ricardo Bernardi, Joseph Caston, Donald Moss, Maureen Murphy, and Mitchell Wilson.

For information and registration, go to www.sf-cp.org/says-who.

In clinical work, we all face the daunting task of "learning from experience." We are temperamentally disinclined toward this task. We want, instead, to affirm the adequacy of what we've already "learned."

In order to "learn from experience," we must first of all bear the sense of our own deficiency.  Our past is insufficient to make us competent in the present. Momentarily disrupted, then disoriented, this is when we have the chance to "learn," to sort through the information in front of us, doing our best to assess which of its elements are valid, reliable and worthy of our trust.  

This act of sorting aims at finding "evidence" - sensory information that might help us modify what we've previously learned while also allowing us to construct something new and useful out of what had just now left us wanting.

We face a great difficulty, though, when we embark on this act of sorting.  We don't really know what to trust.  We can't easily count on ourselves.  After all, we've just had the humbling experience of not knowing what's going on.  Nor can we easily count on colleagues, they're not there.

"Says Who?" will be a conference grounded on this fundamental psychoanalytic predicament.  How does an analyst learn from his own experience and from the experience of colleagues?  What are the markers of valid/reliable information?  On what can an analyst stand in order to think and speak with some confidence or even with some sense of authority?

Please join us in pursuing the persistent question:  "Says Who?"