by Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group (PCPG)

2026 ANNUAL PSYCHOANALYTIC COUPLE PSYCHOTHERAPY LECTURE

Please join PCPG for our Annual Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Lecture at the Brower Center in Berkeley, CA, or via Zoom on Saturday, October 3rd, 2026 | 9:00 am – 3:00 pm (PDT).

Kate Thompson, M.A., our invited scholar, will present her paper, “Too Close, Yet Too Far: Working Therapeutically with Couples Caught in Claustra-Agoraphobic Dilemmas,” with discussant Paula Mandel, Ph.D.

Couples can become preoccupied with the perpetual back and forth between fears of losing their identity within merger versus disintegration through abandonment. This often leads to a familiar psychic retreat that is near impossible to escape. Kate Thompson will explore how to work therapeutically with such couples to free them from rigid projective identification. She will explain how to manage the constant and inevitable tension between each partner’s legitimate separate needs and the needs of their couple relationship—and how to help couples tolerate the reality of being separate individuals within an intimate partnership, which involves mourning what has been lost.

Please click here to learn more and to register.

Any questions, please contact Dr. Romi Mann.