Impulse is a community newsletter produced by the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP) and distributed electronically at no cost to subscribers. We envision Impulse as an integrative source for local news, events, and thinking of interest to the psychoanalytically inclined. Our goal is to be your guide as you explore the Bay Area's rich array of analytic resources.

We invite you to become a member of NCSPP, if you are not already. And, we welcome you as a subscriber to Impulse. Join us as we highlight the exceptional diversity of psychoanalytic thought and practice in Northern California.

by Todd Rising, Psy.D.

Having watched a few home renovation shows with my architect husband over this past pandemic year, the metaphor of home renovation sticks with me as NCSPP's current President. While we continue to grow as an organization in various ways, we are also breaking ground.

Like a combo home inspection report and plan for renovation, NCSPP has recently received a DEI Assessment Report from our consulting partner organization, Early/Mid. Based on interviews with outgoing, current, and incoming board members and administration performed a few months ago, the report offers a reflection upon our organizational home from the perspectives of our different social positionalities and perspectives as well as from varying degrees of closeness and distance to sources of organizational power. Our blueprint also provides insights about our home’s inherent strengths as well as the opportunities we have to more deeply understand areas in need of examination and repair. And, importantly, it features our consultants’ recommendations for change and supplementary resources for education.

by SFCP

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY TRAINING PROGRAM (CAPPTP)

  • an opportunity to deepen clinical training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with child and adolescent cases
  • two-year training program gives clinicians a chance to hold, process, and refine technique in the safety of supportive teachers and colleagues
  • develop professional connections to the faculty and community at SFCP  

Classes offered hybrid: in person and on Zoom 
Sliding scale supervision
Tuition credits for 5 POC therapists of up to $2000

Questions? Please contact Debbie Vuong debbie@debbievuongmft.com or Rebecca Schwartz rebeccaschwartzphd@gmail.com.

Now accepting applications for 2021-2023. Apply at www.sfcp.org 

by Laurie Golden, LCSW

ONE YEAR OUT

A year ago, I gave away my office furniture and turned in my keys, feeling lucky about my month-to-month lease but wondering if I was making a mistake. Might things get back to normal with summer here? Premature reopening and optimism soon gave way to an escalating spike in cases and deaths, making it clear that Covid disruption was going to be profound and long-lasting. 

As always, I asked my clients how they were doing. After long consideration, one replied, “I’m okay,” before adding, “When things are really okay, that’s when I’ll freak out.”

My client’s remark captures the coping through numbness that has typified the last year and a half. We’ve all experienced the Groundhog Day sensation of being trapped in the same day over and over again. Cut off from our normal lives, we’ve also had to cut off our feelings to survive.

by Molly Merson, MFT

New Books in Psychoanalysis: Podcast featuring Daniel José Gatzambide. In this podcast episode, Dr. Gatzambide takes up his newest book, A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology. Gatzambide weaves his personal story in coming to the field of psychoanalysis with the story of psychoanalysis itself.

Violence Has No Gender. This Boston Review book review highlights the complexities of gender and the genderlessness of the unconscious and of violence, alongside feminist, psychoanalytic, and critical theories within Jacqueline Rose’s book On Violence and On Violence Against Women.

Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and Critical Psychology: An Interview with Bethany Morris. Dr. Morris describes her take on the intersections between psychoanalysis and society while diving into questions regarding both the structural components of social/group identity as well as the individual meaning-making of each subject.

by ISG

INTRODUCING NCSPP INTENSIVE STUDY GROUP 2021-2022

RUPTURE: Pain and Possibility
Saturday, July 10, 2021 | 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Location: Virtual Event (Zoom)

In this introductory event, Forrest Hamer, Maria Pilar Bratko, and others will discuss their approaches to the year’s theme, Rupture, and its appearance in and impact upon relationships. Topics include traumatic impacts of modern events on early attachment bonds and disrupting of the mind-body linkage; the breach in the sensory floor; how rifts in the social and cultural order generate experiences of dislocation, disorientation, disconnection, and fragmentation; and the repairing and (re-)constructing the architecture of inner spaces.

Registration opening soon, please check website: www.ncspp.org

Classifieds: 

TRAINING DIRECTOR. Counseling & Psychological Services Center at Holy Names University is seeking a Training Director for a psychoanalytically-informed practicum training program. 12 hours/week. Duties include weekly didactic, case conference, 3 hours of individual supervision, program/curriculum development, etc. The ideal candidate will have a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and interest in training young clinicians. Hours flexible, but Wednesday mornings required. Please contact Dr. Judy Curtis at curtis@hnu.edu or 510-436-1530.

Old couches, new books, hot jobs, cool internships, office rentals? List them in Impulse's Classifieds for a modest fee. Please see our submission guidelines for details.   

Appointment Book: