Impulse is a community newsletter produced by the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP) and distributed electronically to subscribers at no cost. 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 Luba Palter, MFT
“Life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base” (John Bowlby, 1988).
I’ve been re-watching one of my favorite shows, The Golden Girls. For those who may not know, it is a show about three middle-aged women and one older woman, living together in Miami, Florida. They embark on a journey of becoming roommates after loss and divorce. The four of them work, raise money, and volunteer their time for various political causes. They dissect aging and menopause while eating an enormous amount of cheesecake. While they sit around their kitchen table, they support each other through various life challenges. These older women in a community of four lead full lives filled with sex, hobbies, and meaningful work. When their toilet breaks, they decide they can remodel the bathroom themselves. And with trial and error, they do. Boyfriends and husbands come and go. Relatives visit and bring drama with them. But what remains true and steadfast is the characters' commitment to each other and their chosen family. The kitchen table is their symbolic secure basis, a touchstone that they go back to over and over that allows them to dip into grief, confusion, despair, and anxiety as they gather their strength to venture back into the stimulating and at times harsh world.
by Lila Zimmerman, AMFT
DEATH DADDY
“The unconscious has no time. They are only an illusion, time and space, and so in a certain part of our psyche time does not exist at all” (Carl Jung, 1976).
My father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer just before Christmas. Time, I noticed, began to work differently at this point. By March he was undergoing an aggressive treatment of chemo and radiation therapies. I flew home to take him to his treatments and care for him. At the cancer center, you are asked to sit in the waiting room outside the doors marked with hazard symbols. It’s full of others, some of us waiting for our loved ones, others for their own treatments. We are all grappling with something we once hardly thought about. The waiting room is still decorated for Christmas, or in part. There is a tree in the center, mostly stripped naked spare one string of white lights and a singular ornament in the shape of a pick-up truck. I wonder if someone forgot to finish taking it down or perhaps putting it up in the first place. Perhaps, like mine, Christmas was interrupted this year. Maybe time stopped here too. The unconscious has no time, I thought. Perhaps cancer works the same way. A perpetual “not yet,” or, “you just missed it.”
My name is Elana Guy and I am an in-person and virtual psychotherapist located in private practice in Alameda, CA. I work psychodynamically with an emphasis on a relational/attachment approach.
by Tanisha Stewart, Psy.D.
ANNOUNCING 2024-2025 NCSPP INTENSIVE STUDY GROUP:
PSYCHOANALYSIS: BREAKDOWN AND BREAKTHROUGH
November 8, 2024 – May 9, 2025
Fridays | 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: East Bay, TBD
The Intensive Study Group will be a 22-week course facilitated by Daniel Butler, Ph.D., MFT, Susana Winkel, Ph.D., and Deborah Melman, Ph.D. discussing different types of breakdowns and breakthroughs in psychological growth, including premature ruptures, empathic failures, and reality breaking down.
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.
A Psychoanalytic Playlist with Sasha Frere-Jones
Sat, Jun 8 / 10:00 am - 12:30 pm / 444 Natoma St. / San Francisco
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / S. Ferere-Jones; A. Blum, Psy.D. / $20 - $40
In Tune: The Rhythm of Psychoanalysis and Jazz
Fri, Jun 14 / 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm / 712 Oak St. / San Francisco
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / S. Cuenca, et al. / free - $40