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 June Lin-Arlow, AMFT
The Impulse Committee is excited to try something completely new: we are seeking submissions for our Potential Space column for the year of 2022. Also, I can’t believe that it is almost 2022. We would like to see Impulse as a space for our community to engage in dialogue and deepen our understanding of analytic topics as they show up in our lives, our work, and the world. We invite you to submit short articles (around 500 words) on the topic of Silence. This topic is commonly discussed in psychoanalysis, the whole idea of a talking cure and all, but we are interested in perspectives that are not commonly spoken about in dominant discourses of psychoanalysis.
I want to share a few of my personal experiences with silence as a way to encourage you to share yours. I was a Chinese kid who grew up in a low income neighborhood of Black, Latinx, and White children, where my experiences weren’t mirrored by my peers and parents, so I experienced the world as a foreigner. I felt outside of the cliques and groups that naturally formed on the playground or in the cafeteria. The most common question I got from kids at school was an incredulous “what are you?” And then there was the relentless bullying. I looked to others for cues on who to be in order to fit in and silenced my own impulses and desires. We experience moments of silencing when our experience is dissonant with the environment around us, and our culture enforces this silencing through shame and social exclusion.
by Barbara A. Baer, Ph.D.
PINC OPEN HOUSE
Thinking about psychoanalytic training?
The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California invites you to an Open House on Zoom!!!
Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Please join PINC faculty, administrators, graduates, and candidates to hear about our program, and have the opportunity to ask your questions about training as well as the Admissions process.
We anticipate an informative and lively discussion.
Please feel free to invite other friends or colleagues you believe would be interested.
To receive the Zoom link, please RSVP to our Administrative Manager, Leila Abdul-Rauf at pincsf@gmail.com
by SFCP
SFCP OPEN HOUSE
Join us for a discussion of analytic training at the SFCP Open House on November 11, 2021 at 7:30 pm.
Please join us for an in-depth discussion of what is involved in training to become a psychoanalyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. Over the course of the evening, faculty and current trainees will clarify the most important considerations for people deciding whether they want to complete psychoanalytic training and, if so, when to do it:
- financial advantages and disadvantages of training
- scheduling advantages and disadvantages of training
- questions of oppression and social equity in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic training
- applying
- analysis and supervision
- coursework
- supervision
- personal analysis
To RSVP and to read much more about Psychoanalytic Training at SFCP, please visit www.sfcp.org > Training Programs & Extension Education > Adult Psychoanalytic Training Program.
Please also share this invitation with anyone you feel may be interested.
by Ronna Milo Haglili, Psy.D.
ON ACTIVISM AND TRANSFORMATION OF TRAUMA
I thought I was being deliberate when I decided on my dissertation topic. I considered my interest areas, the potential significance of certain research questions, and used a Venn diagram to narrow down my list. I ended up conducting a qualitative study about the links between experiences of past trauma and social activism, in particular the meaning that social activists have made of their trauma and the ways in which social action has shaped their traumatic experiences and vice versa. Later, I discovered I was engaged in a much less deliberate process of my own meaning making, as a politically informed subject who experienced past trauma myself. I realized, as I moved along, how ashamed I was of the past trauma inflicted on me, so much so that I started researching it.
I believe that through our everyday mundane experiences, we are attempting to make meaning of our past experiences. Past trauma may inform the present, which in turn may demarcate the traumagenic nature of our past. In my research, I suggested that social activism may serve as an arena to engage in, make sense of, and reshape past trauma that social activists have grappled with. We may form different meanings and embody a new sense of being based not only on things we say (e.g. to our therapists) but also based on things we do.
by Molly Merson, MFT
How Grada Kilomba Turned Her Study of Psychoanalysis and PTSD Into an Artistic Practice that Confronts Collective Trauma. Read further for details on how psychoanalysis informs Kilomba’s artistic process and installations, including pieces on cultural trauma, memory, and gender.
Anish Kapoor on vaginas, recovering from breakdown, and his violent new work: “Freud would have a field day”. Kapoor exposes his own psychic guts while highlighting his recent works including sculptures of intestines and a sculpture painted with the “blackest material in the universe.”
TWO HALF-TIME OFFICE SUBLETS AVAILABLE. Located in Oakland and Campbell. Photos available upon request. The Campbell office is situated in a suite with several colleagues, multidisciplinary and collaborative, with weekly staff meetings. This is an especially good opportunity to build a practice. Contact Christina Halsey, Ph.D. at 2chirp@comcast.net or (510) 418-0170.
EARLY CAREER CONSULTATION/STUDY GROUP NOW FORMING. Weekly 1.5 hour group for pre-licensed and licensed Early Career clinicians, as well as more experienced clinicians newer to psychoanalytic thinking and practice. We will use contemporary psychoanalytic theories to deepen clinical work, with an emphasis on case consultation supplemented by close reading of clinically relevant papers. The group seeks to foster clinical, personal, and intellectual growth, creating a space for developing our capacities for emotionally-engaged thinking and dreaming the work together. For more information and questions, please contact Jonathan Moss, MFT - contact@jonathanmossmft.com
PACIFIC HTS PSYCHOTHERAPY OFFICE AVAILABLE. 2345 California Street, San Francisco. Collegial, professional, immaculate, quiet, secure, and elegant Victorian. Office #6 – corner office with great light. Newly carpeted, freshly painted, built-in bookcase, and wooden window shutters. Charming shared waiting room and kitchen with an outside deck. $1,800 per month includes daily maintenance and utilities. To schedule a visit and/or to discuss, please call Carol Anderson 415-713-9731. See below for pics of the building and office.
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.
Seasoned Clinicians Program
Wed, Nov 3 (begins) / 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm / Zoom
SFCP / (415) 632-2438 / C. Kwun, LCSW et al. / $580
Neuropsychoanalysis – The Hidden Spring
Sat, Nov 6 / 9:00 am - 11:30 am / Zoom
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / M. Solms, Ph.D.; M. Zellner, Ph.D. / $25 - $90
Psychoanalysis and The Social World
Wed, Nov 10 (begins) / 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm / Zoom
SFCP / (415) 632-2438 / J. Rao, LMFT / free
Second Fridays: The Magician’s Desire
Fri, Nov 12 / 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm / Zoom
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / J. Sekoff, Ph.D. / free - $40
Visiting Scholar — Patricia Gherovici
Sat, Dec 4 / 10:00 am - 12:00 pm / Zoom
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / P. Gherovici, Ph.D. / free - $40
Child Colloquium Series
Sat, Dec 4 / 10:00 am - 12:00 pm / Zoom
SFCP / (415) 632-2438 / K. Yin, Psy.D. & Y. Quoc, Psy.D. / free