Sat, Mar 29, 2014
10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Type: 
Scientific Meeting
CE Credits: 
3.00
Participant Limit: 
80
Tuition: 

$15 General Public
Free NCSPP Members
$10 CE Credit

Tuition listed above is for early registration ($15 discount off full fee). For registrations received after the deadline, full tuition will be applied to all registrations.

Early Registration Deadline: 
March 15, 2014
Registration Notes: 

Online Registration Closed. Registration will be available at the door.

 

Course Overview: 

“Pro-anorexia” has emerged as a dramatic development in cyberspace, drawing participants to Internet sites that take a partially positive attitude towards anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders. From an outsider’s perspective, pro-ana forums confront visitors with what has been characterized as “the 
spectacle of not eating” — words and images conveying startling emaciation and suffering. The harmful effects of pro-ana participation have been documented. Recent research, however, takes a nuanced point-of-view, arguing that pro-ana participation has benefits, including social support, a way to cope with a stigmatized illness, and a means of self-expression. This meeting will generate thinking about how online experience does and does not facilitate psychic growth. The author will suggest that, at best, pro-ana forums serve as a form of potential space for participants, shielding them from the experience of alienation while allowing for creative play with relational connection, identity, ambivalence, and recovery.

Course Objectives: 
  1. Recognize the benefits, social support and self-expression, of participation in pro-ana internet forums for patients with anorexia nervosa and eating disorders.
  2. Utilize the concept of potential space to patients’ use of pro-ana internet forums.
  3. Recognize how pro-ana internet forums shield patients’ with anorexia nervosa and eating disorders from the experience of alienation by allowing for creative play with relational connection, identity, ambivalence, and recovery.
Discussant(s): 

Mary Brady, Ph.D., is an adult and child psychoanalyst and faculty at SFCP. Her interests include eating disorders and other somatic expressions of psychic pain. Her paper "Invisibility and insubstantiality in an anorexic adolescent: phenomenology and dynamics" was published in the 2011 Journal of Child Psychotherapy.

Target Audience & Level: 

All mental health professionals, including MFT, LCSW, PhD, PsyD, psychiatric nurses, and graduate level students in psychology. This is an introductory to intermediate level course.

Cancellation & Refund Policies: 

No refunds for this event.

Contact Information: 

For program related questions contact Susanna Bernat, Psy.D., drsusannabernat@live.com.

For questions related to enrollment, locations, CE credit, special needs, course availability and other administrative issues contact Michele McGuinness by email or 415-457-9949.