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
Well, folks, my time at Impulse has come to an end. I am happy to report that the new Editor-in-Chief is Rebecca Shapiro. She will introduce herself next month. In the meantime, I would like to let you know a little about her. Rebecca Shapiro has been working behind the scenes on the Intensive Study Group (ISG) Committee, helping to plan and create the curriculum of NCSPP’s popular year-long courses. She will be graduating from The Wright Institute in August. Rebecca is in private practice in Oakland and is passionate about psychoanalysis. I look forward to her mark on Impulse.
by San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis (SFCP)
TUNING INTO THE UNSPOKEN: NAVIGATING THE LANDMARKS OF UNCONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE
Fridays, September 5, 2025 — May 29, 2026 | 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm | Zoom
Visit our website for more information.
Any questions, contact Nicole Lee at office@sfcp.org
by San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis (SFCP)
DEEPEN YOUR PSYCHOANALYTIC THINKING & PRACTICE WITH TWO SFCP YEARLONG PROGRAMS
Fridays, September 5, 2025 — May 29, 2026 | 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm | Zoom
Visit our website for more information.
The San Francisco Yearlong Didactic asks, “Just what is it that we do in the consulting room?” Are we correcting problematic repetitive patterns? Or are we facilitating being and becoming? What are our aims and methods? Through readings and discussion, we will explore various conceptions of the psychoanalytic process.
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Fridays, September 26, 2025 — May 8, 2026 | 1:45 pm - 3:00 pm | Zoom
Click our website for more information.
The San Francisco Yearlong Continuous Case Conference provides a supportive gathering place to present and reflect on clinical cases alongside peers. Together, we have an opportunity to experience how theory and practice come alive in the consulting room and to benefit from the extensive collective experience of the group leaders. Designed for early to mid-career licensed and pre-licensed clinicians.
by Lisa Koshkarian, Ph.D.
AUTOIMMUNE NATION
The immune system is the body’s defense against infections. An autoimmune condition is when the body’s immune system mistakes its own healthy tissues as foreign and attacks them. I wonder if nations can have their own sociocultural version of autoimmune disease. The country and its constituents represent the body. The current political “guardians”, elected, appointed, or promoted by coercive gaslighting, represent the immune system. These wardens attack organisms perceived as threatening who are basically like them, with the same needs for love, safety, belonging, and physiological survival, mistaking them as an alien other. And yet, these targeted groups are integral to the functioning of the body. They are as healthy a part of the system as any other. Therefore, aggression against them inflames the entire country, exacerbating profound sickness.
Most Western medicine practitioners will say that there is no cure for autoimmune disease, only treatments that mitigate the symptoms. I have experienced autoimmune barrages (of the bodily and of the sociocultural kinds), and I chose to pursue remitting paths through non-normative theories and approaches. I won’t go into how I got my thyroid condition into permanent remission, but I will state that my successful efforts bolstered my confidence that taking the roads less traveled could open unforeseen possibilities.
by Intensive Study Group Committee (ISG)
2025-2026 YEARLONG INTENSIVE STUDY GROUP: ON PERVERSION
Fridays, September 5, 2025 — April 17, 2026 | 10:00 am - 12:00 pm | In-person
Access Institute, 110 Gough St., Suite 301, San Francisco
Learn more about the course or register now.
Faculty: Janie Riley, LMFT; Daniel Butler, Ph.D., LMFT; Michael Levin, Psy.D.; Sydney Tan, Psy.D.
This yearlong course explores the provocative and “polymorphous” psychoanalytic topic of perversion and its manifestations in clinical and cultural life. Drawing on classical and contemporary approaches, we will trace the evolution of perversion from Freud’s metapsychology to its reworkings by Bollas, Stein, and Grunberger, attending to how psychoanalysis has pathologized certain desires. Clinically, we’ll examine perversion’s creative-destructive potential across multiple traditions, including French psychoanalysis, the British Independent school, and American intersubjectivism. Interdisciplinary texts by Foucault, Bataille, Bersani, and Sharpe will deepen our inquiry. The course culminates in a close study of Lacan’s structural reading of perversion and its contradictions.
Learn more at: freeassociationclinic.com/training-program.
Inquiries: jamesnorwoodpsyd@gmail.com
The Psychodynamics of Body Image
Tue, Sep 9 (begins) / 11:30 am - 1:00 pm / Zoom
NCSPP / (415) 496-9949 / T. Wooldridge, Psy.D. / $90 - $270
SBCPS Extended Study Series: Psychoanalysis in a New Key
Wed, Sep 10 / 10:00 am - 11:30 am / Zoom
PINC / (415) 288-4050 / F. Davoine, Ph.D., et al. / $900 - $1100
Community Mental Health Art Tour
Sat, Sep 20 / 11:15 am - 1:30 pm / 328 Lomita Dr. / Palo Alto
NCSPP / (925) 939-7500 / $5 - $10