Admin
TICP Conference October 14, 2023: Dr. Donnel Stern
 Description

FROM FIELD TO MIND: RECENT THINKING ABOUT THE FORMULATION OF EXPERIENCE 

Guest Speaker: Donnel B. Stern, Ph.D.

Saturday October 14, 2023

10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. 

*This is a Zoom Virtual Conference Event* 

About The Day

Morning Session: Distance and Relation: Emergence from embeddedness in the other

Inspired by an essay by Martin Buber (1950), and then by the work of Ernest Schachtel (1959) on the idea of “embeddedness” and emergence from it, this is an account of the role of “distance” or “separateness” in clinical psychoanalytic work. We tend to assume that the capacity to appreciate otherness is always already present. We often lose track of the necessity to “set the other at a distance” (Buber), the prerequisite for emergence from embeddedness in the other. The entire process—i.e., setting the other at a distance and then emerging from embeddedness in the other--must take place over and over again in any treatment, and in both directions: Patients must disembed from analysts, but it is just as necessary for analysts to disembed from patients. It is the emergence from embeddedness that allows the analyst’s appreciation of patient’s otherness. Embeddedness in the other is discussed as mutual enactment. This use of these phenomena in treatment is articulated in the theory of witnessing that I have presented in recent years (Stern, 2009, 2012, in press). The presentation ends with a detailed clinical illustration.

Afternoon Session: Interpretation: Voice of the Field

To patients, the most memorable moments in psychoanalytic treatment are seldom the contents of the analyst’s interpretations, but the feeling of being understood. Interpretations are most meaningful, I argue, not because of what they say, but because each one is evidence that the analyst, who routinely becomes someone of great significance to the patient, knows the patient more than they did the moment before. I call this process “witnessing” (Stern, 2009, 2022), and as a result of it patients not only know and feel—they also “know and feel that they know and feel.” They can feel their roles in authoring their own experience. Therapeutic action results: Patients “come into possession of themselves.”

Interpretations are the outcome of shifts in the interpersonal field, which reveal new freedom to think and feel. That new freedom to think and feel allows the creation of the analyst’s interpretations, which therefore serve as a sign of the new way of being in one another’s presence that has now become possible between analyst and patient. Field shifts are jointly created, without conscious intention; and interpretations arise from field shifts. Interpretations, we can therefore say, are not really created independently by the mind of the analyst, but are instead the voice of the field. The presentation ends with a clinical illustration of these ideas.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of the day’s presentation, participants will be able to:

  1. Define North American field theory and apply it to their own clinical practice.
  2. Define "witnessing" and its contribution to therapeutic action, and therefore to their work with patients.
  3. Define and apply to their work the dialectic of separation/embeddedness. 

Schedule of the Day

10:00 a.m.    Introduction - Dr. Judi Kobrick

10:05 a.m.     Morning Session:   Dr. Donnel Stern

11:00 a.m.  Audience Discussion

12:00 p.m.   Lunch

1:00 p.m.      Afternoon Session:    Dr.  Donnel Stern

2:00 p.m.     Audience Discussion

3:00 p.m.     Closing remarks

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Donnel B. Stern, Ph.D. is Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute in New York City; Clinical Professor of Psychology and Clinical Consultant at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; and faculty at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is the Founder and Editor of a book series at Routledge, "Psychoanalysis in a New Key,” which has over 80 books in print. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He has published articles and book chapters for 40 years, and has co-edited four books and authored four others, the most recent of which is The Infinity of the Unsaid: Unformulated Experience, Language, and the Nonverbal (Routledge, 2019). A fifth authored book, On Coming Into Possession of Oneself: From Field to Mind, is in press, and another is written but not yet scheduled for publication: Contributions to the History and Definition of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis. He is in private practice in New York City.

Fees:

Earlybird Rates / Regular Rates after September 30, 2023

Regular: $160 / $170
TICP Member/Guest/Faculty: $150  /  $160
Student: $75/$100

*NOTE: STUDENT RATE AVAILABLE TO FULL TIME UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND/OR CANDIDATES OF APPROVED PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING INSTITUTES: ID MUST BE PROVIDED BY EMAIL TO info@ticp.on.ca 

 

 Details
Date & Time: Oct 14, 2023 10:00 AM to
Oct 14, 2023 03:00 PM
[America/Toronto UTC -5]

 
Registration Closes: Oct 14, 2023 10:00 AM

Event Coordinator:

Carla Van Wees
carla@ticp.on.ca
14162888060
 Registration Fees
TICP/TSCP Members Price
CAD
Spaces
Remaining
Workshop  
  
$160.00
Yes
 
Non-Members Price
CAD
Spaces
Remaining
Workshop  
  
$170.00
Yes
 
Student Price
CAD
Spaces
Remaining
Workshop  
  
$100.00
Yes
 

Registration is now closed.


 

Powered By GiftTool.com