SPS-The Society for Psychoanalytic Studies

06/14/2021

Join us for a Virtual Fireside this Thursday!

June Fireside presented by Dr. Richard Waugaman

05/18/2021

Join us for a Virtual Fireside event this Thursday!

Whiteness as Shame Management System: History, Theory, and Implications for the Psychoanalytic Community This paper tells the story of Whiteness and White aggression, from its origins in the early American colonial period to its contemporary manifestations, including and especially in psychoanalyt

04/12/2021

Join us for a Fireside presentation this Thursday, 4/15! Firesides are currently virtual on Zoom. Please note the method of registration at the bottom of this post.

Presenter: Matt Aibel, LICSW

“The Personal is Political is Psychoanalytic: Can We Talk Politics?”

The political sphere is understood as an essential, irreducible aspect of self and object representations, and it is an undeniably
consequential factor in our difficulties in living. Thus, political
considerations can no longer rightfully be regarded as taboo in
psychoanalysis.

The historical disavowal of politics in psychoanalytic theory and practice will be analyzed and its theoretical relegitimization in the
Interpersonal and relational schools will be traced. The relational
turn’s emphasis on the analyst’s subjectivity, intersubjectivity,
mutual recognition and the I/Thou ethic are seen, not without
complication, as positioning relational theory as necessarily left-
learning or progressive. We will examine challenges of working with
political material, especially in our highly partisan, deeply embattled political era, which easily instantiates fierce complementarity or collusive concordance. In such instances, to what extent might the concept of values supply a “third”?

To register:
1. Visit sps-mn.org (NOTE: This is a new web address)
2. Click on “Registration and Tickets”
3. Click “Fireside Ticket” (currently the image is a coffee mug and a ticket stub)
4. Select Member/Non-Member/Student
5. Click “Add to Cart”
6. Go to Checkout (Shopping Cart Icon in bottom-right corner of page)
7. Complete Transaction
8. IMPORTANT – During checkout, you will be asked for your email address, please ensure accuracy as this is where the Zoom meeting information will be sent.

04/10/2021

MICPP is holding virtual open houses for its two year training program! See the image below for details.

03/11/2021

Join us for an upcoming Fireside event on Thursday, 3/18, from 7-8:30! Firesides are currently virtual on Zoom. Please note the new method of registration at the bottom of this post.

Presenter: Jim Amundsen, PhD, LP

When COVID 19 hit in 2020, most psychotherapists switched from office visits to meeting via telehealth, with computer services like Zoom. Most of us have had to make this transition privately, without the benefit of support from face-to-face professional networking. The main focus of this Fireside will be the opportunity to discuss with fellow colleagues how this transition has been for us personally and professionally. SPS member, Jim Amundsen, will lead off with a brief presentation on why, from a neurological perspective, computer therapy sessions have been so surprisingly effective. Following this presentation, there will be an invitation to join your colleagues in sharing your experiences and perspectives in small group (virtual) breakout rooms.

To register:
1. Visit sps-mn.org (NOTE: This is a new web address)
2. Click on “Registration and Tickets”
3. Click “Fireside Ticket” (currently the image is a coffee mug and a ticket stub)
4. Select Member/Non-Member/Student
5. Click “Add to Cart”
6. Go to Checkout (Shopping Cart Icon in bottom-right corner of page)
7. Complete Transaction
8. IMPORTANT – During checkout, you will be asked for your email address, please ensure accuracy as this is where the Zoom meeting information will be sent.

02/18/2020

Join us for this month's Fireside! Thursday, 2/20/20, from 7-8:30pm at the Carondelet Center:
1890 Randolph Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105
“How can therapists understand and engage the School to Prison Pipeline?” A case study of a community intervention called, “The Circle of Peace Movement”

Presented by Joel Grostephan, M.S.W., L.I.C.S.W. & Russell Balenger, Founder

The Circle of Peace Movement aims to mend long lived ruptures of trust between the police, community elders and young people involved in the criminal justice system. Russel saw the School to Prison Pipeline (kids getting in trouble at school quickly escalating into legal issues with long-term consequences) play an outsized role in his grandchildren’s lives and those of other young people.

The Circle of Peace Movement is based on a restorative justice model of a talking circle. Participants agree to certain rules of engagement, pass a talking piece, and speak their truth to the room on some intimate subjects. Few participants have had voluntary or helpful involvement with therapists or mental health practitioners.

Joel and Russel will also discuss the ways this group works to address alienation, pain, isolation and acting out, all of which overlap with some basic assumptions that therapists hold and fit within theory from DW Winnicott and others. Finally, they will invite discussion of how therapists could be involved in community interventions that address profound social problems related to trauma, race, police and the criminal justice system.

Hope to see you there!

11/05/2019

Join us for this month's Fireside! Thursday, 11/21/19, from 7-8:30pm at the Carondelet Center:
1890 Randolph Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105

"The Application of Functional Psychotherapy to a Case of Childhood Sexual Trauma."

Presented by: Jim Mosher, Ph.D., ABPP, L.P.

In this presentation, Dr. Mosher will describe a theoretically integrative model of psychotherapy process that he is developing which he calld, “Functional Psychotherapy” (Mosher, 2019). A counter to predominant medical model perspectives of mental health which focus on diagnosing and treating symptoms, Functional Psychotherapy focuses on identifying the function of distressing emotions and then incorporating different techniques and theories to facilitate their resolution. Though Functional Psychotherapy subsumes, multiple theoretical orientations figuring into its structure most prominently are emotion theory (Greenberg & Safran, 1989), memory reconsolidation theory (Ecker, Ticic, & Hulley, 2012), person-centered (Rogers, 1956), and somatic experiencing (Levine, 2015). Generally, Functional Psychotherapy is very correspondent with short-term models of dynamic psychotherapy, humanistic, experiential and interpersonal perspectives; and, to a lesser extent, cognitive and behavioral.

Hope to see you there!

10/14/2019

Fireside this Thursday!

10/02/2019

Join us for this month's Fireside! Thursday, 10/17/19, from 7-8:30pm at the Carondelet Center:
1890 Randolph Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105

“From Freud’s Mourning to Mourning Freud”

Presented by: Madelon Sprengnether, Ph.D.

The modernist Freud of the early twentieth century has ceded to the postmodern Freud of the twenty-first. Dr. Sprengnether's book, Mourning Freud, examines this phenomenon from the perspective of Freud’s self-analysis in relation to his generation of theory, the challenges and transformations wrought by feminism, cultural studies and postmodernism, as well as the speculations of contemporary neuroscience regarding the unreliability of memory. Dr. Sprengnether will offer an overview of this argument, focusing on the preoedipal turn in psychoanalytic theory and the significance of mourning as a personal, cultural and political force for our time. In examining Freud’s own theories and practices of mourning, Dr. Sprengnether opens a path for us, as his intellectual heirs, to mourn him.

09/18/2019

Join us for this month's Fireside! This Thursday, 9/19/19, from 7-8:30pm at the Carondelet Center:
1890 Randolph Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105

“The Intersection of Two Perspectives on Trauma: Wilfred Bion and Neurobiology”

Presented by: Kathleen Fargione, L.I.C.S.W.

This presentation will explore the similarities between what Wilfred Bion says about trauma and what neurobiology says about trauma. The overlap between these two perspectives seems important. Neurobiology is validating many psychoanalytic concepts including explaining the neurobiology behind the fragmentation that happens in trauma.

Hope to see you there!