Houston Psychoanalytic Society
Conference
Imagining Psychoanalysis, a Clinical Workshop: Therapeutic Creativity and Dialogues of the Unconscious  

Presented by Anthony Bass, PhD
Saturday, March 26, 2022
9:00 AM – 12:15 PM Central Time

3 CE/CME/CEUs

Live via Zoom
*Pre-Registration required for Zoom invitation

Registration Fees
Active Members: $75
Friend Members: $90
Student Members: $45
Non-members: $105

Instructional Level: Beginner - Advanced

In this workshop we will explore the nature of the psychotherapy relationship, using Ferenczi’s concept of a “dialogue of unconsciouses” as a point of departure for the experience. We will explore the fundamental role of imagination in the psychoanalytic project, and consider the obstacles that inhibit it, and ways of freeing it. We will deepen our grasp of unconscious dimensions of therapeutic relating through our engagement with difficult treatment moments.

Along with Dr. Bass, participants in the workshop may present material themselves or work with others’ clinical vignettes. They will gain experience using emotional responses to patients to identify and work through enactments, impasses and other challenging countertransference obstacles at the heart of psychotherapy. Implications for how we make use of ourselves, the way we respond to our patients, and how this contributes to our therapeutic intentions and sense of ‘technique’ will be explored.

We will focus on patients with whom we have felt especially emotionally affected, i.e., those who have evoked intense, disturbing or arousing reactions: patients about whom one dreams at night, or becomes preoccupied by day, or who evoke anxious or counter-resistive responses, such as fighting sleep, or falling asleep or becoming bored; patients who arouse us to anger, disgust, shame, or sexual or other body experiences. Such experiences, often at the heart of enactments in psychotherapy, provide special opportunities for gaining access to the ways in which the unconscious life of patient and therapist emerge and interact, creating special challenges and special opportunities for deepening and furthering the work. Please come prepared to share some clinical moments if possible.
 
OBJECTIVES
  1. Identify and describe the history of some of the origins in Ferenczi’s work of the active use of countertransference in the therapeutic situation.
  2. Identify and compare different ways of using themselves in the therapeutic situation, involving direct and indirect uses of countertransference.
  3. Describe and identify a variety of ways of gaining access to and making use of their countertransference to benefit psychotherapeutic work with difficult, disturbing and/or challenging patients.
Presenter
Anthony Bass, Ph.D. is an associate professor and clinical consultant at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and faculty, training and supervising analyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. In addition, he is on the faculty and a supervisor at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies National Training Program, the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is a founder and president of the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. He was a founding editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, the International Journal of Relational Perspectives, and a founding director of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He leads clinical study groups and workshops around the US, Europe and Israel.

REFERENCES
Bass, A. (2015). The dialogue of unconsciouses, mutual analysis and the uses of the self in contemporary relational psychoanalysis. Psychoanal. Dial., 25(1):2-17.

Bass, A. (2019). Ordinary unconscious communication in the therapist/patient relationship. Psychoanal. Inq., 39(3-4):189-197.

Bass, A. (2019). Memories and reflections on my Life in relational psychoanalysis. Psychoanal. Inq., 39(2):114-122.

Colorful mind illustration from Shutterstock (agsandrew)
Houston Psychoanalytic Society
1302 Waugh Dr. #276
Houston, TX 77019
(713) 429-5810

Houston Psychoanalytic Society is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Houston Psychoanalytic Society maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, as a co-sponsor of Houston Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 3 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. 
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.
-Updated July 2021-

Houston Psychoanalytic Society, through co-sponsorship with the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, also offers approved CEs for social workers, licensed professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists.