Events
Spring 2025 Programs
Transference, Love, Being: Essential Essays from the Field
Presented by Andrea Celenza, PhD
Tuesday, January 14, 2025 from 7:00-8:30 pm EST
Will be held on Zoom.
CEs: 1.5
In this presentation, brief essays will be read from Dr. Celenza’s 2022 book, Transference, Love, Being: Essential Essays from the Field. Each essay will be about 15-20 minutes about various topics in the field including transference, real/unreal; Love in the analytic setting, erotic transferences.
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration, or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
Formation as a Therapist: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Burnout, Vicarious Trauma, and Well-Being
Presented by Laura Captari, PhD and Stephen Sandage, PhD
Saturday March 1, 2025 from 9:00 am - 12:30 pm EST
Will be in person at the Cambridge Health Alliance Learning Center
CEs: 3.25
How does ongoing exposure to trauma and suffering as well inequitable and unsustainable dynamics in mental healthcare—impact psychotherapists as people? This workshop applies psychoanalytic and developmental theories to critique and expand on best practice recommendations around self-care, synthesizing Kohut’s work on transformations of narcissism, Winnicott’s ideas of potential and transitional space, and Erikson and Akhtar’s emphasis on virtue. We argue for a paradigm shift toward ongoing formation, something increasingly lost in clinical training focused on skills and competencies. Unconscious motivations propel many therapists into the field, yet, can function as a double-edged sword. Systemic dynamics often unwittingly reinforce these personal vulnerabilities through organizational-level minimization, denial, and/or dissociation. We elucidate how this interplay creates the perfect storm for burnout, traumatization, and/or moral injury. As part of a holistic, culturally responsive approach to well-being, participants will explore diverse strengths that can promote flourishing through catalyzing the development of character, mature defenses, and differentiated object relations.
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration, or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
Psychoanalytic Considerations of the Phenomena of Shame
Presented by Eve Watson, PhD
Saturday April 26, 2025 from 11:00 am - 12:30 pm ET
Will be held on Zoom.
CEs: 1.5
The talk explores the role of shame as a cultural phenomenon, in clinical presentations, and in the context of psychoanalytic practice today. It is an under-explored topic yet is one that every analyst encounters and often works with in practice. A psychoanalytic framework drawing from the work of Freud and Lacan and other literary and cultural sources offers a mode of approach to the implications of shame in conditioning the human psyche and interlinking it with culture. A complicated picture of shame is painted to demonstrate its role in prohibition and the function of desire as well as its effects on jouissance and in revelation and truth-telling.
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration, or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
Finding God in the Consulting Room: Recognizing Spiritual and Religious Aspects of Subjectivity
Presented by Rex Kintanar, PsyD
Saturday May 31, 2025 from 10:00 - 11:30 am ET
Will be held on Zoom.
CEs: 1.5
Many of our patients have a strong spiritual orientation. Whether non-believers or explicitly religious, they often carry in their subjectivities a sense of divinity, transcendence, or “ultimate concern.” Conceptualizations of God, spirituality, or religion influence their self-perception, relationships with others, and experience and understanding of their problems in living. However, when these spiritual or religious elements arise in therapy, we may feel anxious, ill-prepared, or unsure of how to engage effectively. At times, our own subjectivities may hinder the therapeutic process, and we may cause harm through our ways of being and relating. In this presentation, we will explore how the analyst’s spiritual orientation or religious beliefs influence their clinical choices and shape their ways of being with patients. We will also reflect on how cultivating a psychoanalytic sensibility attuned to spiritual and religious dimensions can enhance our clinical work and nurture our relationship with spiritually oriented or religiously committed patients.
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration, or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
