Spring 2026 Events
On the Nature and Treatment of Autism
Presented by Bruce Fink, PhD
Saturday, January 10, 2026 from 9:30 am - 3:30pm ET
(There will be a 1 hour break from 12:00 - 1:00 pm with a provided lunch)
Location: This event will be held at the Cambridge Hospital Learning Center.
There will also be a zoom option for those who would like to join remotely.
CEs: 5
Target Audience: Licensed mental health professionals and graduate students
Instructional Level: Intermediate
A great deal of work on autism has been done by psychoanalysts, and especially by Lacanian
analysts in the last 30 years, and today there is some consensus in the Lacanian world, at least,
to consider autism to be a separate clinical structure. I talk here about four different structures,
and not solely in terms of their corresponding forms of negation, but rather in terms of a number
of different processes or criteria, including, for each structure, how language is assimilated,
how the drives are handled, how jouissance is dealt with, whether the body is inhabited or not,
and how psychoanalysts can be of assistance. I focus here on a new conceptualization of the
nature of autism and how we can work with autists therapeutically. This discussion retroactively
sheds light on the other three clinical structures: neurosis, psychosis, and perversion.
All Access Member - Free
Student Member -$30
Member - $125
Non-Member - $200
Members - Register Here!
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
The Perils of Analytic Insularity: The Neglected Dimension of How Patients Treat Others
Presented by Tamara Feldman, PsyD and Brent Reynolds, LMHC
Sunday, January 25, 2026 from 10:00 am - 12:00pm ET
Location: Will be held on Zoom
CEs: 2
Target Audience: Licensed mental health professionals and graduate students
Instructional Level: Intermediate & Advanced
There are many ways we listen to our patients during the analytic hour. We listen for
symbolism, unconscious fantasies and transference allusions. We also listen in the register of
reality—as accounts of actual events and relationships in our patients’ lives. This includes
hearing about how patients were treated in their childhoods by caregivers and in their current
lives by spouses/partners, bosses, and friends. This presentation will discuss how, when
listening in the register of reality, we tend to focus more on how patients are treated rather
than how they treat others-particularly when our patients may have less than a salutary impact.
This can lead to incomplete or erroneous conceptions of our patients’ interpersonal
functioning. Central ideas to be discussed include the potential negative side effects of
empathy; the drawbacks of the analytic relationship’s insularity; epistemic overzealousness
when extrapolating dynamics from the therapeutic relationship to patients’ other relationships;
and the ways in which dominant narratives about patients can be self-serving for both patients
and therapists. Recommendations will be offered for developing a more balanced
understanding of patients’ relational lives. This workshop will include a presentation by Tamara
Feldman, a discussion by Brent Reynolds, a dialogue among Tamara, Brent and attendees.
All Access Member - Free
Student Member -$10
Member - $50
Non-Member - $75
Members - Register Here!
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
Initiating Analysis
Presented by Rodrigo Barahona, Psya. D.
Saturday, February 7, 2026 from 9:00am - 11:30am ET
Location: This event will be held at the Cambridge Hospital Learning Center.
There will also be a zoom option for those who would like to join remotely.
CEs: 2.5
Target Audience: Licensed mental health professionals and graduate students
Instructional Level: Beginning, Intermediate & Advanced
This event will be a talk based around Rodrigo Barahona's paper, Initiating Analysis. In this
talk, he will describe how the analyst's role in framing the patient’s material through transference
and resistance is key to initiating a psychoanalytic process. Drawing on Freud and Bion, he will
argue that psychoanalysis begins in the analyst’s mind as he/she interprets the patient's
unconscious communication, transforming it into a shared understanding. Central to this is the
concept of containment, where the analyst metabolizes and re-presents the patient’s emotional experiences.
Rodrigo Barahona will highlight the importance of the analyst’s theoretical framework and capacity
for reverie to navigate the emotional storms of early sessions, fostering an analytic process that allows the patient
to integrate fragmented aspects of their psyche.
All Access Member - Free
Student Member - $10
Member - $50
Non-Member - $75
Members - Register Here!
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
Dreams as Turning Points in a Lacanian Psychoanalysis
Presented by Annie Rogers, PhD
Saturday, April 18, 2026 from 11:00am - 12:30pm ET
Location: Zoom
CEs: 1.5
Target Audience: Licensed mental health professionals and graduate students
Instructional Level: Intermediate
This presentation explores listening to dreams in Lacanian psychoanalysis via the art of
Magritte as analogous to the enigmatic images and words in dreams. Dr. Rogers explicates
Freud’s original invention of dream analysis, and Lacan’s explication of the multiple valences
from signifiers coming from dreams. The presentation includes two confidential cases,
showing how dreams can work as turning points in a psychoanalytic clinic sustained by the
analyst’s acts rather than the imagined position of a “subject supposed to know.”
The presenter will explicate the identification of signifiers in a flow of associations, and the
use of silence to punctuate the unfolding of formations from the unconscious. The
presentation is aimed at an audience familiar with dream analysis and psychoanalysis, but not
necessarily familiar with a Lacanian approach.
All Access Member - Free
Student Member - $10
Member - $40
Non-Member - $50
Members - Register Here!
Not a member? Become one here for discounted event registration or you can sign up for this event at the full fee here.
