"Body - States" EDCAS Program 2012-2013

Except for the evening event during the first week of the program, classes generally meet at the White Institute on Fridays from 2:00 PM until 3:30 PM The program is comprised of three sections. Eating Disorders are examined during weeks two through 18. Compulsions are the focus of classes 19 and 20. The Addictions segment of the program is included during weeks 21 through 31.

 

Application deadline is July 28, 2012. If you have any questions about the program, please contact Dr. Jean Petrucelli at 212-724-9447 or drjpetrucelli@speakeasy.net.

 

Week 1: Friday Evening Event 6:00 - 8:00 PM | September 14, 2012

Wine & Cheese Reception

INTRODUCTION - THE INTERPERSONAL PERSPECTIVE ON EATING DISORDERS, COMPULSIONS & ADDICTIONS

Welcome by:
Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D., Director of EDCAS - Introduction to the Interpersonal Perspective on Eating Disorders, Compulsions, and Addictions
Donnel Stern, Ph.D., Training & Supervising Analyst, William Alanson White Institute

 

Orientation: Meet and greet participants and faculty

Week 2 & 3: September 21, 2012 & September 28, 2012

EATING DISORDERS I

Course Instructor: Judith Brisman, Ph.D.

 

This course will present an interpersonal approach to the treatment of anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. The etiology of these disorders will be examined with an eye towards consequent treatment considerations. Because of the complexity of eating-disordered patients' dynamics and the urgency of life-debilitating symptoms, treatment often involves extension of the boundaries of the analytic work. An approach is offered in which direct symptom intervention occurs within the framework of an interpersonally-based analytic approach. Complications, roadblocks, and treatment goals will be considered in developing an understanding of how best to reach these often unreachable patients

Weeks 4 & 5: October 5, 2012 & October 12, 2012

EATING DISORDERS II:CLINICAL APPLICATIONS UTILIZING THE INTERFACE OF CONCEPTS OF ATTACHMENT, SELF REGULATION, AFFECT REGULATION, NEUROBIOLOGY AND THE ANALYTIC RELATIONSHIP

Course Instructor: Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D.

 

Using clinical case material, this course will present a detailed, practical exploration of how one works analytically with anorexic, bulimic, and binge-eating patients beyond symptom alleviation. With an eye towards understanding the neurobiological underpinnings and the implications of these findings in clinical treatment, the concepts of attachment theory, self regulation and affect regulation will be viewed as interpersonal constructs. The need for novelty will be illustrated in clinical moments where the relational field shifts. The ongoing exploration of dyadic interactions between patient and therapist, the many "bodies" in the room, why a particular intervention is chosen, as well as the transferential and countertransferential concerns will be discussed. Issues of the often neglected work with male eating disordered patients, body obsession, diagnosis, assessing the level of care, and techniques involving contracts, food charts, and food language as metaphor, will be viewed as part of the bridge one builds to enter the ritual-filled world of the eating disordered patient.

Week 6: October 19, 2012

UNDERSTANDING AND DEALING WITH OBESITY: PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN BARIATRIC SURGERY AND THE IMPACT OF CHANGES IN BODY SIZE

Course Instructor: Janet Tintner, Psy.D.

 

This class will present the basics of how to assess suitability for, and treat the sequelae of, bariatric surgery, including a review of available surgeries. Bariatric surgery is viewed as a tool (not a solution) in working with desperation and intractability in the treatment of obesity. Examining the choice for surgery and the responses to weight loss, is a vehicle for approaching the broader question of how one works with a problem (obesity) that is stigmatizing, extremely difficult to treat, and where issues of maintenance are paramount.

Week 7: October 26, 2012

BINGEING: WHEN TOO MUCH IS NOT ENOUGH AND NOT ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH

Course Instructor: Anne F. Malavé, Ph.D.

 

This class will examine the range of bingeing experiences, from the bingeing that follows anorectic constraint, to full-blown bulimia, to binge-eating disorder, with the aim of connecting behaviors with underlying psychic phenomena. We will use clinical material to illustrate techniques that engage patients in connecting the surface behavior with its emotional sources.

Week 8: November 2, 2012

DISORDERED EATING AND EATING DISORDERS IN PRE-ADOLESCENCE AND ADOLESCENCE

Course Instructor: Jacqueline Ferraro, D.M.H.

 

This class will examine issues in pre-adolescence and adolescence connected with the development of disordered eating patterns and eating disorders, including an exploration of developmental, familial and societal factors. It will consider the dynamic aspects of overweight and underweight children and adolescents and emphasis will be placed on the interpersonal elements that are deeply embedded in any understanding of prevention and treatment.

Week 9: November 9, 2012

EATING DISORDERS AND THE ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITY: IT'S COMPLICATED

Course Instructors: Sharon Kofman, Ph.D. & Caryn Gorden, Psy.D.

 

This course will explore the increased incidence of eating disorders within the Orthodox Jewish population from a psychoanalytic perspective. Contemporary socio-cultural, historical, and religious factors that contribute to Jewish identity will be examined. The role of ritual and eating practices, family and gender dynamics, and cultural issues specific to the body, desire, and sexuality on the development of self will be discussed. Unconscious historical influences, such as the legacy of persecution, genocide, and intergenerational transmission of trauma, will be viewed as critically contributing to this symptom picture in survivor families. Discussion will involve noteworthy clinical features, treatment dilemmas and countertransference experiences in work with this population.

Week 10: November 16,2012

EATING AND THE GENDERED SELF

Course Instructor: Sarah Schoen, Ph.D.

 

This course will consider how cultural, developmental, and psychological forces influence the relationship between eating and gendered identity. The focus will be on how feelings about eating and bodies are tied to a person's experience of themselves as a man, or as a woman. For people with eating problems, experiences of self as desiring and desirable are often played out in relationship to food and body size. Clinical material will be used to explore how both the patient's and therapist's gendered selves, including feelings about their bodies and appetites shape and transform the interpersonal field.

Week 11: November 30, 2012

BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE: CLINICAL CONUNDRUMS

Course Instructor: Sarah Schoen, Ph.D. and various members of the EDCAS Steering Committee

 

This course will use transference and countertransference data to bridge theoretical knowledge and clinical experience. Students will be encouraged to raise clinical challenges and dilemmas in an informal and spontaneous discussion. Themes in clinical material that integrate interpersonal and relational concepts in work with eating disordered patients will be highlighted.

Week 12: December 7, 2012

INVITED GUEST SPEAKERS *EXTENDED TIME SESSION* 2:00-4:30 PM

THE ROLE OF THE NUTRITIONIST & MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS IN THE TREATMENT OF EATING DISORDERS

Moderator: Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D.

 

Guest Speakers will include: Judy Schwartz, MD; Karen Rosewater, MD; Wendy S. Ziecheck, MD; Theresa Kinsella, MS, RD, CDN; Robin Millet, MS, RD, CDN; Marina S. Kurian, MD, FACS

 

A multi-disciplinary approach to treatment involving the use of adjunct modalities will be examined in a roundtable discussion. Guest speakers will include nutritionists, internists as well as a gynecologist and a bariatric surgeon.

Week 13: December 14, 2012

BODY IMAGE

Course Instructor: Elizabeth Halsted, Ph.D.

 

This course will explore theories of the development of the body image while integrating the many definitions that have been applied to the concept. The complexity of the theoretical aspects will be applied to the rich array of tools and intervention strategies that have emerged. Particular focus will be on clinical listening and on the interpersonal approach to the body image.

Week 14: December 21, 2012

BLENDING CBT/DBT AND INTERPERSONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF EATING DISORDERS

Course Instructor: Carrie Gottlieb, Ph.D.

 

This course will examine the similarities and differences between cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavior therapies and interpersonal psychotherapy. The integration of these therapies will be explored as they pertain to conceptualization and treatment of individuals with eating disorders. Discussion will focus on the blending of these approaches in treatment.

Week 15: January 4, 2013

THE HORMONAL BODY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE PSYCHE

Course Instructor: Sue Kolod, Ph.D.

 

The impact of the hormonal body on the psyche has been largely avoided in contemporary psychoanalytic thought. In this class, we will explore how hormonal changes affect one's sense of self as well as the feeding and care of one's body. In addition to the important hormonal milestones for women such as the onset of menstruation, childbirth, peri-menopause and menopause, we will also explore the more subtle impact of hormones on the male psyche.

Week 16: January 11, 2013

ANGER AND SOMATIZATION

Course Instructors: Sue Kolod, Ph.D. & Elizabeth Halsted, Ph.D.

 

In this course we will explore how unexpressed and dissociated anger can be held in the body and manifested in somatic symptoms. Compulsive behavior and passive aggressive interpersonal styles, such as gossip and false friendliness are also common manifestations of dissociated anger. We will focus on the emotional cues in the treatment interchange that indicate the presence of unexpressed and dissociated anger.

Week 17: January 18, 2013

EMOTIONAL MODULATION

Course Instructor: Sandra Buechler, Ph.D.

 

Emotions are a primary means of intrapersonal and interpersonal communication. As clinicians and, more generally, as human beings, how can we best hear and use their messages? How can we learn to modulate them, to bring out their potential to enhance life, rather than detract from it? These questions will be explored in this course, with an emphasis on their clinical applications and a focus on the emotional cues that form a vital part of the fabric of the treatment interchange, as well as the rest of human experience.

Week 18: January 25, 2013

THE PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY OF EATING DISORDERS AND ADDICTIONS

Course Instructor: Zev Labins, M.D.

 

The psychopharmacology of substance disorders, including those involving food, encompasses a complex interplay between biological, psychological, and sociological factors intrinsic to the disorders and to their treatments. This course will address the indications and contraindications for the application of a variety of psychopharmacological agents as a component of treatment. Participants will be encouraged to present questions from their own practices.

Week 19: February 1, 2013

CASE PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION BY CANDIDATES

Course Instructors: Discussion by EDCAS Faculty members and class participants

Week 20: February 8, 2013

COMPULSIVE SEXUALITY

Course Instructor: Mark Blechner, Ph.D.

 

This course will explore the treatment of people with primary symptoms of compulsive sexual behavior. The focus will be on a clarification of the meaning of the behavior for the patient in conjunction with the development of alternative means of sexual expression.

Week 21: February 15, 2013

CULTIVATING CURIOSITY IN EXERCISE ADDICTION

Course Instructor: Anton Hart, Ph.D.

 

This course will present an overview of the concept of cultivating curiosity. It will address the ways in which addictive and compulsive symptoms can be seen as problematic ways of dealing with the difficulties of lived experience. Practical considerations for cultivating curiosity in patients with addictive and compulsive exercise and body-image symptoms will be presented.

Week 22: February 22, 2013

INTERNET ADDICTION AND THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY MEDIATED COMPULSIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Course Instructor: Phillip Blumberg, Ph.D.

 

This class will situate on-line addictions within the broader context of sexual compulsions. Psychobiological and psychodynamic processes, including impairments in self regulating systems, as well as separation-individuation conflicts which have been associated with on-line compulsions, will be reviewed. The class will examine the "virtual" nature of cyber sexuality--including chat rooms, interactive games, erotic e-mail, and web cams, and what it indicates about the changing nature of the contemporary American social character.

Week 23: March 1, 2013

WHEN COMPULSIONS ARE SOLUTIONS: CYBERSEX AND INTERNET PORN

Course Instructor: Todd Essig, Ph.D.

 

This course will explore clinical examples in which seemingly compulsive technologically-mediated sexual activity is later understood to have served crucial developmental and transitional functions. A treatment strategy is presented in which both the gains and losses of technology-mediated sexual experiences are explored. Three general questions are addressed: How does it work that technology can successfully mediate relationship experience? How and when does such mediation fail? What are the important differences between technologically-mediated relationship experiences and those experiences that come from being bodies together?

Week 24: March 8, 2013

TREATING ADDICTIONS FROM AN INTERPERSONAL & RELATIONAL APPROACH

Course Instructor: Jean Petrucelli, Ph.D.

 

The treatment of substance abuse, be it alcohol or drugs, presents clinicians with patients who are psychotherapeutically difficult to reach and who create unique transference/countertransference patterns. Case material will be used to explore the interplay between attending directly to the addiction and disengaging from the pull to do so between therapist and patient. The emphasis in treatment is on how relational interactions contribute to and maintain addictive patterns. Using a multiple states dissociative model, this class will focus on various treatment issues and concerns including; how the addiction functions as an attempt to repair, the myths of addiction, affect regulation, and the concepts of mindfulness, helplessness and powerlessness.

Week 25: March 15, 2013

THE CONVERGENCE OF HARM REDUCTION THERAPY AND RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS IN TREATING SUBSTANCE MISUSE

Course Instructors: Steven Tublin, Ph.D. and Debra Rothschild, Ph.D.

 

Harm Reduction Therapy is a form of treating substance misuse that expands the traditional "disease concept" model to one that allows for an individualized approach based on the needs of each patient. Harm Reduction Therapy aims to reduce any harm or risk that substance use may impose on the user or on others, and its practice is collaborative and emphasizes respect for the individual and treatment of a whole person in context. In this respect, it differs from the traditional treatment of alcoholism or substance abuse that has focused on the elimination of misuse or addiction. We will introduce and review psychoanalytic theories specifically relevant to the treatment of substance misuse and show how they dovetail with Harm Reduction therapy. Clinical material will be used to demonstrate an integrated approach to treatment based on the converging principles of Harm Reduction and Relational Psychoanalysis.

Week 26: March 22, 2013

TREATING ADDICTION IN THE ADOLESCENT AND COLLEGE STUDENT

Course Instructors: Miri Abramis, Ph.D. and Patricia Bellucci, Ph.D

 

This course will address questions of use and abuse of drugs and alcohol among young adults and adolescents. Developmental conflicts, self-medication, and the social context in which this population functions --i.e., school, peer group, family-- will be discussed. The use of consultation, transference, countertransference, and referral to adjunct treatments will be considered.

Week 27: March 27, 2013

INTEGRATING 12-STEP PROGRAMS INTO A PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPY

Course Instructors: Elizabeth Halsted, Ph.D. and Olga Cheselka, Ph.D.

 

The use of adjunct modalities in the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction is often essential in the recovery process. This course will focus on understanding the 12-step programs, exploring similarities and differences, and developing a model whereby psychodynamic treatment and 12-step programs are effectively integrated.

Week 28: April 5, 2013 (Please note there is also an evening class event)

THE INTERFACE OF BUDDHISM, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND ADDICTION IN WORKING WITH PATIENTS IN RECOVERY

Course Instructors: Ann B. Chanler, Ph.D.

 

This class will focus on the integration of Buddhism and psychoanalysis when working with patients in recovery. We will consider the value of loving kindness while peeling away the layers of deeply embedded feelings of inadequacy, pain and anger. Buddhism helps addicts connect to suffering with compassion. Like psychoanalysis, it encourages reflection and non-judgmental self-awareness. It creates an internal spaciousness through non-reaction and helps build self-respect. Both inspire a generosity towards self, self-confidence and a positive self-identity. The interpretation of events that cause distress-- not the events themselves-- will be explored.

 

*****SPECIAL EVENING EVENT APRIL 5, 2013
FRIDAY 6:00 - 8:00 PM April 5, 2013

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER: THE REAL MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Presenter: Sheldon Itzkowitz Ph.D.

 

In practice, clinicians can miss the subtle state changes that accompany dissociation. Patients at the extreme end of the continuum of dissociative disorders can help us understand pathological dissociation as a means of maintaining rigid boundaries around self-states for the purpose of emotional survival. Traumatic dissociation results when the normal process of dissociation becomes rigidified. The child's mind becomes structured in such a way that the developing sense of "me-ness"or "I", that leads us all to feel as if our minds are singular, unitary, and bounded, is derailed. Depending on the level and intensity of trauma and dissociation, the result can be the emergence of multiple centers of discontinuous and disconnected experience or self-states.

 

Dr. Itzkowitz will present a series of video clips of his work with patients who suffer from DID to show how shifts in self-states occur. He will demonstrate how he engages these states and uses his experienceintersubjectively to help patients loosen their defensive reliance on dissociation.

Week 29: April 12, 2013

ENSLAVED BY DESIRE: RELATIONSHIP ADDICTION

Course Instructor: Jill Howard, Ph.D.

 

This course will use Fairbairn's theory of the exciting-rejecting object as a way to think about addictive relationships. We will consider this theory as one explanation for people being unable to sustain long-term monogamous relationships. This issue will be explored, through readings and case material, as a dynamic that helps explain the difficulty we see with patients getting married and with people having extra-marital affairs.

 

Week 30: April 26, 2013

ELUSIVE LOVE: IN STALKING and IN FANTASY

PART ONE: OVERT AND COVERT STALKING
Course Instructor: Joerg Bose, M.D.

Part one will explore the clinical and theoretical aspects of stalking. Overt stalking in its obliviousness to reality will be used as a springboard to look at what one might call: stalking the past, as it occurs in compulsive preoccupations with being valued and loved by the rejecting significant other. Covert stalking manifests itself in states of depression, masochistic engagements, and various irrational pursuits that make their unacknowledged appearance in transference and through enactments.

 

 

PART TWO: IN LOVE AND FANTASY
Course Instructor: Evelyn Hartman, Ph.D

Part two will examine addictions and obsessions with different types of fantasies of love, whether actualized or not, that impede having fulfilling love relationships. The focus will be on understanding the factors that contribute to creating these fantasies as well as the power that sustains them.

 

Week 31: May 3, 2013

COUPLES UNCONSCIOUS COLLUSION IN COMPULSIONS

Course Instructor: Shelly Goldklank, Ph.D.

 

Birds of a feather flock together and opposites attract. Clinical couples often present with a similarity of underlying fears and a complementarity of styles in dealing with those fears. Thus, in some clinical couples, addictions or eating disorders present in one partner are consistent with attributes that initially attracted that partner to the other because of shared unresolved dilemmas. They have fundamentally similar issues which they have coped with in opposite styles. The complaints about the disorder are, therefore, not only telling about the partner who has them, but also about unresolved issues in the mate. Participants in this class will use this understanding to gain leverage in helping the couple change.

Week 32: May 10, 2013

RELATIONAL SUMMARY

Course Instructor: Emily Kuriloff, Psy.D.

 

Designed to follow basic grounding in theory and technique, this course will provide a closer, more in-depth look at theory and praxis regarding the understanding and treatment of eating disorders, addictions, and compulsions. The work of current interpersonal, feminist, post-modern, and "queer" clinicians will be discussed and applied to interesting and challenging clinical case material from both students and the instructor.

Week 33: May 17, 2013

CASE PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION BY CANDIDATES

Time: 2:00-3:30 PM followed by GRADUATION CEREMONY AND DINNER FRIDAY EVENING 5:30-7:30 PM