Friday, September 29, 2006
Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis: Towards a Theory of Mind
Clark Sugg M.D.

Friday, October 27, 2006
Horse and Rider Revisited:  the Dynamic Unconscious and the Self as Agent
Arnold Modell, M.D.
Discussant: Roger Frie, Ph.D., Psy.D.
Dr. Modell will discuss the impact that contemporary advances in neurobiology and the cognitive sciences have had on our understanding of self-agency.  His paper will also explore the relationship between feelings of psychological effectiveness and the capacity to generate personal meanings and metaphors.

Friday, November 17, 2006
The Clinical Power of Metaphoric Experience
Joseph Lichtenberg M.D.
Discussant: Ruth Imber Ph.D.


Friday, December 8, 2006 ***this meeting has been cancelled***
Limits of the Boundary Concept
Arnold Goldberg M.D.
Discussant: Jack Drescher M.D.

Friday, February 23, 2007
What Happens to the Mind When A Civilization is Destroyed?
Jonathan Lear Ph.D.
Discussant: Ira Moses Ph.D.
Jonathan Lear will discuss the significance of trauma as a social phenomenon which has the potential to overwhelm an entire civilization.    How can experiences of identity and mental states remain viable when a culture’s telos—its very way of assigning life meaning—is attacked and destroyed?  How can we mourn such losses on both the social and individual levels?  Dr. Lear will focus on the Crow Indian tribe in his description of the unconscious factors that contribute to vulnerability and resilience in the face of massive cultural devastation.


Friday, March 30, 2007
Self Knowledge and Self Discovery
Marcia Cavell Ph.D.
Discussant: William Richardson Ph.D.
In her most recent book, Becoming A Subject, psychoanalytically trained philosopher Marcia Cavell wrote, “Freud and psychoanalysis describe many limitations on freedom….not by showing us the reach of unconsciousness mentality, but by showing us psychological factors that make inroads on the ability to choose, suggesting at the same time ways in which the domain of freedom for any one person might be enlarged”.  Drawing on her training in both psychoanalysis and philosophy, Dr. Cavell will explore the complex relationship between concepts of free will and Freud’s notion of psychic determinism.  Encountering psychoanalysis both as a theory of mind and as a clinical therapy,  she will reexamine notions of human agency and subjectivity and show that a language of the mind and a language of the brain are both required for “the living of our human lives and the understanding of our human actions”.


Friday, April 20, 2007
The Neural Circuitry of Early Parent-Infant Attachment
Linda Mayes M.D.
Discussant: Emily Kuriloff Psy.D.
Linda Mayes will discuss the concept that parental caregiving includes a highly conserved set of behaviors and mental states that may reflect both an individual’s specific genetic endowment as well as their own early experiences of being cared for as a child.  Dr. Mayes will discuss the biological and psychological reorganization that occurs when an adult is anticipating the birth of their child.  Particular attention will be paid to the neural circuitry mediating the heightened sensitivity of the new mother which Winnicott termed “primary maternal preoccupation”.  Current parent-infant research and its clinical applications will be highlighted.

Friday, June 1, 2007
The Role of Brain Theory in Psychotherapy
Walter Freeman M.D.
Discussant: Kenneth Eisold Ph.D.
Walter Freeman will discuss the finite brain’s astonishing capacity to successfully navigate the infinite complexity of the world surrounding it.  Utilizing non-linear dynamics, he will describe some of the means through which the brain creates meanings and develops hypothesizes.  Dr. Freeman applies concepts from complexity theory to advance our understanding of brain activity as well as psychotherapeutic concepts such as regression and the working alliance.  His research on neuroscience and dynamic systems has had a significant impact on contemporary psychoanalytic theorizing particularly on the work of Daniel Stern and the Boston Process of Change Study Group.

Dr. Freeman’s presentation will be co-sponsored by The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination and the White Society.

Marcia Cavell, Ph.D. — Professor of the Humanities, Bard College; Honorary member, The American Psychoanalytic Association; author; The Psychoanalytic Mind: From Freud to Philosophy, Becoming a Subject: Reflections in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis.

Jack Drescher, M.D. — Fellow, Training and Supervising Analyst, WAWI; Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor, NYU Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Distinguished Fellow, American Psychiatric Association; editor in chief, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy; Bending Psychoanalysis book series; author; Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man; professional webpage; www.jackdreschermd.net 

Kenneth Eisold, Ph.D. — Faculty and Supervisor of Psychotherapy, Chairman Council of Fellows, WAWI; Past President, International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations; author, The Future of the Unconscious (forthcoming).

Walter J. Freeman, M.D. — Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley; Guggenheim Fellow; recipient of Helmholtz Award, Pioneer Award from Neural Network Council; author; Society of Brains: A Study in the Neuroscience of Love and Hate, How Brains Make Up Their Minds.

Roger Frie, Ph.D. Psy.D. — Assistant Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; faculty, WAWI and Pacifica Graduate Institute, author; Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, Understanding Experience: Psychotherapy and Postmodernism, Psychotherapy as a Human Science.

Arnold Goldberg, M.D. — Training and Supervising Analyst, Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis; Cynthia Oudejans Harris M.D. Professor of Psychiatry at Rush Medical School; author; Moral Stealth: How“Correct Behavior” Insinuates Itself Into Psychoatherapeutic Practice, The Problem of Perversion: The View from Self Psychology, Errant Selves: A Casebook of Misbehavior, Being of Two Minds: The Vertical Split in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.

Ruth Imber, Ph.D. — Training and Supervising Analyst WAWI; Editorial Board Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Supervisor, Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy; Supervisor of Psychotherapy, Department of Psychiatry, St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Emily Kuriloff, Psy.D. — Training and Supervising Analyst WAWI; Editorial Board; Contemporary Psychoanalysis; faculty and supervisor; Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy.

Jonathan Lear, Ph.D. — John V. Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago; faculty, Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis; Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, New York University Institute for Psychoanalysis. author; Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation; Freud; Therapeutic Action: An Earnest Plea for Irony; Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis

Joseph Lichtenberg, M.D. — Founder and Director Emeritus, Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Editor-in-Chief, Psychoanalytic Inquiry; author; Craft and Spirit: A Guide to the Exploratory Psychotherapies, Psychoanalysis and Motivation, Psychoanalysis and Infant Motivation.

Linda C. Mayes, M.D. — Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology at Yale Child Study Center; Professor, Yale Medical School; faculty, Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis; Chairman of the directorial team of the Anna Freud Center.

Arnold Modell, M.D. — Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author; Imagination and the Meaningful Brain, The Private Self, Psychoanalysis in A New Context, Object Love and Reality: An Introduction to a Psychoanalytic Theory of Object Relations.

Ira Moses Ph.D. ABPP — Director of Clinical Services; Training and Supervising Analyst, WAWI; Supervisor, Westchester Center of the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Clinical Instructor, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University Medical School.

William J. Richardson Ph.D. — Professor of Philosophy, Boston College; co-author, The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida and Psychoanalytic Reading, Lacan and Language: A Reader’s Guide to Ecrits; author, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought.

Clark Sugg, M.D. — Psychiatrist-in-Chief, faculty, WAWI; Associate Editor, Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry, NYU Bellevue Medical Center; faculty NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Department of Psychiatry, St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center.