ANNOUNCING THE WILLIAM ALANSON WHITE PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY
2007 – 2008 COLLOQUIA


All meetings will be held at the William Alanson White Institute.
20 West 74th Street,  New York City
Collation will follow
Reservations for all are required.
RSVP: 212-873-0725, Ext. 10.


ART AND EMOTION IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PROCESS:
THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN AFFECTIVE LIFE AND CREATIVITY

Friday, September 28, 2007, 8:00 pm
AFFECTIVE LIFE AND ARTISTIC PROCESSES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS:
FROMM REVISITED IN THE LIGHT OF PANKSEPP’S THEORY OF AFFECT
Presidential Address:  Valentina Harrell, Ph.D.
Discussant: Lois Oppenheim, Ph.D.

Valentina Harrell, Ph.D. - President, William Alanson White Society. Faculty and Supervisor, WAWI, Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and Metropolitan Center for Mental Health. Faculty, National Institute for the Psychotherapies. Adjunct Associate Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University. Private practice, New York.

Lois Oppenheim, Ph.D.  - Distinguished Scholar, Professor of French, and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Montclair State University where she also teaches courses in psychoanalysis and the literary and visual arts. Graduate of the Scholars Program of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Advisory board member of The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination. Author: A Curious Intimacy: Art and Neuro-Psychoanalysis and The Painted Word: Samuel Beckett’s Dialogue With Art, among others.

Friday, October 26, 2007, 8:00 pm  
THE AESTHETIC STATE OF MIND AND PSYCHOANALYTIC LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE
Speaker: Meg Harris Williams, M.Litt.
Discussant: Gilead Nachmani, Ph.D.

Meg Harris Williams will talk about a philosophy of aesthetics based on a post-Kleinian model of the mind,. She will use the ideas of Langer, Stokes, and Money-Kyrle to support Bion's concept of a psychoanalytic attitude and Meltzer's  concept of aesthetic reciprocity with regard to the internal object. Using Keats' poem "Ode to a Nightingale,", she will illustrate points about this philosophy and will focus on “learning from experience through symbol-formation with the aid of the aesthetic object,” which is what she means by “the aesthetic state of mind.”

Meg Harris Williams, M.Litt. -  Writer on psychoanalytic aesthetics and English literature, specializing in poetry, and a visual artist. Collaborated with her analyst and stepfather Donald Meltzer on The Apprehension of Beauty.  Author: Inspiration in Milton and Keats, A Strange Way of Killing: The Poetic Structure of Wuthering Heights and The Chamber of Maiden Thought: Literary Origins of the Psychoanalytic Model of the Mind, and The Vale of Soul-Making.  

Gilead Nachmani, Ph.D. - Fellow, Training and Supervising Analyst, Faculty, and Chairperson of the Appointments and Promotions Committee at WAWI. Member of the Editorial Board and Publications Committee of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Private practice, New York. In 2006 reviewed Meg Harris Williams' book The Vale of Soul-Making for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.

Friday, November 30, 2007, 8:00 pm
MUSIC AND THE SOURCES OF AFFECTIVE RESONANCE IN BRAIN, LANGUAGE AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
Speaker: Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.
Discussant: Janet G. Benton, Psy.D.

Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D. -  Baily Endowed Chair of Animal Well-Being in the Department of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology, and Physiology, Washington State University, Pullman. Head of Affective Neuroscience Research at the Falk Center for Molecular Therapeutics. Research devoted to understanding the neurobiological nature of emotional processes and the relationship of this knowledge to biological psychiatric and psychotherapeutic practice. Has pursued research on the emotional foundations of music. Author, co-author, and editor:  numerous articles and books, including Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions, and A Textbook of Biological Psychiatry.

Janet G. Benton, Psy.D.-  Program Chair, WAWI Colloquia Series 2007- 2008. Member of WAWI Artists Study Group. Supervisor, Metropolitan Center for Mental Health; Adjunct Clinical Associate, City University of New York, Doctoral Clinical Psychology Program. Private practice, New York.

Friday, January 11, 2008, 8:00 pm
AGGRESSION AND CREATIVITY IN WORKS BY FREUD AND JOYCE
Speaker: Paul Schwaber, Ph.D.
Discussant: Walter Spear, Ph.D.

Paul Schwaber. Ph.D. - Professor of Letters at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. Formerly Director of the College of Letters, Wesleyan’s undergraduate major in Western literature, philosophy and history. Private practice. Author:  The Cast of Characters: A Reading of Ulysses. Former Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and present Editorial Board member of the James Joyce Quarterly, the Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies (JAPA), and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.  Editor, with wife, Dr. Rosemary Balsam, Book Review section of JAPA.

Walter Spear, Ph.D. - Secretary of the Board of the William Alanson White Society. Faculty and Supervisor, WAWI. Associate Editor, Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine. Adjunct Associate Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University. Private practice, New York and New Haven, Connecticut.

Friday, February 29, 2008, 8:00 pm
REFLECTIONS ON SPACE AND IMAGINATION IN CHILDHOOD
Speaker: Ellen Handler Spitz, Ph.D.
Discussant: Joerg Bose, M.D.

Dr. Spitz will speak about early child development with respect to children's relationships to space. Her presentation will include a discussion of the actual living and playing spaces of children and how these impact children and are internalized, remembered, and distorted. She will also discuss the expansive spaces of children's imaginations and their wishes to co-create their own spaces. Dr. Spitz also will draw upon the work of “ The Childhood of the Artist” by Phyllis Greenacre.

Ellen Handler Spitz. Ph.D. - Honors College Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Writes and lectures internationally on aesthetics and the arts. Author of numerous articles on psychoanalysis and the visual, literary, and performing arts.  Books include: Art and Psyche, Image and Insight,  Museums of the Mind, Inside Picture Books,  and The Brightening Glance. Has been the recipient of fellowships including the Getty, the Bunting, the Camargo, and was named Erikson Scholar for the summer of 2007.

Joerg Bose, M.D. - Director of WAWI since 2000; Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty, WAWI. Clinical Associate Professor, at The College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. Co-founder and member of WAWI Artists Study Group. Private practice, New York. Has lectured, taught and written on issues of Self and Narcissism, on Trauma, on Shame, on Depression, and on the relationship between Psychoanalysis and the Arts.

Friday, April 11, 2008, 8:00 pm
RILKE'S SELF-ANALYSIS THROUGH ART AND POETRY
Speaker: Donald Kuspit, Ph.D.
Discussant: Paul Lippmann, Ph.D.

Donald Kuspit, Ph.D. - Professor of Art History and Philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Winner of the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism. Contributing Editor to Artforum, Sculpture, New Art Examiner and Tema Celeste magazines. Author of many articles and books, including The Rebirth of Painting in the Late 20th Century, Psychostrategies of Avante-Gard Art, and The End of Art.

Paul Lippmann. Ph.D. - Fellow, Faculty, Training and Supervising Analyst at WAWI. Faculty, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Director, Stockbridge Dream Society. Private practice, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Lecturer and author of numerous papers, chapters, articles mostly on the use of dreams in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Author: Nocturnes: On Listening to Dreams.

Friday, May 16, 2008, 8:00 pm
THE ROLE OF NO-SELF IN CREATIVITY: EXPANDING OUR SENSE OF INTERDEPENDENT ENGAGEMENT
Speaker: Polly Young-Eisendrath. Ph.D.
Discussant: Sandra Buechler. Ph.D.

Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D. - Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Vermont in Burlington, and Clinical Supervisor and Consultant on Leadership Development at Norwich University.  Private practice, Central Vermont. Author of many articles chapters, and books, the most recent being The Trouble with Being Special: A Whole New Approach to Self-Confidence for Kids and Parents (publishing 2008).

Sandra Buechler, Ph.D. - Faculty and Training and Supervising Analyst at WAWI. Supervisor at the Psychiatric Institute, School of Medicine, Columbia University, and Faculty and Supervisor at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. Faculty, National Institute of Psychotherapies. Private practice, New York. Author of many papers and a book, Clinical Values: Emotions that Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment, that address the issues of hope, joy, loneliness, and mourning in the analyst and patient.