What’s love got to do with it…?
NEWPORT PSYCHOANALYTIC INSTITUTE PRESENTS:
Dr. Steven Kuchuck, DSW
On the Therapeutic Action and Clinical Limitations of Love
February 23rd, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm,
National University,
3390 Harbor Blvd,
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Love can be or at least feel dangerous
Our psychoanalytic history is replete with examples of love or lust challenging and tragically, too often breaking through crucial boundaries. Before the relational turn, we were mostly urged to blot out intense affective and personal responses to our patients or to at least recognize that they were solely induced by them. In fact, loving and certainly falling in love with our patients were experienced as such unusual and frightening phenomena that they were usually assumed to represent countertransference problems and otherwise seen to be distinct from “real” love. In other words, when love—especially but not only the romantic variety–bloomed in the consultation room, it was more often than not seen as toxic and anything but the enlivening and growth enhancing feeling that often develops between two people engaging in an intimate relationship.
Even if a relatively new phenomenon, contemporary clinicians know a lot about the potential for healing that analytic love affords. But there are therapeutic challenges as well, which are not as frequently noted in the literature. Perhaps because we are so relieved to finally be given “permission” to make good use of the full range of our feelings, we sometimes miss the limitations inherent in loving. This presentation will present new theoretical data and detailed clinical cases in order to explore these issues.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
At the completion of this seminar, participants will be able to:
- Name one reason why erotic countertransference has historically been seen as taboo.
- Give one example from the presenter’s or their own practice of a situation in which the therapist’s loving feelings were integral to the therapeutic action.
- Describe one example from their own practice in which the therapist’s loving or other strong feelings impeded therapeutic progress.
- Define the correlation between patient affect and length of clinical treatment.
- Give at least one example of a clinical situation in which an event from the clinician’s life or a personality characteristic impacted the transference-countertransference trajectory.
- Give at least one example in which the therapist’s own psychological need (in addition to or instead of the patient’s need) led to a particular therapeutic intervention.
INSTRUCTOR:
Dr. Steven Kuchuck, DSW is Editor-in-Chief; Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Co– Editor; Routledge Relational Perspectives Book Series, President, International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and Board Member, supervisor, faculty, NIP, and faculty/supervisor at the NIP National Training Program, Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center, and other institutes. Dr. Kuchuck’s writing focuses primarily on the analyst’s subjectivity and in 2015 and 2016, he won the Gradiva Award for best psychoanalytic book: Clinical Implications of the Psychoanalyst’s Life Experience: When the Personal Becomes Professional and The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi: From Ghost to Ancestor (co-edited with Adrienne Harris).
DATE & TIME: February 23rd, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
LOCATION: National University, 3390 Harbor Blvd, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
NUMBER OF CE/CEUs: 6
COST:
General: $165, $155.00 Prior to January 11th
Members: $155, $145 Prior to January 11th
Students and Pre-Licensed: $125, $110 Prior to January 11th
NPI Candidates: No Charge
Lunch Included