Community Events (non-Alliance)

We invite you to attend a special online meeting to come together as clinicians in order to support one another and urgently, thoughtfully consider a therapeutic response to COVID-19.

A panel of discussants and a moderator will investigate clinical work in this challenging time through an Object Relations lens.

Those who join us on a digital platform will be invited to contribute to the dialog on three primary features of clinical work:

The Saturday Dialogues has been postponed and will be rescheduled at a later date.  

            Due to concerns over the COVID-19 virus, the March Scientific Meeting will be postponed and rescheduled at a later date.​

THIS CLASS IS FULL.

In this presentation Maxine Anderson proposes that neuroscience considerations are significant for our understanding of intuition. She outlines how the right brain and autonomic nervous system may usefully be thought of as major contributors to our intuitive capacities. 

       Due to concerns over the COVID-19 virus, this class has been postponed and will be rescheduled at a later date.​

This course offers a critical review of the work of Donald Winnicott, with a focus on his contributions to clinical theory and practice. We will also discuss the important contributions of his wife, Clare Winnicott.

6 Wednesdays March 11, 18, 25, April 1, 15, 22   7-8:30 PM

Fee:  $270

The practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy is a bit like juggling while riding a unicycle. We ask ourselves to bring attention (and at some point, our comprehension) to multiple elements of emotional experience within our patient, within the therapeutic hour (and process) and within ourselves. Daunting? Yes, but also exhilarating. The best way to learn the craft is to begin where you are and prepare for some skinned knees along the way. We will work with some clinical material as well as share some aspects of our own development as therapists.

The impact of trauma, especially if experienced early in development, can mark the psyche and result in PTSD symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, panic, and psychosomatic symptoms triggered by environmental representations of the initial traumatic situation. Treatment may be challenging since these presentations are not symbolically represented and the exploration of past traumas often causes a repetition of the original trauma resulting in a vicious cycle of re-traumatization.

In this informal evening event, we will look at the artistic process and its relation to psychotherapy and personal growth. We will view two short documentary style videos on the contemporary artists Vija Celmins and Liz Magor. Both women speak openly about their work and process, one as primarily a painter and the other a sculptor. The discussion to follow will focus on a number of topics, including the influence of art and the artistic process on therapy, as well as the impact of these two artists and their ideas on the group.

The Western Branch of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society presents "The Unwelcome Child  with Endre Koritar and Adrienne Harris"

Endre Koritar reviews the concept of the death instinct contrasting Freud’s metapsychological Dual Drive theory to Ferenczi’s object relational theory of the Unwelcome Child. The trans generational transmission of “unwelcomeness” to a child and its dynamic consequences will be explored through the narrative of an analysis of a young man who discovered he was an unwelcome child.