Community Events (non-Alliance)

Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis

Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is pleased to announce open enrollment for the 2021-2022 Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis certificate course. We will be offering the second year of a two year curriculum; however, participation in Fundamentals I is not a pre-requisite for joining.  

In keeping with social distancing and in an effort to provide a safe learning experience, this year’s course will be held exclusively online, via Zoom.

The mainstay of the discovery of psychoanalysis is the Oedipus myth. Two main readings of the myth are provided by Freud and Bion. We will read works from both authors, focusing actively on recognizing and working its dynamics in clinical practice. Illustrative examples from clinical practice may also be accompanied by additional sources, such as short stories and fairy tales.

Dates and Times: 4 Wednesdays, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm, on March 16, 23, 30, and April 6, 2022

Location: Online (via Zoom)

In this course, we will be extending the study of British Object Relations theory into the specifics of clinical work with patients. We will consider and discuss such topics as analytic listening, the clinical use of transference and countertransference phenomena, disclosure, formulating and responding to dilemmas and enactments, the ubiquity of narcissism, and conscious and unconscious levels of communication in the analytical process.

The construction of the internal world builds exclusively on the development of symbols. Many authors inside and outside psychoanalysis have wondered about processes of symbol formation. In this brief elective course, we will read some papers dedicated to these topics and focus actively on recognizing and working with symbols in clinical practice. Illustrative examples from clinical practice may also be accompanied by additional sources, such as short stories and fairy tales.

This course will span the academic year–18 sessions– and will explore the context and development of the basic but complex object relations concepts arising from Freud and expanded upon by Klein and later theorists and clinicians. We will also consider necessary conditions for growing a mind, and the clinical implications when that process is affected by neglect or trauma.

In a historical moment when the news media has repeatedly displayed the wanton killing of black men and women, the connection between African American identity and trauma seems especially salient. This talk will work through Lacanian psychoanalytic notions of subjectivity to ground an understanding of African American identity as mediated by social trauma.

Engagement with another’s internal world is a complex affair, which can be mutually enriching if on

Psychotherapist and playwright Elizabeth Clark-Stern was inspired by Jungian Analyst Laura Lewis Thayer's use of Jung’s number theory to link the “observable world” of touch, sight, scent, and sound to the spiritual reality of the unconscious mind. It was a revelation to realize that there is no separation between the world we see and feel, and the world of our dreams, our experience of synchronicity, and our knowledge of the divine.

Dr. Panajian will explore the place of the passions involved with the containing function of the analytic therapist.

Both immigration and retirement entail loss and require re-definition of identity. Retirement poses major challenges for anyone. For an immigrant, retirement has an additional aspect of reactivating the trauma of immigration with its losses and the necessity to develop a new cultural identity. Within the context of an immigrant analyst’s personal story, Dr.