Course Title: Thinking for Clinicians: How Reading Philosophy Can Deepen Your Understanding of Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice (12 CE Credits, IL)

Instructor: Philip Bestrom, MA, LCSW

Meeting Dates: (2026): 1/6, 1/13, 1/20, 1/27; 2/3 & 2/10.

Meeting Time: Tuesdays; 6:00 PM –8:00 PM CST

Location: via Zoom

Description: Many contemporary psychoanalytic theoreticians have been influenced by philosophical works. Often when reading psychoanalytic articles, we come across names we recognize but have never read directly. These original philosophical works can often be unfamiliar to many clinicians who have had limited exposure to reading philosophy. In this seminar, inspired by the book of the same name by Donna Orange, I will introduce you to some of these philosophical works. In the first half of each meeting, we will focus on a specific philosopher and read passages from their work. I will also provide some overview and background of these philosophers. For this seminar we will mostly focus on existential philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Camus to name a few. Then in the second half of each meeting we will turn to the work of a psychoanalyst who has been influenced by that philosopher. This will include Peter Shabad, Robert Stolorow, and Frank Summers among others. By reading the philosopher’s original work I hope you may be inspired and gain the confidence to continue exploring their work and its connection with contemporary psychoanalytic theory and practice. I will also suggest secondary resources that provide more accessibility. Additionally, reading philosophy also helps us understand our own personal ideals, clinical values, and organizing principles which will be explored in this seminar.

Biographical information:

Philip Bestrom is a licensed clinical social worker and psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He is an advanced candidate at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He worked for ten years as a community psychiatric social worker and is now in private practice. He is licensed in Illinois and Michigan.

Course Title: Trauma, Shame, and Mourning (12 CE Credits, IL)

Instructor: Peter Shabad, Ph.D

Meeting dates (2026): 2/24/26; 3/3/26; 3/10/26; 3/17/26; 3/24/26; 3/31/26

Meeting Time: Tuesdays; 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM CST

Location: via Zoom

In this course, we will explore how traumatic and chronically disillusioning experiences have profoundly inhibiting effects on the passion necessary to grow and change throughout life. We will devote special attention to how human beings transform their traumatic experiences outside of their control into shameful failures, in which they “blame the victim” in themselves for being a victim. After describing how the “intimate creation” of one’s unique constellation of symptoms is a means of both communicating and memorializing such traumatic experiences, we will examine how shame leads to character passivity and interrelated dynamics such as self-pity, resentment, entitlement, envy, perverse spite, and regret. In the clinical section of the course, we will explore how the patient’s passivity and ambivalence towards therapeutic change is closely intertwined with his/her chronic struggle between the freedom to desire and obeying a tyranny of shoulds. In this regard, we will also highlight important clinical tensions between developmental determinism and freedom of will, and corresponding countertransference tensions of love versus respect in the analyst’s attitude toward the patient. Finally, we will discuss how the mourning process of accepting and reintegrating one’s shamed desires paradoxically facilitates the generosity of relinquishing the necessity that those desires be fulfilled. In addition to analytic readings, we will also read Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych.

Biographical information:

Peter Shabad is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Northwestern University Medical School. He is also on the Faculty of the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago and the Teaching and Supervisory Faculty of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He is a also a Training Analyst at the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. He is an Associate Editor for Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Dr. Shabad is co-editor of The Problem of Loss and Mourning: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (IUP,1989) and is the author of Despair and the Return of Hope: Echoes of Mourning in Psychotherapy (Aronson, 2001). Dr. Shabad new book entitled “Passion, Shame, and The Freedom To Become was published by Routledge (2024). He is also the author of numerous papers and book chapters in psychoanalysis on diverse topics such as loss and mourning, shame, resentment, and regret. Dr. Shabad has a private practice in Chicago in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy

Course Title: The Emotional Brain: Neuropsychoanalysis and Clinical Practice (12 CE credits, IL)

Instructor: Derrick Hassert, PhD

Meeting dates (2026): Wednesdays 3/4, 3/11, 3/18, 3/25, 4/1, 4/8

Meeting time: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM CST

Location: via Zoom

Course Description:

This course will discuss the essential theoretical contributions that have emerged from the incorporation of neuroscientific findings into psychoanalytic thought and clinical work. After reviewing the basics of brain functioning and Freud’s early work in neurology and neuroscience, participants will discuss key concepts derived from the work of Mark Solms, Jaak Panksepp, Allan Schore, and Jeremy Holmes. We’ll also appraise Otto Kernberg’s recent reflections about the implications of these findings for certain theoretical and clinical concepts, notably those regarding the centrality of emotion in clinical work and in the formation of the concept of the self in early life.  Finally, participants will consider how debates in psychoanalysis have influenced research in the affective and cognitive neurosciences.            

Biographical Information:

Derrick Hassert, PhD is Visiting Faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Psychotherapy at Loyola University Chicago, and Professor of Psychology at Trinity College in Palos Heights, Illinois. Derrick received his psychoanalytic training through the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and is a Clinical Fellow of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. Derrick received previous training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy through the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology and the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He maintains a private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy in Matteson, Illinois and by telehealth.