For 2022-23, the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP) proudly continues its program  of  small consultation groups, to be led by master clinicians from the CCP community.   These groups, offered at relatively affordable fees exclusively to CCP members, will focus on several broad areas of clinical practice – work with adolescents and emerging adults, psychodynamic listening in work with adults, work with severe disturbance, and work within the transference-countertransference matrix.

Group size will be highly limited to a maximum of 6 members in order to foster intimate and lively participation.  Members will commit to biweekly meetings through the end of May, 2023, so that groups can offer consistent and cohesive connection around each other’s clinical material.  Each meeting will be at least 1-1/2 hours and will operate virtually or in person at the discretion of the leader.

Fees for the 2022-23 groups will be graduated based on the member’s career stage.  For those who are not yet licensed, the fee is $300.  For those who have been licensed less than 5 years, the fee is $500.  For those who have been licensed 5 or more years, the fee is $700.  

We are excited to offer this special opportunity to CCP members, and to those who might want to avail themselves of this opportunity by joining CCP.  By joining CCP, you will not only be eligible for group membership, but will also enjoy other CCP benefits, such as free access to the acclaimed Friday night lecture series.

If you would like more information, please contact Dr. Paul Sanders at 847.302.7682, or prsanders1234@yahoo.com.

Please check out the group descriptions below.  If space is available, you can register and pay online easily by clicking the links on the right.           

Consultation Groups Registration (Registration buttons are at top right of this page)

(Please bear in mind that enrollment in these study groups is extremely limited)

GROUP SELECTION (Choose one):

• Diane Selinger, PhD.  Working with Adolescents and Emerging Adults
• Michelle Sweet, PhD.  The Work of Listening, Feeling, and Thinking Psychodynamically 
• Charles Turk, MD.  Working with Psychosis
• David Daskovsky, PhD.  Working with Projective Identification and Enactment 

FEE (Choose one):

• Not yet licensed - $300
• Licensed less than 5 years - $500
• Licensed 5 years or more - $700

More about the groups:

Group title:  Working with adolescents and emerging adults 

Group leader:  Diane Selinger, PhD

Meeting dates: Alternate Wednesdays, beginning September 28.  

Meeting times:  7:10 – 8:40 p.m.(CST) via Zoom

Group description:

Therapeutic work with adolescents and emerging adults is both gratifying and complex, and even more so during the Covid era.  This biweekly, ongoing consultation group will provide an opportunity for participants to present their work with adolescents and emerging adults.  We will share the developmental challenges we face in this work, as well as the potentially illuminating internal experiences we sometimes encounter along the way.  We will also address the additional issues that might arise in the work with parents, other family members, and schools.  The emphasis will be on a safe, thoughtful, and enriching exchange that will promote better understanding of the clinical process with adolescents and emerging adults, while deepening our understanding of our own experiences.  Concepts from various psychoanalytic perspectives will be included and discussed.

About the leader:

Diane Selinger, PhD is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice, who works with children, adolescents, and adults. She completed her training at the National Training Program of the National Institute of the Psychotherapies  (NIP). She is a faculty member of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP).

For many years, Dr. Selinger was the mental health consultant at Beth Osten and Associates, a multidisciplinary pediatric clinic. She continues to be the mental health consultant at Soaring Eagle Academy, a DIR® (Developmental, Individual-differences, Relationship-based) school for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and was instrumental in integrating a mental health component into both programs. She is senior faculty at Profectum Academy and was faculty at its DIR Institute predecessor. Diane’s teaching, presentations, webcasts, and publications have related to therapy with children and their parents.  They have spanned diverse topics, including autism and gender. Dr. Selinger most recently presented a paper this year at the Profectum Conference entitled “An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Therapeutic Power of Symbolic Play.” Her Paper was entitled, “Creating Possibilities: The Intermingling of DIR and Psychodynamic therapies.” 

Group title:  The therapeutic conversation, Part II: the art of listening, feeling, and thinking therapeutically

Group leader:  Michelle Sweet, PhD

Meeting dates:  Alternate Sundays, beginning September 11

Meeting time:  10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 

Group description:

This ongoing consultation is a continuation of last year’s working group of clinicians, where we present and think about each case presentation from a psychodynamic perspective.  The goal is to create usable psychotherapeutic understandings and interventions that enrich and deepen our clinical work. Concepts from developmental theory, object-relations, self psychology and relational psychoanalysis will be introduced and discussed as they relate to and illuminate the clinical process.  Please note: members from last year’s group will get registration priority for this continuing group.

About the leader:

Michelle Sweet, PhD is on the faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP) and the Institute for Clinical Social Work (ICSW).  She earned a MA at University of Chicago (SSA), and a PhD at ICSW, grounded in human development, play therapy and self psychology.  Influenced by Stephen Mitchell and Jessica Benjamin, she became an early member of the International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP) and completed a certificate in psychoanalysis from the National Training Program in Contemporary Psychoanalysis at the National Institute of the Psychotherapies (NIP).  In addition to her private psychotherapy practice with individuals and couples, Dr. Sweet has supervised clinical staff at a child psychiatric hospital, provided ongoing individual and group consultation, and taught doctoral classes on infant development, qualitative research and contemporary psychoanalysis.

Group title:  Consultation/study group on the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis

Group leader:  Charles Turk, MD

Meeting dates:  Alternate Mondays, beginning September 12

Meeting time:  7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Group description:

Those of you who have attempted the difficult and demanding work of treating very disturbed people are invited to join a study group on the treatment of psychosis.  Here you may bring in your own cases to further a discussion of the application of psychoanalytic principles to the treatment of psychosis. 

Over the years psychoanalytic treatment has been deemed by many to be contraindicated for psychotic individuals.   Nevertheless, there is a rich tradition, beginning with Freud, of efforts to work psychoanalytically with psychotic patients.  Of the many who have devoted themselves to this, a group of Lacanian analysts developed a successful treatment program for psychotic young adults in Quebec City.  It is known as “388,” the street address of a beautiful mansion that houses the treatment program, and 90% of those treated there psychoanalytically have resolved their delusions; they no longer live in terms of them and have obtained satisfying places in society.  Dr. Turk will weave the principles developed at 388 into discussions of cases that he and group members bring to investigate and share.

About the leader:

Charles Turk, MD  is a practicing psychiatrist/psychoanalyst and a faculty and board member of CCP.  He received psychoanalytic training at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Chicago and is also a psychoanalyst of GIFRIC (Interdisciplinary Freudian Group for Research into Clinical and Cultural Intervention) in Quebec City, where he has attended yearly seminars since 1996.  He is responsible for the Chicago Psychoanalytic Circle of GIFRIC’s Ecole Freudienne du Quebec.  

Dr. Turk has had a longstanding interest in the psychoanalytic treatment of severely disturbed individuals, in both office practice and in the public sector.  He served as psychiatric consultant to a partial hospitalization program at the Kenneth Young Center in Elk Grove Village for 12 years.  In 2012 he became a member of the board that founded the Kedzie Center – the first taxpayer funded community mental health center in Chicago.  There he has made presentations on the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis, and similar presentations to Turning Point and through CCP.  He now serves on the Kedzie Center board and volunteers there doing direct clinical service, consultation, and a biweekly continuous case conference. 

Group title: Working with enactment and projective identification in psychodynamic treatment

Group leader: David Daskovsky, PhD

Meeting dates:  Alternate Tuesdays, beginning October 4

Meeting times:  7:00 - 8:30 on Google Meet

Group Description:  

In this ongoing consultation group, members will share their work with challenging clients, while exploring the ways that difficult experiences can be evoked in the therapist and played out in the treatment relationship.  One major focus will be on the transference-countertransference matrix, with particular attention to projective identifications and enactments, which can illuminate what is happening in the treatment relationship and how this might relate to the patient’s presenting problems and character issues. 

As group members take turns presenting case material, we will be able to discuss ways to recognize these phenomena, and how to address them directly in the treatment.  In some instances, we will see how enactments can play a role in treatment impasses and what can be done in those circumstances.  For those participants who care for patients in the context of an agency or treatment team, we will have an opportunity to see how enactments can play out among team members, and how this might be addressed helpfully.  

Case presentations will be informal and follow a format that helps to highlight the above issues, among others.  This will involve describing sessions in some detail, including what it feels like to be in the room with this person (aka, your countertransference), and what difficulties are arising in the treatment.  The emphasis will be on a safe, thoughtful, and enriching exchange, as group members share their work.

About the leader:

David Daskovsky, PhD is Visiting Faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and Assistant Professor in the Division of Psychology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. He earned his PhD in clinical psychology from Northwestern University's School of Medicine in 1988.  From 1989 to 1998, he was staff psychologist at NMH’s Extended Partial Hospitalization Program, which offered intensive, long term treatment for adults with severe mental illnesses.

In 1998, Dr. Daskovsky become Director of Psycho-Social Rehabilitation at Trilogy, Inc., and from 2003 to 2009 he served as that agency’s Clinical Director.  While at Trilogy, he was instrumental in the development of a highly respected practicum training program and has long been committed to teaching and training mental health professionals about the treatment of mental illness in community settings.

From 2009 until 2019, he was staff at Yellowbrick, where he served as Senior Psychologist and Director of Training.  Dr. Daskovsky has taught and presented widely on issues related to the treatment of serious mental illness, attachment and psychotherapy, and therapist transparency in psychodynamic treatment.