The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP) is pleased to announce the launching of several small consultation groups, to be led by master psychoanalytically trained clinicians from the CCP community.  These groups, offered at relatively affordable fees exclusively to CCP members, will focus on three broad areas of clinical practice – work with children and parents, work with adults, and work with severe disturbance.

Group size will be highly limited, to foster intimate and lively participation.  Members will commit to biweekly meetings through the end of May, 2022, 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 via Zoom unless otherwise indicated by the leader.

Fees for the 2021-22 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 be offering 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 : prsanders1234@yahoo.com.

More about the groups:

Group title: Working with children and parents

Group leader:  Diane Selinger, PhD

Meeting dates:  Second (or sometimes the first) and fourth Mondays of the month, beginning November 8. 

Meeting times:  7:30 – 9:00 p.m.(CST) via Zoom

Group description:

Therapeutic work with children has been especially challenging during the pandemic. Therapists have needed to adapt their approaches and to work in novel and creative ways on zoom.  This twice monthly group will focus on online and in-person psychotherapeutic work with children, and the many individuals involved in their lives, especially parents and other family members, teachers, and therapeutic teams. The emphasis of the group will be on understanding the individual differences of children within their familial and cultural environment, as participants grapple with their own internal experiences. Therapists will have an opportunity to present in-depth challenging cases to the group in order to understand both the child and themselves.  This group will hopefully help participants integrate at many different levels.  

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.” 

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Group title:  Psychodynamic work with adults: the art of listening, feeling, and thinking therapeutically

Group leader:  Michelle Sweet, PhD

Meeting dates:  Every other Sunday, beginning October 17

Meeting time:  11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Group description:

This ongoing consultation will provide an opportunity to form a 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. 

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.

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

Group leader: Charles Turk, MD

Meeting dates: Alternate Mondays, beginning October 18

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.