Margaret Fulton, PH.D., ABPP, LP

Nov 8-10, 2019

Margaret Fulton is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Minneapolis. Having trained at the Minnesota Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, (MICPS), Margaret served on the State Board of Psychology for five years and was on the faculty of the Minnesota Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (MPSI) for fifteen years.  She is currently a member of the Psychoanalytic Center of California (PCC) and her interests include the use of language, poetry, and spirituality in psychoanalysis.  

Seminar title  

Again and Anew:  The Opening Phase of Psychoanalysis

Seminar description 

To quote Bion, “The sooner we can learn to make the best of a bad job the better; analysis has to be done in this real world, for good or ill.”

In this seminar we will be thinking about and exploring the many complexities, paradoxes, and tensions involved for both analysts and patients in beginning a psychoanalysis.  Concepts such as the psychoanalytic setting, contract, and frame; the gathering of the transference(s); the uses of reverie, play, and dreaming; the 3 R’s of regression, resistance, and remembering; as well as, the spectrum of early interpretive communication and action will be used to highlight challenging clinical encounters in deepening an existing treatment and/or beginning a psychoanalysis.  Participants will be asked to share clinical vignettes related to their concerns about initiating a psychoanalysis and the challenging conundrums and encounters of the opening phase.

Selected Readings

Bassen, C.  (1989). Transference-countertransference enactment in the recommendation to convert psychotherapy to psychoanalysis. International Review of Psychoanalysis, 16: 79-92.

Bleger, J.  (1967). Psycho-analysis of the psycho-analytic frame.  IJP, 48: 511-519.

Bollas, C.  (2013).  Catch Them Before They Fall: The Psychoanalysis of Breakdown.  New York:  Routledge. 

Ehrich, L.T.  (2013).  Analysis begins in the analyst’s mind: Conceptual and technical considerations on recommending analysis.  JAPA, 61 (6): 1077-1107. 

Ferro, A., & Nicoli, L.  (2017).  The New Analyst’s Guide to the Galaxy: Questions about Contemporary Psychoanalysis. London:  Karnac.

Gabbard, G.O., & Ogden, T. H.  (2009).  On becoming a psychoanalyst.  IJP, 90 (2): 311-327.

Glover, W. C.  (2000).  Where do analysands come from? A candidate’s experience in recommending analysis.  Journal of Clinical Psychoanalysis, 9: 21-37.

Grotstein, J. S.  (2009).  “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king!” Psychoanalysis as a passion play.  In Ferro, A., & Basile, R. (Eds.).  The Analytic Field: A Clinical Concept. London: Karnac.

Levine, H.B.  (2010).  Creating analysts, creating analytic patients.  IJP, 91: 1385-1404.

Meltzer, D.  (1990).  Gathering the transference, pp. 1-13.  In The Psychoanalytic Process. Perthshire, Scotland: Clunie Press.

Modell, A. H.  (1989).  The psychoanalytic setting as a container of multiple levels of reality:  A perspective on the theory of psychoanalytic treatment.  Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 9 (1): 67-87.

Ogden, T. H.  (1992).  Comments on transference and counter-transference in the initial analytic meeting.  Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 12: 225-247.

Ogden, T. H.  (1996).  Reconsidering three aspects of psychoanalytic technique.  IJP, 77: 883-899.

Parsons, M. (2000).  Psychic reality, negation and the analytic setting. In The Dove That Returns, The Dove That Vanishes, (pp. 171-186). London:  Routledge.

Reith, R. , Lagerlof, S., Crick, P., Moller, M., & Skale, E. (Eds.) Initiating Psychoanalysis: Perspectives. London: Routledge.

Tylim, I., & Harris A.  (Eds.), Reconsidering the Moveable Frame in Psychoanalysis: Its Function and Structure in Psychoanalytic Theory. New York: Routledge