Course Title:  Empathic Attunement and Empathic Ruptures in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy:  A Self Psychology Perspective (12 CE credits)

Instructor:  Michael Komie, PhD
Meeting dates (2020):  January 16, 23, 30; February 6, 13, 20

Meeting time:  Thursdays, 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Location:  180 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago

Course Description:

In this clinically-focused course, we will address the following questions regarding the key role of empathy in the psychotherapeutic endeavor:

⇨How does the therapist foster his/her/their personal and professional empathic capacity, and what is its role in the psychotherapeutic relationship and change processes?

⇨How does the therapist develop linkages among empathic attunement as a mode of experience, a diagnostic tool, and a mode of psychotherapeutic intervention?

⇨What happens when the empathic relational field between patient and therapist has been ruptured?  How does the therapist work to restore the empathic connection?

⇨What role may empathy play in the emergence of a maturationally facilitative transference and countertransference relational matrix between therapist and patient?

⇨Finally, what is the relationship among empathy, attachment, and reality testing in the therapeutic relationship?

These questions will be explored in the relational context of the course participants and the instructor who will work together to articulate a conceptual approach to the interpersonal two-person field from a  self psychologically informed point of view.  Two classic texts will facilitate this process, namely Treating the Self (E. Wolf, 1988) and Learning Disorders and Disorders of the Self (J. Palombo, 2001). 

Biographical Information:

Michael Komie, PhD is Faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP) and Professor Emeritus at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.  He is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who maintains a private practice in Chicago. Dr. Komie’s interests include attachment and separation, immigration and identity, occupational mental health, and psychotherapeutic technique.