Anthony Bass, PhD

April 8-10, 2022

Dr. Bass is an associate professor and supervising analyst at the New York University Postdoctoral Program for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. In addition, he is on the faculty of a wide range of training programs and institutes, including the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, the NIP National Training Program, the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia, the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies, for which he also serves as President, and others. He has been an associate and executive editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues: The International Journal of Relational Perspectives since it was founded it 1991, and has been its Joint Editor in Chief since 2006. He lectures and leads clinical workshops and study groups throughout the United States and Europe, with an emphasis on the contribution of Ferenczi’s clinical discoveries to contemporary relational technique.

Seminar Title: The Therapy Relationship: Countertransference, A Dialogue of Unconsciouses and the Uses of the Self.

Seminar Description: In this seminar we will explore the therapeutic uses of countertransference, and the  nature of the psychotherapeutic relationship in depth.  We will discuss readings that bear on countertransference, psychoanalytic relations, and we will further engage the subject by direct study of difficult or challenging cases that candidates will provide.  Each participant should come prepared to present some process from work with a patient who evokes strong feelings in  the therapist.  

The seminar is meant deepen our grasp of unconscious dimensions of psychoanalytic relating through our engagement with difficult analytic moments that seminar participants will be invited to offer. Participants will have an opportunity to share their work with patients with whom they have found themselves to be unusually intensely involved: that is, with patients who have evoked especially intense reactions in their therapist. Such analytic moments are often at the heart of enactments in psychoanalytic work. They  provide special opportunities for gaining access to the ways in which the unconscious life of patient and analyst emerge and interact in the work, creating special challenges and special opportunities for deepening the work of therapy.  Participants are invited to come to the workshop prepared to share some clinical process from their own practices as a way of exploring the unconscious experience at the heart of the therapeutic work. Implications for how we make use of the way we respond to our patients, and how this shapes our sense of ‘clinical technique’ will be explored.   Readings will be used to enrich and enhance discussion of such difficult therapeutic moments and processes.

Selected Readings:

Aron, L. (1992). Interpretation as Expression of the Analyst's Subjectivity. Psychoanal. Dial., 2:475-507. 

Bass, A. (2001). It Takes One to Know One; or, Whose Unconscious Is It Anyway?. Psychoanal. Dial., 11:683-702.

Bass, A. (2001). Mental Structure, Psychic Process, and Analytic Relations— How People... Psychoanal. Dial., 11:717-725.

Williams, P. (2001). Object Relationships—Symmetry and Asymmetry: Commentary on Paper b... Psychoanal. Dial., 11:711-716.

 Bass, A. (2003). “E” Enactments in Psychoanalysis: Another Medium, Another Messag... Psychoanal. Dial., 13:657-675

Bass,A.(2007). When the frame doesn’t fit the picture. Psychoanal. Dial.,17:1: 1-27.

Bass, A. (1996). Holding, Holding Back, and Holding on Commentary on Paper by Joyce Slochower. Psychoanal. Dial., 6:361-378.                      

Bass, A.  (2009).An Independent Theory of Clinical Technique Viewed Through a Relational Lens: Commentary on Paper by Michael Parsons. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Volume 19, Issue 3 May 2009 , pages 237 - 245                                               

Bass, A. (2015). The Dialogue of Unconsciouses, Mutual Analysis and the Uses of the Self in Contemporary Relational Psychoanalysis. Psychoanal. Dial., 25:2-17.The Dialogue of Unconsciouses, Mutual Analysis and the Uses of the Self in Contemporary Relational Psychoanalysis

Black, M.J. (2003). Enactment: Analytic Musings on Energy, Language, and Personal Growth. Psychoanal. Dial., 13:633-655.

Bollas, C. (1983). Expressive Uses of the Countertransference—Notes to the Patient from... Contemp. Psychoanal., 19:1-33. 

Bromberg, P.M. (1996). Standing in the Spaces: The Multiplicity Of Self And The Psychoanalytic Relationship. Contemp. Psychoanal., 32:509-535. […

Bromberg, P.M. (1991). On Knowing One's Patient Inside Out: The Aesthetics of Unconscious Communication. Psychoanal. Dial., 1(4):399-422. […]                     

 Davies, J.M. (2003). Falling in Love with Love: Oedipal and Postoedipal Manifestations of Ideali... Psychoanal. Dial., 13:1-27.  

 Ferenczi, S.  Selections from the Clinical Diary of Sandor Ferenczi  and The Confusion of Tongues between the Child and Adult

Ghent, E. (1990). Masochism, Submission, Surrender—Masochism as a Perversion of Surrender. Contemp. Psychoanal., 26:108-136. […] 

Ogden, T.  Analysing Forms Of Aliveness And Deadness Of The Transference-Countertransference

Parsons, M.   An Independent theory of Clinical Technique. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Volume 19, Issue 3 May 2009 , pages 221 - 236

Slochower, J. (1996). Holding and the Fate of the Analyst's Subjectivity. Psychoanal. Dial., 6:323-353.

Suchet, M. (2004). Whose Mind Is It Anyway?. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 5:259-287.

Bass, A. (2004). “Imagine, I Am a Great Soothsayer”— The Future Is Now: Co... Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 5:303-316.