
Alan Levy, PhD
February 9-11, 2024
Alan J. Levy, Ph.D. is the President of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is a certified psychoanalyst, having trained at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York. Dr. Levy was on staff in the Departments of Psychiatry of Tufts and Columbia Universities. He has held faculty positions at Columbia, the University of Southern California (USC), Loyola University Chicago, and the University of Chicago. Dr. Levy was elected as a Distinguished Scholar and Fellow of the National Academies of Practice. He was awarded the Distinguished Career Award from Simmons University, received the Educator’s Award from the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and was the winner of the Edith Sabshin Award for outstanding teaching given by the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Levy maintains a private practice in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in Northfield, Illinois.
Seminar Title: Polyphonic Complexity in Psychoanalytic Treatment
Seminar Description : This course will trace and outline the development of psychoanalytic multiplicity theory and the centrality of complexity for emotional well-being and vitality. Multiplicity as a concept is an essential element in modern relational and intersubjective psychoanalytic theories. A cornerstone of most current relational and intersubjective approaches, the notion of multiplicity encompasses a dissociative model of the mind that is comprised of multiple self-states that are more or less in tension with each other.
The course will explore the centrality of enhancing complexity in psychoanalytic treatment, by fostering the communication among layered and variegated multiple self-states. The instructor’s notion of the development of polyphonic complexity, i.e., simultaneously focusing interventions on divergent self-states as a means of therapeutic communication will be discussed in depth. Candidates will be encouraged to bring case examples to class so that we may identify and apply multiplicity and develop polyphonic means of communicating with our patients.
Readings
Arnold, K. (2005). Intersubjectivity, multiplicity, and the dynamic unconscious. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 41(3):519-533.
Bromberg, P. M. (1994) “Speak! That I May See You”: Some Reflections on Dissociation, Reality, and Psychoanalytic Listening. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 4:517-547.
Bromberg, PM (1996). Standing in the spaces: The multiplicity of self and the psychotherapeuticrelationship. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 32:509-538.
Bucci, W. (1994) The Multiple Code Theory and the Psychoanalytic Process: A Framework for Research. Annual of Psychoanalysis 22:239-259.
Davies, J. M. (1996) Linking the “Pre-Analytic” with the Postclassical: integration, dissociation, and the multiplicity of unconscious process. Contemporary Psychoanalysis 32:553-576.
Davies, J. (1999) Getting Cold Feet, Defining “Safe-Enough” Borders: Dissociation, Multiplicity, and Integration in the Analyst's Experience. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 68:184-208.
Markman, H. (2020). Accompaniment in Jazz and Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 30:432-447.
Pizer, SA (1992). The negotiation of paradox in the analytic process. Psychoanalytic Dialogues,2:215-240.
Pizer, SA (1996). Negotiating potential space: Illiusion, play, metaphor, and the subjunctive. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 6:689-712.