Fridays@CCP
Amy Schwartz-Cooney, PhD
(New York, NY)
Friday, May 31, 2024
Socio-Personal Conversations and Relational Transformations
7-9pm: (CST): ZOOM Presentation & Discussion
About the presentation: I am a white identified, cis-gendered Jewish analyst from New York. In this presentation I describe my growing understanding of the role of context and culture in psychic life and my consequent efforts to incorporate socio-personal explorations into relationally informed therapy. I draw on treatments in which the patient’s social/racial identities differed from and/or were similar to my own, providing opportunities to consider otherness, sameness, difference and intersectionality from multiple vectors. Each treatment involved identifying and overcoming resistances and dissociations, locating the hated and hateful, feared and fearful other within, and finding ways to speak to the personal and social, acknowledging their singular and entwining influences. Each treatment facilitated mutual growth and transformation, enabling both partners to recognize disclaimed and undervalued aspects of self, tapping into vulnerabilities around acceptance, inclusion, and belonging. The therapeutic processes described were challenging and vitalizing, potentiating a deepened and more complex sense of self and other as multiply constituted subjects. This presentation queries the purview of the psychoanalytic and invites attendees to interrogate their own “credos” in light of the social turn. Attendees will be encouraged to participate in the discussion of the presented material, bring in thoughts and questions, and share germane personal and clinical experiences.
Dr. Amy Schwartz-Cooney is on faculty at the NYU Post-Doctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in the Relational Track. She is Faculty/Supervisor at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. She is Joint Editor in Chief, Psychoanalytic Dialogues and is Co-Editor/Contributor to the 2021 book, Vitalization in Psychoanalysis: Perspectives on Being and Becoming, published by Routledge. She is particularly interested in the application and integration of object relational perspectives in the contemporary psychoanalytic conversation.
Learning Objectives
After attending this seminar participants will be able to:
1. Work from a relational framework with the socio-personal, with particular emphasis on the analyst exploring dissociated areas of her own experience to be of use to the patient in knowing and integrating her own disclaimed identifications.
2. Recognize and explore sameness and difference in their clinical work in a way that is vitalizing and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the entwining of individual and cultural factors in constituting self and other.
This is an Intermediate Level Presentation
Fees
CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.
Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.
Fellows: free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.
Non-CCP members, single admission: $50
Continuing Education
This program is sponsored for Continuing Education Credits by the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. There is no commercial support for this program, nor are there any relationships between the continuing education sponsor, presenting organization, presenter, program content, research, grants or other funding that could be construed as conflicts of interest. Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If the program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis maintains responsibility for this program and its content. CCP is licensed by the state of Illinois to sponsor continuing education credits for Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors, Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapy Counselors and Licensed Clinical Psychologists (license no. 159.000941 and 268.000020 and 168.000238 Illinois Dept. of Financial and Professional Regulation).
Professionals holding the aforementioned credentials will receive 2.0 continuing education credits for attending the entire program. To receive these credits a completed evaluation form must be turned in at the end of the presentation and licensed psychologists must first complete a brief exam on the subject matter. No continuing education credit will be given for attending part of the presentation. Refunds for CE credit after the program begins will not be honored. If a participant has special needs or concerns about the program, s/he/they should contact Toula Kourliouros Kalven by May 30, 2024 at: tkalven@ccpsa.org
References/Suggested Readings
Davies, J.M. (2004). Whose Bad Objects Are We Anyway? Psychoanal. Dial., 14 (6):711-732.
Botticelli, S. (2023). Can We “Treat” Racism in Psychoanalysis. Div. Rev., 29, 19-22.
Burch, B. (2021) Engaging the Whitewashed Countertransference: Race Unexpectedly Appears for Therapy. Psychoanal Dial. 31:28-37
Levine, L. (2022). Interrogating Race, Shame and Mutual Vulnerability:Overlapping and Interlapping Waves of Relation, Psychoanal. Dial. 32, 99-113.
Pogue White, K. (2002). Surviving Hating and Being Hated: Some Personal Thoughts About Racism from a Psychoanalytic Perspective . Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 38(3):401-422
Schwartz Cooney, A. (2018). Vitalizing Enactment: A Relational Exploration. Psychoanal Dial. 28, 340-354.
Shaw, D. (2021). When Racialized Ghosts Refuse to Become Ancestors: Tasting the "Blood of Recognition" in Racial Melancholia and Mixed-Race Identities. Psychoanal. Dial. 32, 584-597.
Presented by
The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee: Toula Kourliouros Kalven, Alan Levy, PhD, Zak Mucha, LCSW
The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis is an IRS 501(C)(3) charitable organization, and expenses may be tax deductible to the extent allowed by law and your personal tax situation.