Alan Levy, PhD
Complexity and Retreat
February 8-9, 2025
Kinzie Hotel
20 West Kinzie Street, Chicago
& ZOOM
Alan J. Levy, Ph.D. is the Past 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: Complexity and Retreat
Introduction and Outline
From its inception, psychoanalysis has always been a theory and an approach to practice that aimed to account for the growth of complexity. It also focused on the impediments that a person and an analytic dyad face. This constitutes retreat. This class therefore will consider:
The nature of complexity and its distinction from complication.
External simplicity and internal complexity.
Examples of complexity in psychoanalysis.
How and why both the psyche and the analytic dyad retreat from complexity.
How greater complexity are achieved in psychoanalytic treatment.
I hope that each of you will be prepared to discuss cases that provide examples of the retreat from complexity, and how you and your patient struggled to develop it. The struggle does not need to be successful. Indeed unsuccessful attempts at developing complexity are often the most interesting.
Readings (choose from this list according to your interest).
Arnold, K, (2005). Intersubjectivity, multiplicity, and the dynamic unconscious. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 41(3): 519-533.
Bion, W. (1959). Attacks on linking. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 40:308-315.
Boston Change Process Study Group. (2005). The ‘something more’ than interpretation revisited: sloppiness and co-creativity in the psychoanalytic encounter. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 53(3): 693-729.
Gabbard, G. and Westen, D. (2003). Rethinking therapeutic action. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 84:823-841.
Galatzer-Levy, R. (1995). Psychoanalysis and dynamic system theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 53: 1085-1114.
Galatzer-Levy, R. (2002). Emergence. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 22(5): 708-727.
Levy, A. J. (2011). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy for children with Asperger’s syndrome: Therapeutic engagement through play. Psychoanalytic Perspectives 8(1): 72-91.
Moran, M. (1990). Chaos theory and psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 18:211-222.
Pizer, S.A. (1992). The negotiation of paradox in the analytic process. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2(2): 215-240.
Seligman, S. (2006). Dynamic systems: Theories as a metaframework for psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 15: 286-319.