Fridays @CCP

Friday, February 7, 2025

Alan Levy, PhD

(Chicago, Il)

Mourning the Never Was

7-9pm (CST)

Join us for drinks and light appetizers before the lecture!

Time: 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM (CST)

Lecture begins: 7 PM(CST)

Location: Haymarket House, 800 W Buena Ave, Chicago, IL

We look forward to seeing you there, whether in person or virtually via Zoom.

About the presentation: The Never Was describes a complicated aspect of mourning that has received comparatively little attention. Most work on mourning focusses upon losses that are tangible, such as the death of a loved one. The “Never Was” is my term for situations where one’s life has been so disrupted that its course has been irrevocably altered. The pain of this profound and at times violent spoliation results in a hard dissociation. The Never Was encompasses the need to mourn a life that was never lived out as one thought it should have been. One result is feeling that the old life, the life that was supposed to be, never was. As such, a person then comes to live out a ghost life, a life that cannot be fully inhabited, because it isn’t the life that was supposed to be. Indeed, the Never Was, the life that isn’t, becomes a shapeless specter, not fully thought, but always present as an absence. The Never Was is dissociated because experiencing the magnitude of the loss would cause deep and overwhelming pain. Mourning this loss becomes psychically dangerous since it threatens to unleash the pain, the deep sadness, and the anger that needs to be mourned.

The Never Was is an extreme aspect that is inherent in all losses to some extent. A loss always includes what might have been but can never be. However, the Never Was is distinguished from other losses by its severity, the global nature of the upheaval, and the extreme rupture in continuity that results.

 I will discuss the case of patient whose life was upended by a sudden placement in residential care as a young adolescent. She remained in various residential and hospital programs for 15 years. During that time, she lived a regimented life. She was subjected to what was at times coercive treatment. In care, she lost no fewer than 17 friends to suicide, homicide, and terminal illness. Upon her discharge, she was expected to lead a “normal” life—with no skills to live independently, no diploma, few friends and no job experience. I will illustrate our therapeutic work with the Never Was that she has only recently begun to recognize, and the deep, unbound pain that makes such mourning so complicated.

Alan J. Levy, Ph.D.  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.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this presentation, participants shall be able to:

-Recognize the occurrence of the Never Was in clinical practice.

-Articulate how the Never Was complicates the process of mourning.

-Better navigate the complications entailed by the Never Was in the mourning process with patients.

This is an intermediate to advanced program

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 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 February 6, 2025 at: tkalven@ccpsa.org

References/Suggested Readings

Freud, A. (1967). About losing and being lost. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 22:9-19.

Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and melancholia. SE 14:237-258.

Gurevich, H. (2008). The language of absence. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 89(3):561-578.

Loewald, H.W. (1973). On internalization. In The Essential Loewald. Jonathan Lear, Editor. Hagerstown, MD: University Publishing Company.

Mann Kulish, N. (1989). Mourning a lost childhood: The problem of Peter Pan. In The Problem of Loss and Mourning. David R. Dietrich and Peter C. Shabad, Editors. Madison, CT: International Universities press.

Ogden, T.H: (2012). Creative Readings. New York: Routledge. Chapter 1. Freud’s “Mourning and melancholia” and the origins of object relations theory.

Scarfone, D. (2015). The Unpast. New York: The Unconscious in Translation.

Stern, DB. (2019). The Infinity of the Unsaid. New York: Routledge.

Wolfenstein, M. (1966). How is mourning possible? Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 21:93-123.

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.