Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

Peter Shabad, PhD

(Chicago, Il)

Friday, April 25, 2025

Is it Better to Love and Lose Or Never Love At All    

7-9 pm: (CST): ZOOM Presentation & Discussion

About the Presentation: In this presentation, I will use my autobiographical experience of living in Moscow as a child to highlight fundamental dilemmas that human beings face in the aftermath of experiencing significant disillusionment and suffering: ‘Is it better to love and lose or not to love so much?  “Is it better to hope passionately and endure the risk of significant disappointment or is it better not to hope so fervently?  In the aftermath of my own traumatic experience, I detached from what I loved in order to dilute the pain of losing.   Yet in dissociating from the risk of loving, I also detached from the passionate life force I needed to fulfill my life. In generally describe how through an individual’s attempt to cover up his vulnerabilities by forming a self-alienated relationship with oneself, a person can become trapped in an enclosed prison of isolation that prevents him from ‘seizing the vital moment’ of the one life he has at his disposal. I conclude the presentation by emphasizing the importance of how the openness of a dialogical relationship in psychotherapy with the therapist as “participatory witness” to the patient’s lonely suffering is an important prelude to the process of mourning.  Such mourning ultimately entails the replacement of self-shaming with self-acceptance of oneself as an individual.

Peter Shabad, PhD is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern University Medical School. He is on the Teaching and Supervising Faculty of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and he is on the Faculty of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is also Supervising and Training Analyst at the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is an Associate Editor on the Editorial Board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Dr. Shabad is co-editor of The Problem of Loss and Mourning: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (IUP, 1989) and is the author of Despair and the Return of Hope: Echoes of Mourning in Psychotherapy (Aronson, 2001). He is the author of numerous papers and book chapters on diverse topics such as the psychological implications of death, loss and mourning, giving and receiving, shame, parental envy, resentment, spite, and regret.  Dr. Shabad’s new book Passion, Shame, and The Freedom To Become: Seizing The Vital Moment In Psychoanalysis (2025) has just been published by Routledge

Learning Objectives

1. At the end of the presentation, participants will be able to describe how traumatic experiences lead to the question: Is it better to love and lose or never love at all?”
2. At the end of the presentation, participants will be able to describe how more emotional language and less intellectualized jargon is more useful clinically.

This is a  Beginning and Intermediate level Presentation

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 April 24, 2025 at: tkalven@ccpsa.org

References/Suggested Readings

Shabad, P.  (2022) Owing and Being Owed: Shame and Responsibility Toward The Other, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 32:4, 389-404. 

Shabad, P. (2020). The forward edge of resistance: Toward the dignity of human agency. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 30 (1): 51-63.

Shabad, P. (2017). The vulnerability of giving:  Ethics and the generosity of receiving. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 37 (6): 359-374.

Shabad, P. (2011).  The dignity of creating: The patient’s contribution to the reachable-enough analyst. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 21: 619-629.

Shabad, P.  (2010). The suffering of passion:  Metamorphoses and the embrace of the stranger, Psychoanalytic Dialogues 20: 710–729.

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee: Claude Barbre, PhD, 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.