TBIPS TRAUMA WORKSHOP SERIES III: Witnessing

Tampa Bay Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies, Inc. (T-BIPS)
Co-sponsored by Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society, Inc
TRAUMA SERIES WORKSHOP:
Healing Haunted Lives
Part III. Treating Trauma Survivors: Healing through Witnessing
Presenter: Bruce Reis, Ph.D.

DATE: Saturday, February 7, 2009
TIME: 9:00 a.m.-12:15 pm and 1:15-4:30 p.m. (Refreshments: 8:45-9:00 a.m.)
LUNCH: 12:15-1:15pm: Boxed lunch will be available by reservation for additional $10
(bring-your-own bag lunch, optional).
If boxed lunch is required, please RSVP with $10 check no later than February 1st.

LOCATION: Tampa Bay Crisis Center, One Crisis Center Plaza (on Bearss Ave, just west of I-275 and west of Florida Ave),Tampa, Florida 33613

PROGRAM FEE: $75 [$25-students/candidates] (includes 6 CE credit hours).
Registration deadline February 1, 2009.
(Add additional $10 if register after Feb 1st)
Add $10 for lunch.
AM Presentation:

In the healing of trauma in the analytic interaction, witnessing is explored as a basic function of analysis with severely traumatized individuals. We will understand the concept of witnessing and how the term is variably applied, as well as look at its multiple forms (e.g. enactive and performative). These modes of communication convey "truths" that are not always available in words, but are communicated via the transference-countertransference matrix. Process notes from an ongoing treatment will illustrate the method of listening to absences within the trauma narrative and the importance of "being-with" a patient in moments of traumatic reactivation.

PM Presentation:

The afternoon presentation will include the viewing of the film "Fearless," starring Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez, about survivors of a plane crash, and will serve to kick off discussion about survivor fantasies, guilt, and disconnection.
Objectives:
1. Participants will learn the specific qualities of traumatic narration that make impossible a coherent account of massive trauma.
2. Participants will be able to differentiate enactive from performative forms of witnessing in the clinical encounter.
3. Participants will have an appreciation for the unique role that transference-countertransference plays in the witnessing process.
Continuing Education Credits: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essentials Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of The American Psychoanalytic Association and the Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians and takes responsibility for the content, quality and scientific integrity of this CME activity.
The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this educational activity for a maximum of 6 hours in category 1 credit towards the AMA Physicians' Recognition Award. Each physician should only claim those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity. Disclosure information is on record indicating that participating faculty members have no significant financial relationships to disclose.
The Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society has been approved by the Florida Dept. of Health to provide Continuing Education Accreditation to Psychologists (Provider # PCE-46, Exp. 5/10) and Clinical Social Workers, Marriage & Family Therapists, Mental Health Counselors (Provider # BAP 423, Exp. 3/09). The Society certifies that these courses meet the requirements of the Board on an hour-per-hour basis for continuing education credits.
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Tampa Bay Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies, Inc TRAUMA SERIES WORKSHOP:
HEALING HAUNTED LIVES PART II. REGISTRATION FORM
Saturday, February 7, 2009 Presentation by Bruce Reis, Ph.D. WITNESSING
First Name: Last Name: Degree: License #:
Address: City: State: Zip:
Telephone:( ) **E-mail Address**

Are you requesting continuing education credit? Yes ____No____ (ALL SHOULD REGISTER!) Are you purchasing lunch? Yes ___ No ____ (if yes, add $10)

Please return Registration by SATURDAY, February 1, 2009: Mail check (made out to T.B.I.P.S.) and form to: 300 S. Hyde Park Ave, #220, Tampa,FL 33606;

Call Heather Pyle (813) 857-9044 or Lycia Alexander-Guerra (813) 908-5080 for further information.
Pre-registration is optional - all welcome at the door! If boxed lunch is required please RSVP no later than February 1, 2009

Ludic Moments at Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society?

On Saturday, January 24, 2009 the Tampa Bay Psychoanalytc Society hosted Al Brok, PhD on "Ludic Moments,Serious Experiences: What can analysts learn from Charlie Chaplin?" Brok hoped to draw a parallel between the "aesthetic therapeutic contract between analyst and patient" and the artist's (in this case Charlie Chaplin) communication with his audience, and referred to the "here and now interaction" of a "two person" psychology. [Ludic, by the way, comes from Latin word for play, here, meaning playful.] He hoped to illustrate the use of play in the working alliance or relationship, and was able to give, after protracted film clips of Chap[lin movies, a helpful clinical example.

Playfulness is afforded when there is a background holding environment (including that of reality)and when the analyst does not allow into the foreground facts and theories which impinge upon the moment. Being in the moment means listening without active investment in theory, though analyst may be simultaneously matching theory from background to what emerges in the foreground as the foreground is activating what is significant. Brok spoke of discovering what one had not been looking for contrasted to finding what one expected. (He did not mention the possibility of two persons creating something new.)

Brok thought that Chaplin's seriousness in his films decreased the capacity for his audience to enjoy the films; that the potential space had been overwhelmed by the literality and concreteness. Brok cautioned that analysts must be careful not to vitiate the possibility for play with a too tenacious adherance to only what is serious, nor to obfuscate the serious by defending against it with play.

While preferring to comment on the political and social climate during Chaplin's career rather than his private life [we were referred to psychoanalyst Stephen M. Weissman's excellent, recent biography Chaplin: A Life for the latter], Brok made a very interesting point about Chaplin's move from silent film to talkies. He likened silent film to the intuitive, preverbal mother-infant interaction and talking (spoken language) to the identification with the father (ala Lacan), i.e., once Chaplin was able to identify with his father, his films took on language and seriousness.

If I recall correctly, this is differenct from Weissman's bio, where Weissman, notes that Chaplin's more serious films spoke directly to Chaplin's private life, e.g. that Chaplin might have understandably wanted to murder Joan Barry in real life -- her paternity suit and the sensationaized trial-- but that only in film, Monsieur Verdoux, could Chaplin, a lady killer, literally kill ladies. The trial in Monsieur Verdoux also allowed Chaplin's side to be heard as it was not heard in real life. Weissman saw Chaplin's identification with his father as lion comique throughout his Little Tramp portrayals, but it was with Limelight that Chaplin was able to forgive his father, and recognize his mother's participation, in the demise of the marriage and in Chaplin's own chaotic, bereft childhood, afterwhich Chaplin was finally able to become paterfamilias. Brok, incidently, saw Limelight as Chaplin's anxiety about his own marriage to a much younger woman, and both an Oedipal victory for Chaplin as well as a stepping aside (of Calvero) for a younger man to have the much younger heroine.

As an aside, Brok mentioned that, in his clinical example, he had chosen to be playful, to "go with clinical enactment...for therapeutic reasons." (I had a different idea about enactments, that they are inevitable, never chosen, and are understood only after the fact.)

I must do a better job of having TBPS allow time for discussion, for how else are we to play with the material and each other?

Workshop Summary: Recognizing and Treating Dissociative Adaptations to Trauma in Adults

By Horacio Arias, M.D.

TBIPS hosted a workshop by Richard Chefetz, M.D. on October 25, 2008 entitled "Recognizing and Treating Dissociative Adaptations to Trauma in Adults." I felt that one of the goals of the presentation was to identify some of the approaches used to treat these patients according to Chefetz, Bromberg, and others who work with severe trauma. There were several theoretical issues that I found practical and which kept my interest, including the idea of developing some object relations and avoiding others.

As I expected… there were differences clinically from within the psychodynamic point of view and I have some thoughts and feelings that I would like to share. I felt uneasy when he described the traumatic history and process with one of his patients, particularly the patient's feelings of fear and anger. I found myself needing to deal with my own personal traumatic issues and also reflected on my higher functioning severely traumatized patients. Others had expressed their thoughts and ideas while I was gathering my own. I thought of Kleinian ideas that are often forgotten in this country.

Klein was the first psychoanalyst who consistently took the time to deal with aggression and love in humankind. She was among the great analysts of her time who connected aggression with love in a common way during the most primitive of relationships of pre-oedipal life. She dealt with disassociative processes within the individual, a subject that comes to mind in dealing with severe trauma.

I found that the confusion within the traumatized patient and the patient's disassociation permeated the group at many levels, eliciting idealization or internalization to more unrealistic or unexpected feelings. A wide range of comments were offered about aggression, length of treatment, and enactment. I found our reactions thought provoking. Did we feel confused? Blocked in our thinking process? Were we trying to unblock the thinking on this type of patient …among other issues? Sometimes there can be a parallel process that occurs in those listening to and presenting patient material.

TBIPS thanks Richard Chefetz for sharing his work and clinical expertise with our group. We are looking forward to additional workshops on trauma as the series, "Healing Haunted Lives" continues with presentations by Lycia Alexander-Guerra, MD (1/10), Bruce Reis, PhD (2/7), and Ghislaine Boulanger, PhD (3/7).

HORACIO ARIAS, MD

Tampa Bay Institute for
Psychoanalytic Studies Cosponsored by
Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society

Healing Haunted Lives: Trauma Workshop Series
Part II: Treating Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

6 hours CEU’s

Saturday, January 10, 2009
9:00am - 4:30pm
Crisis Center of Tampa Bay
One Crisis Center Plaza, Tampa, Florida
(Exit Bearss Ave WEST off I-275)


Lycia Alexander-Guerra, M.D.
Graduate of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute; Member of the American, and the International, Psychoanalytic Associations; President of the Tampa Bay Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies, Inc (T-BIPS); President of the Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society, Inc; in private practice in Tampa, FL.

Treating Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Because trauma of children by trusted caretakers often requires a child to compartmentalize (dissociate) the experience in a way that it is frozen in time, unavailable to symbolized (language) processes, narrative and interpretation alone are insufficient for healing. Instead, it is enactments within the therapeutic dyad that bring to light the horrific past experiences, and these must be symbolized and integrated with other aspects of the self. Reconfiguration and introjections of new relational paradigms create the possibility for healing.
Healing Haunted Lives: Trauma Workshop Series: This is a 4-part series in common sense language to familiarize and assist clinicians in recognition and treatment of those who have undergone unspeakable traumas. Part III features Bruce Weiss (Feb. 7, 2009) emphasizing treatments, and Part IV, Ghislaine Boulanger (March 7, 2009), and her work with adult onset trauma, Wounded by Reality.
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Continuing Education Credits: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the essentials Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of The American Psychoanalytic Association and The Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians and takes responsibility for the content, quality, and scientific integrity of the CME activity.
The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this educational activity for a maximum of 6 hours in category 1 credit awards for the AMA Physicians’ Recognition Award. Each physician should only claim those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity. Disclosure information is on record indicating that participating faculty members have no significant financial relationships to disclose.
The Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society has been approved by the Florida Dept. of Health to provide Continuing Education Accreditation to Psychologists (Provider #PCE-46. Exp 5/10) and Clinical Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, Mental Health Councilors (Provider# BAP 423. Exp 3/09). The Society certifies that these courses meet the requirements of the Board on an hour-per-hour basis fro continuing education credits.
Program

Treating Patients with a History of
Childhood Sexual Abuse

Morning 9:00am-12Noon
Phenomenology
• Relational Paradigms in Treatment
• Enactments
• Clinical Presentation
Lunch
Afternoon 1:00pm-4:30pm
Treatment:
• Making procedural declarative
• Integrating Experience
• New Relational Paradigms


Learning Objectives
1. Participants will better understand the
cognitive impairments, physiological
responses, and relational adaptations
manifest in survivors of childhood
sexual abuse, and how these affect
treatment negotiation.
2. Participants will learn to identify roles
enacted by patient and therapist
with survivors who use dissociation
and projective identification.
3. Participants will learn to utilize
enactments to make explicit what
had been dissociated.

Complete, clip and mail form with check to TBIPS: 300 S. Hyde Park Av #220, Tampa, FL 33606
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Treating Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse - Lycia Alexander-Guerra, MD
Saturday, January 10, 2009 Registration 8:30am, Workshop 9:00am-4:30pm
Name_____________________________________________________________________ Degree______
Address______________________________________ City _______________________State___ Zip_____
E-mail _________________________________ Phone __________________
Registration Rates for Jan 10, 2009 one workshop only:
Regular ___ $75 (by Jan 2) Student/Candidate ___ $25 (by Jan 2)
___$90 (after Jan 2) ___ $35 (after Jan 2)
Lunch ___ $10 (optional, lunch provided with advanced registration and payment by Jan 2)
Program Learning Objectives