How We Do This Work: The Analyst’s Holding Environment (ON ZOOM)

ON ZOOM

2 CE HOURS available for: NY Practitioners – LCSWs, LMSWs, LPs, LMFTs, LMHCs, LCATs, PHDs, PSYDs

Presented by:

Eric Mendelsohn, PhD

Location:

Zoom

About this event:

This talk has many points of origin. It is a highly personal statement of what I need and draw upon in doing this work and a summation of perspectives that have taken shape over nearly 50 years. At the same time it is a kind of letter, a conversation opener with you in which I seek to convey ideas that, despite their grounding in my history and personality, hopefully have utility and evocative reach for this community of colleagues.

These ideas grew more specifically out of a discussion paper I presented nearly ten years ago at a WCSPP conference. At that conference, therapists shared their experiences of working while undergoing personal hardships and spoke of how their life circumstances and the complexity of their personal psychology influence how they work. I argued that, over the course of our careers, we face losses, adversity, and a wide range of preoccupations. Further, our personal analyses notwithstanding, we remain complicated people. Given all that, it seems a minor miracle that we do good work. Yet, I maintain that, much of the time, we do. This talk will elaborate on this state of affairs. I will consider what we need to support and sustain us as working therapists.

My hope is that I can manage more talking with you than reading to you, and that the atmosphere that we create will encourage lively participation.

About the speaker: Eric Mendelsohn, PhD

Dr. Mendelsohn is Faculty and Supervisor at the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, National Institute for the Psychotherapies, Training Institute and National Training Program, and Postgraduate Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Adelphi University. Dr. Mendelsohn works with people in individual analytic therapy, with couples, serves as a supervisor/ consultant, and leads reading and supervision groups. His papers and book chapters deal with the patient-therapist relationship and with the subjective experience of the therapist.

Teaching Method: Lecture, Discussion and Q & A.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the ways in which our “therapist selves” may be differentiated from the selves we become in other relational contexts.

2. Identify the working conditions and relational traditions that constitute the analyst’s holding environment.

3. Delineate how our patients contribute to the analyst’s holding environment.

The Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy is recognized by NY State Education Department’s Standard of Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for: Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0050; Licensed Clinical Social Workers #SW-0063; Licensed Psychoanalysts #P-0027; Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists #MFT-0040; Licensed Mental Health Counselors #MHC-0075; and Licensed Creative Arts Therapists #CAT-0028.

A completed survey must be submitted after the meeting for 2 CE hours.

Who should attend: Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psychoanalysts, other mental health professionals, nurses, graduate students.