On the Capacity to be Used: Psychoanalytic Companioning, Survival and Transformation of Trauma 

2 CE Hours available for:
NY Practitioners – LCSWs, LMSWs, LPs, LMFTs, LMHCs, LCATs, PHDs, PSYDs
CT Practitioners – LCSWs, LMSWs, LMFTs, LPCs and Licensed Psychologists (pending)

Psychoanalysis in Action
On the Capacity to be Used: Psychoanalytic Companioning, Survival and Transformation of Trauma

Presenter:
Robert Grossmark, PhD, ABPP

In his paper “The Use of an Object and Relating Through Identifications” Winnicott famously stated that “To use an object the subject must have developed a capacity to use objects.” In this paper I suggest that likewise, in order to help patients who suffer the sequelae of early developmental trauma make use of the object of the treatment the analyst or therapist must develop the capacity to be used. I will lean on Winnicott and others to reflect on the profound transformational and healing processes that can unfold when the patient is companioned and known in their primary agonies and unrepresented states such that the breakdown that was never experienced can finally take form and be represented and experienced. Unmetabolized trauma does not find form in symbolization but rather manifests in the dimension of mutual enactment. Thus, rather than view enactment as an impediment to the therapeutic process I embrace it as the most profound non-symbolized expression of inner pain and agony and hope to illustrate with case material how that very pain and fear can be transformed when known and survived in mutual enactment. This work makes great demands on both therapist and patient, and I hope that the case material I will share captures the profound struggle for both parties along with the profound psychological transformations that emerge.

Live on Zoom!

ROBERT GROSSMARK, Ph.D, ABPP is a psychoanalyst in New York City. He works with individuals, groups and couples and conducts psychoanalytic consultation and study groups.

He teaches and supervises at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, The National Training Program in Psychoanalysis, The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training & Research and lectures nationally and internationally. He is an Associate Editor for Psychoanalytic Dialogues.

He is the author of The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst: Explorations in Psychoanalytic Companioning and co-edited The One and the Many: Relational Approaches to Group Psychotherapy and Heterosexual Masculinities: Contemporary Perspectives from Psychoanalytic Gender Theory.

Moderated by:
Adrienne Katzow, PhD and Deborah Levin, PsyD,
Co-Chairs of Psychoanalysis in Action, WCSPP

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