Psychoanalysis in Action presents: Helping Patients Cope With Cancer and Other Challenges in Working With Uncertainty

Presenter: Elizabeth Cohn Stuntz, LCSW

Facilitated by: Joan Milano, LCSW, Margaret Postlewaite, PhD, Rhonda Reitz, PhD

2 CE Hours available for NY LCSWs, LMSWs, LPs, LMFTs, LMHCs, LCATs, PHDs, PSYDs

*Enrollment will be limited to 60 people per event*

Course Description

A WCSPP COMMUNITY FORUM

How can patients and their loved ones deal with being thrown off balance by cancer and other challenges of living with uncertainty? This presentation explores how DBT and principles of psychodynamic psychotherapy can help patients develop ways to manage the powerful emotions that can get in the way of effective decisions, constructive relationships, and living in a hopeful, meaningful way. Focus will also be on the challenges this presents for therapists.

This WCSPP sponsored course is based on Elizabeth Stuntz’s book, Coping with Cancer: DBT Skills to Manage your Emotions and Balance Uncertainty with Hope. The book, co-authored with Marsha Linehan, the developer of DBT, has been described as…

“…manageable, step-wise approach to coping with an individual and interpersonal disaster. Draw(ing) on knowledge from both DBT and psychoanalysis to produce a welcome, creative synthesis.”

—Nancy McWilliams, PHD, ABPPG

The learning objectives – Participants will be able to:

Describe treatment approaches that support patients facing cancer and other life challenges.

Identify the components of the stress response.

Articulate three interventions to address emotional disregulation.

Identify common countertransferential responses in therapists working with patients facing cancer and trauma.

Presenter

Elizabeth Cohn Stuntz, LCSW, is the co-author of Coping with Cancer: DBT Skills to Manage your Emotions – and Balance Uncertainty with Hope, with Marsha Linehan, developer of DBT. She is a cancer survivor, Zen student and psychotherapist in private practice serving on the faculty of WCSPP.

Facilitators

Joan Milano, LCSW, is a psychotherapist with extensive personal and professional experience working with people impacted by cancer at Gilda’s Club Westchester, Dickstein Cancer Center, and in private practice. She is a 1992 graduate of the WCSSP Advanced Psychoanalytic Training Program.

Margaret Postlewaite, PhD, is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, Certified Group Therapist and Somatic Experience Practitioner and Assistant. She currently consults for Gilda’s Club and other group organizations. She graduated from the WCSPP Advanced Analytic Program at WCSPP in 1982.

Ronda Oswalt Reitz, PhD, has been providing treatment, supervision, international training and consultation in Dialectical Behavior Therapy since 1996. She is the Coordinator for Dialectical Behavior Therapy for the state of Missouri, and was a long-time Zen student of Marsha Linehan.