the FALL/WINTER 2015 AMERICAN Volume 49, No . 4 PSYCHOANALYST Quarterly Magazine of The American Psychoanalytic Association

Psychoanalytic Video INSIDE TAP… Outreach Project The Bylaw Debate. . . . 4–5 Chris Heath

Frustration is a great inspirational force. projects through the intersections of the two APsaA Research When I was chair of the Outreach Commit- fields. I had to take a refresher course in cal- Summit...... 6 tee of my local psychoanalytic center, I found culus, and made a delightful discovery: Online it difficult to engage the non-psychoanalytic classes have evolved. I was surprised to actu- community. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. ally, for the first time, understand calculus National Meeting With disbelief, people would say, “Do people after I took an online MOOC class by Jim Highlights...... 7 even still use the couch?” “Is that the same as Fowler at Ohio State University. I had taken cognitive behavioral therapy?” (and passed) calculus twice before, but this We as psychoanalysts need to evolve class presented it in a refreshingly personal Our Fabulous novel ways to develop our community pres- way, with examples acted out. If Fowler can Fellows...... 21–23 ence. In particular, how do we present the help me understand calculus, maybe I can particular strengths of our training? Our per- present psychoanalysis in a similar way. Special Section: sonal analysis and the related use of the self Online video has become a popular as analyzing instrument sets us apart from medium, especially among youth. YouTube is War, Part II. . . . 28 –31 other schools of therapy; both are very per- watched more than any cable network by sonal, intimate aspects of our work. The pub- 18-49 year-olds, according to Forbes, and lic does not seem informed about these the YouTube search engine is the second aspects of our expertise. Without this public most used Internet search engine. In partic- knowledge, I worry, we seem aloof, cold and ular, a new category of outdated. And the solution is not as simple celebrity, the YouTuber, as just telling them; we have to engage in has emerged. Many of the creative ways. videos these artists pro- duce are simply the artist LEARNING CAN BE FUN speaking directly to the The video idea came to me in a round- camera, as if the viewer about way. I was pursuing education in eco- is a friend. The manifest nomics in hopes of developing outreach content is often mundane; it may be a simple recipe or even a “haul” where Chris Heath, M.D., is a psychoanalyst the YouTuber shows us in Dallas. He is a past chair of the Outreach what they bought at the Chris Heath Committee of the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center store today. The popularity of these videos and has been an associate member of the appears to reflect a hunger, it seems to me, editorial board of the International Journal for personal connection. of Psychoanalysis. Continued on page 14

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 1 CONTENTS: Fall/Winter 2015 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION President: Mark Smaller R eflecting on the Past Year and Possibilities for Our Future President-Elect: Harriet Wolfe 3 Secretary: Ralph E. Fishkin Mark D. Smaller Treasurer: William A. Myerson Executive Director: Dean K. Stein 4 Byla w Amendment: APsaA on the Move Luba Kessler

5 A Progressive Step Forward: Why the Executive THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST Committee’s Governance Proposal is the Only Option Magazine of the Lee I. Ascherman, Elizabeth Brett, Dwarakanath Rao and Dionne Powell American Psychoanalytic Association Editor 6 APsaA Research Summit: A Call to Action Harriet Wolfe Janis Chester Film Editor 7 W elcome to the 2016 National Meeting in New York Bruce H. Sklarew January 12–17 Christine C. Kieffer Special Section Editor Michael Slevin Candidates’ Council: Our Ruined Choirs Phoebe A. Cirio Editorial Board 9 Vera J. Camden, Doug Chavis, Phoebe Cirio, Leslie Cummins, 10 Film: The Double Life of Veronique Phillip S. Freeman, Maxine Fenton Gann, Bonnie Kaufman; Bruce H. Sklarew, Column Editor Sheri Butler Hunt, Laura Jensen, Nadine Levinson, A. Michele Morgan, Julie Jaffee Nagel, Marie Rudden, 11  Poetry: From the Unconscious Sheri A. Butler Hinda Simon, Vaia Tsolas, Dean K. Stein, ex officio 13 T hree Awards to Daniel S. Schechter for Research Senior Correspondent Jane Walvoord 15 A Tangible APsaA Member Benefit to Save You Money Photographer Brenda Bauer Mervin Stewart

Manuscript and Production Editors 16 American Psychoanalytic Foundation’s Michael and Helene Wolff, Wide Ranging Activities Linda R. Benson Technology Management Communications

The American Psychoanalyst is published quar- 17 Under graduate Psychoanalytic Studies terly. Subscriptions are provided automatically to at Hampshire College Derek Pyle members of The American Psychoanalytic Asso- ciation. For non-members, domestic and Cana- dian subscription rates are $36 for individuals and COPE: Study Group on Supervision Barbara Stimmel $80 for institutions. Outside the U.S. and Canada, 19 rates are $56 for individuals and $100 for institu- tions. To subscribe to The American Psychoanalyst, APsaA ’s Excellent New Fellows for 2015-2016 visit http://www.apsa.org/TAPSUB, or write TAP 21 Subscriptions, The American Psychoanalytic Association, 309 East 49th Street, New York, New York 10017; call 212-752-0450 x18 or SPECIAL SECTION e-mail [email protected]. War Copyright © 2015 The American Psychoanalytic Association. All rights reserved. No part of this Special Section on War: Introduction Michael Slevin publication may be reproduced, stored in a 28 retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of The 28 T he American Psychological Association and Torture American Psychoanalytic Association, 309 East Neil Altman 49th Street, New York, New York 10017.

ISSN 1052-7958 30 Ps ychoanalytic Intervention in the Public Sphere William Braun The American Psychoanalytic Association does not hold itself responsible for statements made in The American Psychoanalyst by contributors or advertisers. Unless otherwise stated, material in The American Psychoanalyst does not reflect the endorsement, official attitude, or position of The Correspondence and letters to the editor should be sent to TAP editor, American Psychoanalytic Association or The Janis Chester, at [email protected]. American Psychoanalyst.

2 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 FROM THE PRESIDENT

North American Psychoanalytic Confedera- Reflecting on the Past Year and tion (NAPsaC), the European Psychoanalytic Federation, and the Latin American Psycho- Possibilities for Our Future analytic Federation—and an important step Mark D. Smaller taken in connecting psychoanalysts around the world regarding contemporary perspec- With this issue of TAP, I begin my final six We then moved tives in our field. months as president. Much has happened on to creating During the closing ceremonies of the IPA within APsaA since my term as president Work Groups Congress in Boston last July, I spoke about began in Chicago, June 2014. Much remains to propose ways how essential the IPA and APsaA are to each to be accomplished between now and our of implementing other, and that together we would success- June 2016 meeting back in Chicago. the six recom- fully address the challenges to psychoanalysis mendations to outside and within. Many of our members SIX RECOMMENDATIONS be presented in contributed to the success of the IPA Con- FOR CHANGE January, now a gress both in attendance and scientific contri- During my first Executive Committee short time away. butions. The IPA meeting in North America Mark D. Smaller meeting as president in Chicago a year and a The effort has could not have come at a better time. half ago, we immediately put an end to an been enormous, but I believe it will result in The day after the IPA Congress, Harriet appeal process from the lawsuit. From that significant reform in governance, education, Wolfe chaired the inaugural APsaA Research morning on, through weekly meetings, two benefit to members, adding new affiliated Summit. Over the past year we had strug- retreats, and conference calls in between, the psychoanalytic groups and help APsaA con- gled to transform APsaA’s Science Depart- Executive Committee began a process of tinue to push psychoanalysis forward. ment and the Fund for Psychoanalytic talking, listening and healing, and finally, creat- Research into a better functioning and more ing a cohesive working group. In November THE STATE OF APsaA responsive research arm of APsaA. Through 2014, we locked ourselves in an isolated Although the Executive Committee was Harriet’s tireless efforts, the Summit proved hotel in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. No buffaloes, occupied with creating these recommenda- successful (see her report on page 6 in this no groves. Rather, two days of discussion with tions for change, APsaA has not been idle. issue). each other and our consultant, Jeffrey Kerr. We added 81 new members as a result of Our commitment to and success regard- We hashed out differences, injuries, hurts, the William Alanson White Institute and ing social issues were highlighted this past anger and various convictions about psycho- Society (WAW) affiliating with APsaA. For year in a number of ways. Position state- analysis and our Association. By the evening the first time in three years, our member- ments were formulated on human traffick- over dinner and wine, we spoke personally ship was growing again, rather than being ing, campus sexual violence, working with and began to better know and regain respect in decline. We continue to be enriched, not returning veterans, race-based violence and for each other. only by WAW new members, but the inno- racial profiling, and LGBT people in the By February, during our second retreat, vative perspectives they provide our field military. When the Supreme Court voted in we began to constructively formulate a list and organization. Over the past year other favor of the constitutional right to same-sex of changes that resulted in our Six Recom- psychoanalytic organizations have reached marriage, our name was on the list of sup- mendations for Change with plans to present out to inquire about affiliation and we are porters on that amicus brief, as it was in at our June 2015 meeting in San Francisco. responding. Illinois when the governor signed a bill The unanimous support by both the Execu- We continued to connect with the Inter- prohibiting conversion therapy for children tive Council and the Board on Professional national Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). In and adolescents. Standards may have been one of the most January 2015, we had frank conversations Public information efforts are made more satisfying moments in my professional career. with the IPA leadership about dues, an aging successful by our involvement in the world It affirmed the huge effort of our Executive membership, and our recovery from the law- around us. Wylie Tene, who began in his posi- Committee—Harriet Wolfe, Bill Meyerson, suit. By the time Harriet Wolfe, APsaA presi- tion as APsaA’s director of public affairs, last Ralph Fishkin, Lee Ascherman, Betsy Brett, dent-elect, and I arrived in Stockholm for the January, continues to do an excellent job Peter Kotcher—consistently helped and European Psychoanalytic Federation meet- keeping us connected to media outlets and facilitated by Dean Stein and Tina Faison. ings, in March 2015, we could report a healthy social networks, and, through regular News and flourishing APsaA. The first edition of and Announcements on our lists, informing the Ejournal, Psychoanalysis Today, has been the membership about activities of APsaA Mark D. Smaller, Ph.D., is president of the launched through the editorial and financial and individual members. American Psychoanalytic Association. efforts of the three regions, APsaA and the Continued on page 20

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 3 BYLAW DEBATE

enduring fault line. The San Francisco pro- Bylaw Amendment: APsaA on the Move ceedings at BOPS and in Council the following Luba Kessler day were about moving that needle. Within BOPS, the leadership vigorously Voting on the bylaw amendment is about idea was that if enough rank and file members campaigned to produce an advisory to the to commence. The petition by more than 50 answered the call, it could grow “new legs.” APsaA membership against the amendment. members will be receiving the full consider- And so they did. Members from diverse (In a twist of irony, BOPS’s right to issue an ation and judgment of all APsaA members. backgrounds and locations responded advisory on the amendment was just the kind We, the petitioners, hope the vote on it will eagerly, exceeding the required number of of a bicameral governance prerogative the reflect the membership’s renewed sense of 50 so as to allow the petition for the amend- proposal under discussion was challenging, enfranchisement in our professional organiza- ment to proceed to a general vote. This was and yet was subject to it.) However, despite tion, on a par with the pride in our personal December 2014. framing their determined opposition to the psychoanalytic identities. amendment as if it were to damage the work BYLAW AMENDMENT PROPOSAL MEETS on the Six Recommendations for Change, the CONTEXT SIX RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE leaders encountered a decidedly skeptical The amendment proposal was generated The following spring the new Executive constituency among the rank and file BOPS in 2014 by the task force convened by APsaA Committee (ExCom) notified the APsaA fellows. In the fluidity of the unfolding debate, president Bob Pyles and chaired by Erik Gann. membership that a proposal for reforming the response by the fellows showed remark- The recent lawsuit over APsaA’s bylaws had our operational organization was in the able new flexibility and independence. While laid bare the anomalous nature of our bicam- works. Acutely cognizant of the need for 22 fellows voted for a negative advisory, i.e., eral organizational structure. The amendment constructive action, the Executive Committee against the amendment, 18 fellows did not go was a response to it. By granting the Execu- created a proposal, Six Recommendations for along. The outcome was a remarkable vote of tive Council, APsaA’s Board of Directors Change. The transformations envisioned in considerable support for the amendment in (BOD), full authority in all its organizational the proposal had the potential to reshape our the BOPS chamber. matters, it was correcting the structural organizational policies and create new organi- The following day’s proceedings in the anomaly—the source of chronic friction zational structures. One could foresee these Council were marked by this continuing fluid- within the organization—as well as bringing changes might lead to a correction in the ity. BOPS fellows who were also councilors it into a straightforward compliance with the bicameral organizational anomaly of authority engaged in the shaping of the Council’s advi- New York State Not-for-Profit Law. as presently divided between the Council sory vote on the amendment. The motion in However, in the meantime a transition in (APsaA’s BOD) and BOPS, but if and when the Council made clear the streamlined BOD APsaA presidency from Bob Pyles to Mark that were to be the case remained a matter authority of the amended bylaws would be Smaller, with Harriet Wolfe as president-elect, of conjecture only. The six-point proposal did one of collaboration with the endorsed Rec- was under way after the summer of 2014. not make such change explicit. Indeed, aside ommendations for Change. The aim of the Such transitions are opportunities for new ini- from externalizing the certification procedure amendment was to support and dovetail with tiatives, but they can also cause discontinuities. and deriving a department for psychoanalytic the Recommendations for Change. The sup- Though vetted by APsaA lawyers and ready to education from BOPS’s non-regulatory activi- port for the amendment solidified. The votes go, the bylaw amendment went on pause. ties, the status and governance rights of against it by some of the fellows in BOPS the BOPS were not addressed at all in the ExCom day before became votes of support in Coun- GRASSROOTS INITIATIVE proposal. It meant they were to remain as cil. One became an abstention. In the end, the Inspired by Bob Pyles’s impassioned address inscribed in the APsaA bylaws. Council’s advisory vote was overwhelmingly calling for the amendment even as he was in favor of the amendment. stepping down as APsaA’s president, I subse- SAN FRANCISCO, JUNE 2015 quently sent out a call on Members list for peti- The ExCom proposal was enthusiastically GRASSROOTS MEETS LEADERSHIP tion signers, in a test of grassroots interest. The endorsed in the joint meetings of the Council It takes a long time to turn a ship around, but and BOPS. Yes, the details and the implemen- with good winds and everyone at their oars, tations were yet to be sorted out, but both leaders and members alike, we are doing it. We Luba Kessler, M.D., is councilor for were on board to contemplate new, out of are discovering the pleasures and benefits of Psychoanalytic Association of NY; on faculty the box, configurations. democratic collegiality. The proposed amend- of Institute for Psychoanalytic Education However, while all that was for the good, ment of the bylaws is a straightforward struc- affiliated with NYU; in private practice in the APsaA’s bicameral division of governance tural corrective, a necessary foundation for all Long Island, NY. She organized the signature authority itself remained untouched. Only the reform at APsaA. We can make it happen. drive to bring the bylaw amendment to proposed bylaw amendment, like a magnetic membership vote. needle, pointed squarely and explicitly at this Please vote for the bylaw amendment.

4 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 BYLAW DEBATE

The Bylaw

No committee of the corporation established pursuant to or cited in Article VII shall have the authority to bind the Executive Council in any respect whatsoever, including, without limitation, with respect to contracts, monetary matters, or any policies and procedures pertaining to any of the functions or purposes of the Association, such as, for example, policies and procedures pertaining to administration, public information, advocacy, professional education, and certification of psychoanalysts.

A Progressive Step Forward: Why the Executive Committee’s Governance Proposal is the Only Option Lee I. Ascherman, Elizabeth Brett, Dwarakanath Rao and Dionne Powell

For the first time in our long and illustrious During APsaA’s history there have been states: “Move to a governance structure, history we are on the threshold of major multiple efforts to solve our organizational operations and policies and procedures con- change. This change, approved by the Execu- difficulties. Almost all became historical foot- sistent with model professional association tive Council and the Board on Professional notes while external threats to our profession best practices.” Standards is embodied in the Executive only grew. Ultimately, our organizational struc- Modern non-profit organizational struc- Committee’s six-point proposal for organiza- ture will mean very little if psychoanalysis also tures including all involved with education fol- tional reform; a comprehensive plan bringing becomes a historical footnote. If this ill-timed low federal guidelines unless state regulations fundamental changes in structure and func- and divisive bylaw proposal is not defeated, are more stringent. Even if an organization is tion to modernize and strengthen our pro- the six-point proposal could become another not federally recognized, they follow suit for fessional organization. in a long list of footnotes, and disastrous three reasons: The primary obstacle that threatens to upheaval in APsaA will result. This is why we 1. Federal expectations set the compass derail this inclusive process comes from the ask that you support the Executive Commit- for the future. Already we have had one bylaw amendment proposal, which harks back tee’s six-point proposal by opposing the of our institutes face the challenge of to a divisive past outside of consensus within bylaw proposal. state regulations threatening the future APsaA. The bylaw amendment proposal of its program. The state insisted on excludes the many interested parties within THE FUTURE proof the Committee on Institutes of APsaA and is not a part of the Executive We are at a critical crossroad where we the Board on Professional Standards Committee proposal. We cannot emphasize can no longer ignore realities in the modern had sufficient rigor, authority and auton- enough that this bylaw proposal goes against world of professional organizations. Our omy from the membership organization the spirit and compromise of the Executive founders were in some ways prescient in to approve the analytic training program Committee proposal that was resoundingly their design of the APsaA we have known. of the institute. A touch and go situation approved by all parts of APsaA. While “bicameral” has for some become a had a favorable outcome. dirty word, this structure was designed to 2. Federal recognition opens opportuni- Lee I. Ascherman, M.D., is chair of the separate educational functions and regulation ties for grants and loans otherwise not Board on Professional Standards. from all other aspects of organization gover- available to institutes or candidates. nance. It turns out modern organizations 3. Good faith efforts of professions to Elizabeth Brett, Ph.D., is secretary of the separate these entities. All professional orga- regulate themselves outside of mem- Board on Professional Standards. nizations have moved to a structure that bership organizations demonstrate Dwarakanath Rao, M.D., is chair-elect separates or firewalls organizational manage- effort to protect the public, diminishing of the Board on Professional Standards. ment from education policy and regulation. risk for government intrusion into pro- Dionne Powell, M.D., is secretary-elect The first objective of APsaA’s 2011 Strategic fessional affairs. of the Board on Professional Standards. Plan under Governance and Management Continued on page 8

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 5 RESEARCH SUMMIT

Bob Galatzer-Levy spoke about conceptual APsaA Research Summit: research. He defined research broadly as any activity that is directed toward developing A Call to Action knowledge and uses a methodology that is Harriet Wolfe spelled out and can be critiqued. He argued for the value of a research agenda that includes An APsaA research summit took place in psychoanalytic research on psychoanalytic theory, child devel- Boston on Sunday, July 26, 2015, immediately and psychody- opment, application of analytic thinking to following the IPA Congress. Its purpose was namic treat- community needs and social policy, and the to sharpen and reinvigorate APsaA’s support ments in the U.S. use of psychoanalysis in the humanities and Harriet Wolfe for research. The time and place allowed for a because there is social sciences. He too urged the group to diverse group of expert researchers in atten- insufficient evidence regarding efficacy and recognize the crisis APsaA and the profession dance and a head start on formulating recom- little public domain support for psychosocial of psychoanalysis face because of relative inat- mendations for APsaA’s effective reengagement interventions other than cognitive behavioral tention to analytic research. He referenced with the scientific aspect of its mission. therapy. She showed data regarding the con- past attempts to find political solutions to pro- The meeting was proposed by Andrew comitant lack of interest in research on the fessional problems, including APsaA’s support Gerber, head of the Science Department, part of analytic clinicians. for research, and implored the group to con- and I was the moderator. There were 42 Her data and comments set the stage for tribute to a rational, thoughtful approach to an participants, including APsaA researchers; an important discussion of the disengage- enduring research program within APsaA. non-APsaA researchers from the U.S., Argen- ment of the analytic community from ana- In highlighting APsaA’s inconsistent atten- tina, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany and lytic research. tion to research and the fact it has been tied Italy; and non-researcher members of APsaA Sherwood Waldron presented on the to inspiring individuals rather than a shared who are committed to supporting analytic topic of process research. Unlike RCTs that sense of mission within the membership, he research. Three APsaA past-presidents, the investigate effectiveness of interventions on a set the stage for an important consideration current president and president-elect and large scale, process research focuses on the of the tension between organizational and the executive director were present. Also interactions between two people in order to scientific aims and the challenge inherent in present were the president-elect and two identify essential dimensions of mind and bridging the gap between them. past presidents of the Society for Psycho- possible mechanisms of change. Insofar as There were strong differences of opinion therapy Research. This combination of scien- process research is based on video- and among attendees regarding what would be tists and administrative leaders set the stage audiotaped transcripts of treatment sessions, most important for APsaA to support: large for serious and productive consideration of the method provides an educational tool as randomized controlled studies; small pilot what it will take to ensure APsaA’s enduring well as a research tool. projects (including those of early career attention to science and its successful sup- Waldron’s comments set the stage for an researchers who can use their data to develop port of research. important discussion of the need for educa- their research interests further); outcome/ tion about analytic research in candidate process/conceptual research; and psychoana- PSYCHOANALYTIC RESEARCH: training and in the larger analytic and health lytic or psychodynamic therapy research. The OUTCOME, PROCESS AND care communities. possibility of defining a common project, per- CONCEPTUAL haps in the form of supporting one large Three APsaA researchers began the meet- study, was discussed but a pluralist approach ing by addressing prominent areas of analytic seemed most persuasive. research—outcome, process and conceptual research. Barbara Milrod, an analyst investiga- FUND FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH tor whose work has had major support from There was complete agreement that the the National Institute of Mental Health, spoke first step APsaA needs to take is to reacti- about outcome research and the importance vate the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research. in the modern scientific world of randomized This agreement reflected a theme regarding controlled trials (RCTs). She implored the the importance of fundraising and potential group to recognize there is a crisis facing methods of achieving it. Charles Fisher, the new chair of the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research, made clear his Harriet Wolfe, M.D., is president-elect intent to restart the Fund as soon as possible. Photo: Jacques Gourguechon of APsaA. Barbara Milrod Continued on page 12

6 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 National Meeting January 2016 Welcome to the 2016 National Meeting in New York January 12–17 Christine C. Kieffer

In just a few Panel I, “It’s About Time: Temporal- weeks, we will be ity in Analysis,” with Haydée Faimberg, getting together Warren Poland, Donnel Stern and once again— Irene Cairo will be held on Friday. under the Wal- Panel II, on Saturday morning, will dorf clock—to focus on “The Analyst as a Person: A meet friends, Different Approach to the Ethics of share ideas and the Impossible Profession,” with Jane Kite, This year, we are particularly fortunate to learn new things Susan Kattlove, Humphrey Morris and Mitch- have a special symposium that will feature the at the American ell Wilson. work of the psychoanalyst and author, Dani- Christine C. Kieffer Psychoanalytic Panel III will offer an intriguing inquiry into elle Knafo. I will moderate this program that Association 2016 National Meeting in New American psychoanalysis: “Don’t Fence Me will explore aspects of an emerging socio- York. I have highlighted below some of the In: What’s American about American Psycho- cultural phenomenon, “Guys and Dolls: Rela- exciting events we have planned for January. analysis?” with Glen Gabbard, Shelly Orgel, tional Life in the Technological Era.” And, in Donald Moss and Bonnie Litowitz. response to the need for additional ethics PLENARIES AND Panel IV will examine the clinical dynamics credits, we have put together an ethics col- PRESIDENTIAL SYMPOSIUM of working with patients who are physically ill: loquium titled, “Rotten Apples and Ambiva- First, we will have two imaginative and cre- “The Patients’ Illness: How they Affect the lence: Sexual Boundary Violations as a ative plenaries given by two of our foremost Analyst and the Analytic Work,” with Judy Problem of the Group,” where Muriel Dimen colleagues: Donald Moss will be giving a ple- Kantrowitz, Phillip Herschenfeld, Peggy War- will present a paper, followed by commen- nary, with the mysterious and compelling title, ren, Caryle Perlman and Theodore Jacobs. tary by Glen Gabbard, Avgi Saketopoulou, “The Insane Look of the Bewildered Half-Bro- And, of course, there will be another Charles Levin and me. The structure of this ken Animal.” Dorothy Holmes will be offering stimulating Panel on Child and Adolescent program will allow for plenty of time for audi- a visionary plenary titled, “Come Hither Analysis, “The Effects of Separation and ence discussion with the presenters so we American Psychoanalysis: Our Complex Multi- Divorce: Reflections from Child and Adult may process these provocative ideas together. cultural America Needs What We Have to Analysis,” featuring Linda Gunsberg, Anthony Offer.” In addition, our president, Mark Smaller, Bram, Robert Straus, Larry Sarezky and CLINICAL WORKSHOPS will address us in his Presidential Symposium: Claudia Lament. AND SYMPOSIA “If Not Now, When?: Speaking Out about Rac- One of the most popular components of ism While Changing the Course of Psychoana- UNIVERSITY FORUM, our program has been the Two-Day Clinical lytic History.” These are just a few of the many MEET-THE-AUTHOR, Workshop, and I am proud to announce, in outstanding events to anticipate. ETHICS COLLOQUIUM response to popular demand, there will be Another program not to be missed is two new workshops offered by Joseph Lich- PANELS the University Forum, where two highly tenberg with Frank Lachman as discussant, No January meeting would be complete renowned authors Zadie Smith and Chris and one by Donald Moss with Irma Bren- without our fine array of large panels that will Abani, will examine “The Unseen and the man-Pick as discussant. In addition, there will feature some of the most thought-provoking Unheard in Fiction and Memoir.” Stanley be two compelling symposia. The first, on psychoanalysts in the country, and perhaps Coen will chair and Alice Jones will provide “Unconscious Death Anxiety,” will feature the world. commentary in this thought-provoking pro- Norman Straker, William Breitbart and Shel- gram. I urge you to also make time for the don Solomon, and the second, on “Sexual Meet-the-Author program in which Lawrence Trafficking,” with Ruth Fischer, Vivian Blotnick Brown and Theodore Jacobs will discuss their Pender, and Assistant United States Attorney Christine C. Kieffer, Ph.D., ABPP, is chair new books in a program moderated by Karine Moreno-Taxman. of the Program Committee. Henry Friedman. Continued on page 20

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 7 BYLAW DEBATE

Progressive Step Forward 2. At least one member of the agency’s are consistent with these principles, reflect- Continued from page 5 decision-making body is a representa- ing thoughtful cooperation between the tive of the public, and at least one- officers of the organization and the leader- Title IV of the Higher Education Act man- seventh of that body consists of ship of the Board on Professional Standards. dates professional organizations that accredit representatives of the public; It promotes the separation of approving/ must be separate and independent (CFP 3. The agency has established and imple- accrediting functions from the membership Section 602.12(a)(3)) from a trade associa- mented guidelines for each member of organization and recognizes the externaliza- tion. It reads: the decision-making body to avoid con- tion of certification. It directs the Executive flicts of interest; Council to review its functioning using a con- “The structure of modern professional 4. The agency’s dues are paid separately sultant with expertise in non-profit boards organizations must be one that satisfies the from any dues paid to any related, asso- of professional organizations. ‘separate and independent’ requirement for ciated, or affiliated trade association or accreditation outlined in federal legislation.” membership organization; A LAST WORD “Separate and independent” means: 5. The agency develops and determines We are on a constructive path that 1. “The members of the agency’s decision- its own budget, with no review by or involves the whole organization, striving making body—who decide the accredi- consultation with any other entity or for a bright future for our beloved profes- tation or preaccreditation status of organization.” sion. The undergirding of this path is the six- institutions or programs, establish the point Executive Committee proposal. It is agency’s accreditation policies, or both— SUMMARY easy to regress or stay stuck in protracted are not elected or selected by the board This critical information, often drowned organizational enactment. But if you want to or chief executive officer of any related, out by the noise of organization politics, is ensure change by working together on this associated, or affiliated trade association essential to our future. The set of six propos- new path, we urge you to vote NO on the or membership organization; als presented by the Executive Committee bylaw proposal.

8 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015

She finds evidence for the collapse of the edifice in our disputes with one another about whether something is or is not psy- andidates’ council choanalytic. By concerning ourselves with whether the clinical actions of others fit our standards of psychoanalysis, we govern- mentalize our profession and occupy our- C Kate selves with measurements, all to achieve Our Ruined Choirs Schechter, in control of others, and of ourselves. The Phoebe A. Cirio her excellent conflict about clinical technique imbues book, Illusions the conflicts that are internal to APsaA. “Bare ruined choirs, where late the of a Future: sweet birds sang,” this line from Shake- Psychoanaly- SHIFTING TECTONICS speare’s Sonnet 73 captures the zeitgeist sis and the In this brief column I can do little more of anxiety that suffuses much of psycho- Biopolitics of than sketch the shifting tectonics within analysis at this point early in the 21st Desire, offers Phoebe A. Cirio our organization. But I have a couple of century. The “bare ruined choirs” of our some analysis for this current condition I points I would like to make about the present time refers, of course, to the am calling our Weltschmerz. Using ethno- current times. One of the points Schech- paucity of analytic patients, particularly graphic methodology, she describes the ter is making, by situating us within a larger the ideal analyzable neurotic. It also profession of psychoanalysis as ensnared biomedical environment, is that we in refers to the difficulty in finding candi- in the current neoliberal climate of evi- psychoanalysis are being shaped by forces dates for training, so institute faculties dence-based medicine, in which the ethos external to ourselves. The prevailing neo- have someone to teach. “Where late the of the audit defines the value of any prac- liberal ethos, where everything can be sweet birds sang,” speaks of nostalgia for tice, and all practice can be reduced to a measured and monetized, and the essen- a lost golden time in psychoanalysis cost-benefit analysis. She says in her intro- tial value of any activity can be reduced to, when psychoanalysts had full practices, duction: “Evidence-based medicine (EBM), and determined by, a cost-benefit analysis, waiting lists even, and comfortable embraced by the insurance and pharma- is pervasive, as is the over-valuation of incomes. Also implied, but not spoken ceutical industries and by health econo- reason. Data triumphs in this scenario. aloud, is that a return to the pinnacle of mists and policy makers alike, stands in The second point is about psychoana- mental health practice is what we sharp contrast to psychoanalysis in mat- lytic education. I think those of us who deserve; and our excellence and excep- ters of ontology, authority, and value.” She enter into psychoanalytic training at this tional clinical capability is being devalued, goes on to argue that we have unwittingly time are doing so because we reject neo- and we are eager, perhaps desperate, to responded to this pressure by construct- liberal values. We study psychoanalysis restore ourselves to our rightful place. ing a parallel, fetishistic claustrum wherein because we are interested in the com- The conclusion many of us draw is that we fight about the “real relationship.” plexity of the mind and human interaction, psychoanalysis as a science, a field of She argues there has been a modifica- and do not want to simplify and reduce practice, and a profession is in danger tion in our psychoanalytic technique from human activity, and certainly not clinical and we are suffering a crisis. the original model of interpretation of activity, to measurable units subject to transference and retrieval of memory to reimbursement. But it is awfully hard to WELTSCHMERZ neutralize transference, to a newer defi- fight this current. Candidates enter into Because of this zeitgeist of frustration nition of technique where the measure of psychoanalytic training because they and longing, our professional association, the psychoanalyst is in her ability to believe it is something of genuine value, APsaA, has been riven with conflict, which form a relationship with a patient, and which will enhance their clinical skills. has fostered its own atmosphere of crisis. “to experience, process, and contain Because of this commitment on the part I think we are suffering from Weltschmerz, affective intensity in that relationship.” But of candidates, it is crucial that our organi- which means “world pain” in German. It is Schechter’s point is the containment of zation ensure excellence in our clinical the sadness in our hearts for the world affect is too weak an edifice for our pro- and theoretical education—however that we can never have. fession. So we falter under the pressure. can be achieved.

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 9

viewing yields F I L M more confusion than clarification. But this is a situ- ation every ana- The Double Life of Veronique lyst is familiar with; it is the Bonnie Kaufman nature of our Bruce H. Sklarew, Column Editor craft that we are required to tol- Bruce H. Sklarew erate ambiguity and anxiety, and to decide when it is appro- priate to be active and when to sit back and wait. What I will do is describe some of my experiences with, and observations about, Veronique and offer an approach to the film that may provide a point of departure for further thought. I have come to feel it is most fruitful for me to approach a film through the examination of the formal aspects of the filmcraft in an Let me begin with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s People only read them as meta- effort to understand what it communicates own words: phors, which is very good. That’s and how it is done. This means looking not what I want. I always want to stir only at the narrative but also at the particu- I don’t film metaphors…For me, a people to something. It doesn’t lars of the medium, the narrational strategies bottle of milk is simply a bottle of matter whether I manage to pull beyond the verbal text. By strategies, I mean, milk; when it spills, it means milk’s people into the story or inspire for example, the sequences of images, the been spilt. Nothing more. It doesn’t them to analyze it. What is impor- sound track, the camera shots and tech- mean that the world’s fallen apart, tant is that I force them into some- niques, lighting, mise en scene and editing. I or that the milk symbolizes a thing or move them in some way. have also found, as is often the case in clinical mother’s milk, which her child work, these extra-narrative phenomena are couldn’t drink because the mother While Kieslowski may not be totally honest often most clearly visible on the film’s mar- died early, for example. A bottle of here about the role the filmmaker plays, he gins. (The most meaningful exchange in a spilt milk is simply a bottle of spilt is nonetheless getting at an important point: given psychoanalytic session may happen as milk. And that’s cinema. Unfortu- Meaning is not inherent in the image itself, the patient is walking out the door; in a film, nately, it doesn’t mean anything but is created in the process of decoding and a shot before the narrative begins might be else…No, I don’t film metaphors. contextualization of the image performed by extremely important). the spectator (and, despite Kieslowski’s dis- In Double Life, I am struck immediately by claimer, with considerable guidance from the the arresting quality of the film’s earliest Bonnie S. Kaufman, M.D., associate clinical artist). It is certainly clear from the second moments. Before the film credits, before the professor of psychiatry, Columbia University, part of the quotation that this filmmaker title, we see two little girls, one in Poland on and faculty, Columbia University Center presses his audience to take a very active Christmas Eve; the other, in early spring, in for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, role in the viewing process. In order for this France, and we are told the year is 1968. has written and lectured extensively on to happen, the film must both pull us in and Veronika (as we later learn she is called) lies psychoanalysis and film. inspire us to analyze—a simultaneous pro- on her back, looking up at the stars; Vero- Bruce H. Sklarew, M.D., an associate cess of experiencing and observing. nique is intently examining the underside of editor and co-founder of the award-winning one of the early leaves of spring. The dead of Projections: The Journal for Movies CONTENT AND PROCESS winter, the return of life in spring. The macro- and Mind, organizes the film programs The Double Life of Veronique is a film whose cosm of the stars, the microcosm of a first at meetings of the American Psychoanalytic structure resists attempts at easy resolution leaf. Veronika is filmed at an angle such that Association and has co-edited two books of its many contradictions. Even more than she first appears upside down on the screen; on psychoanalysis and film. in Kieslowski’s trilogy, Trois Couleurs, a first Continued on page 24

10 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015

From the

Unconscious The Melting Threat Sheri A. Butler poetry When I am finished with everything, she told me, I won’t have anything else to do. This poem touches on the immense holding Nothing else on my mind, So you cannot ask me, capacity the analyst can form within, over the course What’s on my mind. of an analysis, for a patient they have come to know. Startled, I wondered aloud, The holding capacity changes with time and with the Would her knotted worries all be unraveled? Every thought breathed in, intimacy of the work, and is a place of refuge for a Every memory spoken out? patient who may be in a great deal of pain. It’s a part Very precisely, of the empathic, analytic stance that sets our work She iced. So you cannot wait for me apart from the ever increasing myriad of behavioral To sharpen myself on you, therapies and is often a large part of why patients Or think you know what I might have poked you with. will stay for analytic work, when no other treatment I asked then, there will be no unspoken longing? No fragment of a dream forgotten? can reach deeply enough. No mystery that I don’t know And you don’t either? Do you really plan to end this way On my couch? Yes, she thought she might just do that. It might be a restful way to go. Just withhold her last thought, Wait one last moment for me to blink And then drift off. Her eyes would close, Her breathing slow and stop, As I helplessly looked on. And while I waited to see if there was more She would silently slip away. With an inward smile I barely saw She said wouldn’t I have a difficult time then, At the end of the hour? When I shifted around and said my usual, Wouldn’t I have a hard time then, Clearing her away? With her outward tear That I couldn’t miss, Sheri A. Butler, M.D., is an adult training and I said we would both consulting analyst and a child consulting analyst in the Hold her within, child division at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and As things are, not as things were. Institute. A published poet and member of TAP’s editorial We would both board, she welcomes readers’ comments, suggestions, Never need to clear her away. and poetry submissions at [email protected]. —Sheri A. Butler

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 11 RESEARCH SUMMIT

A Call to Action Continued from page 6

It has been dormant for over a year. He described his plan to establish a multiple por- tal structure for the Fund. This approach will invite proposals for outcome, process and conceptual research projects. (For this pur- pose “conceptual research” designates all research that does not specifically investigate process and/or outcome.) Projects of similar nature will be compared with each other in a Photo: Jacques Gourguechon From left to right: review process conducted by research Robert Galatzer-Levy, Sherwood Waldron, Harriet Wolfe, Andrew Gerber and Charles Fisher. experts in that area who are experienced in scientific review. Those in favor of increased attention to I want to suggest we need to pay careful APsaA currently budgets a relatively small PDP research were alert to the societal attention to both scientific aims and organi- amount of money for research. It is certainly impact of the scientific results obtained. They zational aims as we go forward and be mind- not enough to support large-scale studies. emphasized that APsaA needs to join the ful of their interaction. Scientific aims are Regardless of the specific research direction public discussion of the Institute of Medicine necessarily free of bias regarding research chosen, substantial outside funding will be (IOM) report released in July 2015, titled results if true advances in knowledge are to needed. “Psychosocial Interventions for Mental and be obtained. Some analysts may be ambiva- Two actions will greatly increase the likeli- Substance Use Disorders: A Framework for lent about analytic research because it could hood of improved funding: Establishing Evidence-Based Standards.” demonstrate the elements they believe to be The report emphasizes the need to sup- most important are not. There may indeed 1. The demonstration of a commitment to port research that strengthens the evidence be other elements that are responsible for research on the part of APsaA mem- base for the efficacy of psychosocial inter- outcome. And outcome can be discovered bers. If a high percentage of members ventions in mental health and substance to be poor as well as good. donate to research, even if the dollar abuse treatment and to define the key ele- Advances in science require funded amounts are low, potential donors can ments that account for an intervention’s research. This may be where things start to get feel confident that the experts (analysts effect. The clinical guidelines and outcome murky. How can our members be expected themselves) think research is important. measures that result from further IOM dis- to give annually to research if they feel ambiv- 2. The mounting of a vigorous develop- cussions will inform approaches to reim- alent about it or have no idea what sort of ment campaign to seek outside funds bursement and to application of the research is being done and why? How can for research. Affordable Care Act. In connection with outside donors be recruited to augment our these public policy directions, it is important budget for research if we ourselves demon- ORGANIZATIONAL AND to study ways of making analytic approaches strate a lukewarm attitude to research? SCIENTIFIC AIMS to patient care broadly accessible. There are several important tensions Finally, without continued support for PDP IMPLEMENTING AN EFFECTIVE between organizational aims and scientific research, the chances of PDP being funded RESEARCH PROGRAM aims that require continued discussion. by insurance companies and acknowledged I believe there are a few organizational inter- The researchers present disagreed about as vital by health care planners will diminish ventions that can substantially move things the relative value of investigating psycho- and perhaps disappear. along. First the Science Department needs dynamic psychotherapy (PDP) process and How can APsaA make research an ongo- some administrative help in order to keep outcome as opposed to psychoanalytic pro- ing, vital aspect of its mission? Past support the APsaA membership informed about cur- cess and outcome. Those in favor of focusing has been intermittent and often tied to pas- rent projects and research results; to pro- on psychoanalysis proper argued research on sionate, effective individuals. When their par- vide information about grants and projects psychoanalysis is limited and it is an appro- ticipation is lost, interest in research wanes to the Committee on Public Information so priate focus for a specifically psychoanalytic again. While it is difficult to imagine psycho- the public is informed of research results organization. Others felt PDP is sufficiently analysts would not support advances in and priorities; to create materials and orga- similar to psychoanalysis that advances in knowledge made through use of careful nize appointments for fundraising; to maintain knowledge about it are likely to benefit psy- methodologies, it appears many analysts are communications within the broad research choanalysis proper. actually ambivalent about research. Continued on page 13

12 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 Three Awards to Daniel S. Schechter for Research

Daniel S. Schechter, APsaA member, was awarded three paper prizes this summer. He received the Hayman Prize for best published work on traumatized children or adults by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and the Norbert and Charlotte Rieger Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Award from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) for his paper “On Traumatically Skewed Intersubjectivity.” This paper in press in Psychoanalytic Inquiry, considers how the impact of interpersonal violence experienced by parents during their childhood, resurfaces and shapes the infant’s Daniel S. Schechter development of intersubjectivity. Schechter was also given his fourth Significant Contribution to Psychoanalytic Research Award, at the IPA Congress in Boston for his study “Distorted and Negative Attributions towards Child, Self and Primary Attachment Figure among Posttraumatically Stressed Mothers: What Changes with Clinician Assisted Videofeedback Exposure Sessions ( CAVES).” He presented this paper at the meeting with Mark Solms as chair and discussant. This paper reports a significant change in traumatized mothers’ mental representations of their toddlers during the course of a brief psychoanalytically-informed psychotherapeutic intervention involving videofeedback with support and modeling of maternal mentalization particularly after exposing mothers to video excerpts of interactions that these mothers might otherwise avoid.

Schechter is on the faculty of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and senior lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine in Switzerland where he currently resides.

community, including IPA colleagues, that may analytic practice and thinking based on evi- psychoanalytic/psychodynamic research as full promote research collaborations; to help dence, not on authority or historical wisdom. members in APsaA. APsaA’s director of public affairs with social For some this would mean a shift in paradigm. APsaA’s Science Department will be under- media and press contacts regarding research; As a professional membership organiza- going changes that will benefit the intellec- and to assist the chair and members of the tion, APsaA has not been able to welcome tual and practical lives of APsaA members Fund for Psychoanalytic Research in accom- analytic researchers who are not clinicians and enhance the knowledge needed to serve plishing their work. In addition to its other func- as full members. Analytic researchers have patients optimally. We are recruiting a new tions, this type of administrative support would participated in allied organizations, such as head of the Science Department, as Andrew help educate APsaA members about the the Psychodynamic Psychoanalytic Research Gerber must focus on leading Austen Riggs. exciting and even discouraging aspects of their Society (PPRS), that offer diverse communi- Stay tuned for updates on department leader- research colleagues’ search for knowledge. ties of experts but sit outside of APsaA and ship, scientists’ advice on research priorities, the A more fundamental approach to educating maintain a distance between APsaA and the work of the Fund, and steps toward significant analysts about the value of research would knowledge it could better support and use. fundraising for research. I look forward to the be to develop required research curricula for I suggest that APsaA’s Board of Directors promotion of deeper psychoanalytic knowl- analytic training utilizing approaches that are consider proposing a new membership cat- edge and better psychoanalytic treatment designed to grab the interest of clinicians and egory called research scientist in order to through our Association’s support of research. demonstrate the relevance of research to ana- include non-clinical analytic researchers with I hope all members will contribute, according lytic practice. These would be approaches to demonstrated expertise and scholarship in to their abilities, to the Fund.

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 13 PEP VIDEOS

Video Outreach Project Continued from page 1

PIONEERING NEW VIDEO CONTENT As I was conceiving my videos, the Psy- choanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP) Web announced a round of grants for creation of psychoanalytic videos. I applied and received a generous grant in 2013, which went mostly towards equipment, such as lighting and cam- eras. My six-episode series, “Mind Your Mind,” is being published on the PEP-WEB Internet platform, available without a subscription and text-transcribed. The latest episode, “Road Rage,” is about defense mechanisms. (See the links below.) Please watch them, and share with anyone you can. I am aware that a public presence may have psychoanalysis, while dealing with the deep- PEP-Web is working towards generating an effect on the transference of my analy- est human pain and tragedy, is also interested internally developed video content. I am sands. (Leon Hoffman’s paper on “Psycho- in a person’s whole experience, including excited to see what will come of this new analysis in the Public Eye: Internal Resistances” humor and joy. direction. I will also be publishing links to is pertinent to this concern.) In addition to the “Mind Your Mind” series all my videos through my Facebook page, I also use vignettes with volunteer actors in fulfillment of the PEP-Web grant, I am pro- Vinculo Productions. See the link below, and to portray these concepts which otherwise ducing other videos, all with the same out- “like” the page to receive posts. might be dry descriptions. Although I have reach mission. I recently viewed a pertinent written scripts, my actors are very good at movie with a group of children and video- BECOMING FRIENDLY WITH improvisation, which creates a fresh feel to taped a discussion group afterwards. This YOUR UNCONSCIOUS the vignettes. My wife, Dawn, has helped in made for an entertaining video; a link is listed The direct purpose of my videos is two- many ways, from creation to co-direction on below. I am hopeful my continued publica- fold. First is to help the viewer become sets; the videos have been a lot of fun for us. tion of these videos will help set the pendu- friendlier to having an unconscious. As I say in lum swinging towards a cultural friendliness Episode 1 about the unconscious, “We’ve all POTENTIAL EDUCATIONAL VALUE to psychoanalysis. got one. No need to be embarrassed about My hoped-for audience is broad and it.” Second, I want to promote awareness of diverse. I would like these videos to be dis- psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic concepts are covered by viewers searching for how the Search Pep-Web under Author: ingrained in our culture but are preconscious mind works, and how to deal with feelings. Heath and Title: to most people. I believe it will be helpful to My long-term hope is that these, or future “Mind Your Mind” link these concepts back to psychoanalysis. videos, will become popular with an Internet I knew nothing about making videos before audience. Also, I believe concepts like trans- “Mind Your Mind, 2013, so I have attended many classes, work- ference and dynamic unconscious are fath- Episode 3: Road Rage”: shops and mentorships in cinematography, omable to laypeople. In that way, they may be http://goo.gl/AkIFsa acting and editing. Likewise, I have trained in useful as starting points for discussion in social media and video marketing, and am a classes from high school level up to beginning member of the Task Force on Social Media of psychoanalytic candidates. Vinculo Productions the International Psychoanalytical Association. I am eager to hear anyone’s experience Facebook Page: The style of my videos is inspired by popu- and feedback if they use them for education. https://www.facebook.com/ lar “edutainment” videos on YouTube, includ- I have been overjoyed at the positive feed- vinculoproductions ing V-Sauce and Laci Green, as well as older back I have received, partly because it is reas- works by Bill Nye. This style in its modern suring. My videos seem different from most Inside Out form involves fast scene changes, short total psychoanalytic outreach efforts, and feel a Movie Discussion video: length, minimal opening credits and a per- little silly most of the time, but silliness and https://www.youtube.com/ sonal, intimate emotional expression. The humor are part of our shared human experi- watch?v=q88DOjxklFI latter has been most challenging for me, since ence. In fact, people need to know that

14 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 APsaA MEMBER BENEFIT

A Tangible APsaA Member Benefit to Save You Money Brenda Bauer

APsaA mem- policies afford coverage as long as the covered Member enrollees have been pleasantly bership does claim occurred during the policy period. Under surprised by the level of coverage, such as indeed have its a claims-made” policy, coverage is only afforded the provision of defense costs outside the privileges. Many if the covered claim was reported to the insur- policy limit, the customer service experience of us recognize ance company during the policy period. A with the convenience of getting a live person some of the claims-made policy, in many instances, requires on the phone when you call, and the sheer obvious benefits the purchase of an extended reporting period affordability of the plan. of membership, endorsement or “tail coverage” as it is most To get a sense of the savings one can expect, such as advanced commonly known. Tail coverage is not required please see the by-discipline table below for a Brenda Bauer notification of with occurrence-based policies. Additionally, comparison of plans and approximate cost scientific meet- the liability limits for an occurrence policy savings. (Please note: Liability insurance cover- ings and reduced registration fees, a valuable essentially is reset each year. If, for example, age and premium amount requirements vary source of referrals, the gift to us that our you purchased an occurrence policy for 20 by state). listservs are, and involvement with other years, you could conceivably have 20 separate For more information, professional advocacy groups on social limits to respond to claims that get reported including a free quote, please visit issues important to our field. Others trea- at any time regardless of when the policy ends. www.apsaainsurance.com or call sure the opportunity to build professional With a claims-made policy, you have only one Claudia Chavez, account executive and social relationships with members near policy period with one limit to respond upon at Frenkel & Company, and far through committee work and net- reporting a claim. at 201-356-3403. working activities at meetings, and through the listservs. However, many members either remain Price comparisons are based on an occurrence-based unaware of or overlook the great bounty policy with professional liability limits available to us for the taking. Take, for exam- of $1,000,000/$3,000,000 ple, our access to first-rate liability insurance. Underwritten by American Home and Psychiatrist American Home Other* administered by Frenkel & Company, the New York $3,244 $5,432 program became available to psychiatrists in 1972 and has been available nationwide Massachusetts $4,118 $5,550 for psychologist and social worker members Illinois $4,487 $19,980 since 2014. California $3,794 $7,728 The policy offered by Frenkel & Company Pennsylvania $2,226 $11,959 is issued on an “occurrence” policy coverage (based on limits of $500,000/$1,500,000) form. This is a superior form when compared *Companies used are competitors for professional liability insurance of each designation listed. to the more frequently offered “claims-made” coverage form. There are several important Psychologist/Social Worker American Home Other* differences between occurrence form policies New York $299 $1,215 and claims-made policies. Occurrence form Massachusetts $311 $989 Illinois $299 $1,215 Brenda Bauer, Psy.D., is a graduate California $320 $2,083 psychoanalyst in full-time private practice Pennsylvania $299 $1,215 in New York. She is director of the *Companies used are competitors for professional liability insurance of the designation listed. Social Issues Department, and on the Membership Committee.

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 15 AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYTIC FOUNDATION

American Psychoanalytic Foundation’s Wide Ranging Activities Linda R. Benson

The American was closed due to relocating, Psychoanalytic but the Vanderbilt Room at Foundation the Waldorf was available and (APF) offered the hotel agreed to tune the support to a piano to Nagel’s specifications. gamut of activi- Nagel presented a program ties in the fiscal of Beethoven that included year 2015 (the “Rondo in C Major”; “Opus fiscal year APsaA 126 Bagatelles”; and “Opus Linda R. Benson recently ended): sonatas #1 and #2” (the providing an inti- “Moonlight”), chatting infor- mate concert for our members; funding mally with the group between initiatives exploring the trauma of human the musical selections. “They trafficking; and offering psychoanalytic insights were an enthusiastic audience, to music educators on stage fright and other informed and attentive,” said emotional issues in performance. Nagel. “Many seemed very The piano at the Waldorf Astoria never surprised to have access to the sounded better as APF had a rare opportu- music in this kind of casual set- nity to sponsor an intimate solo piano perfor- ting, and they lingered after- mance by Louis Nagel last January especially wards to ask good questions.” for APsaA members attending the 2015 The foundation took up National Meeting. serious issues during 2014 as

An audience of APsaA attendees filled the well. The APsaA Committee Photo: Sandra Walker Louis Nagel Vanderbilt Room to capacity at the Waldorf on the Status of Women and in New York City for the hour-long concert, Girls’ proposal to provide edu- which took place on Saturday, January 17. cation and outreach on the social issue of Julie Jaffee Nagel received another 2014 Louis Nagel, a professor of piano and piano commercial sex trafficking of women and foundation grant to participate as keynote literature at the University of Michigan since children in the U.S. received a grant from APF. speaker for the Music Teachers National 1969 and spouse of APsaA member Julie The grant helped fund a four-hour multidis- Association’s annual meeting. Her address, Jaffee Nagel, often fits in performances with ciplinary seminar at Weill Cornell Medical “Harnessing the Mind—Physical and Emo- concert orchestras throughout the U.S. along College on April 10 and was simultaneously tional Issues in Music Teaching,” emphasized with his teaching duties, so it was an oppor- broadcast as an online webinar. APsaA mem- the whole person who comes to a music les- tunity not to be missed when he offered to bers Ruth Fischer and Vivian Pender orga- son. “I have been the only psychodynamic do a concert for the National Meeting, pro- nized the event and Mark Smaller, president psychologist and now analyst involved in this vided a time and location could be worked of APsaA, opened the meeting. The present- organization, which has over 22,000 members,” out. The Steinway Hall, Nagel’s first choice for ers, including a victim, health care profession- she said. “There have been some behaviorists its quality pianos and wonderful acoustics, als and a prosecutor, as well as psychoanalysts, involved before, but most of the concerns explored how the sex trade works in the have been physical ones such as tendonitis Linda R. Benson lives in Ann Arbor, MI, U.S. and what psychoanalysts can bring to and other complaints or injuries. But every- where she writes features for The Ann Arbor confront this disturbing form of domestic one is interested in stage fright.” Observer and teaches writing at Wayne slavery through their unique understanding State University. of trauma, exploitation and abuse.

16 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE

Given the individualized nature of Hamp- Undergraduate Psychoanalytic shire education, it is impossible to say what the “average” student’s course of study will look Studies at Hampshire College like within the psychoanalytic studies program. Derek Pyle OPENING DOORS WITH LACAN On February 27, 2014, Division 39 presi- Alicia Christoff Dorothy Cashore was one of Hampshire’s dent-elect Marilyn Charles spoke at Hamp- and Gail Horn- motivated students, focusing her Division III shire College, a small liberal arts college in stein, who’s best writing on Lacanian conceptions of the symp- Amherst, Massachusetts. The occasion was known to the tom and the sinthome, and the implications the formal launch of Hampshire’s undergrad- psychoanalytic of each for clinical psychoanalytic theory. I uate psychoanalytic studies program. world for her spoke with Dorothy in the spring of 2014 There has been much conversation in brilliant biogra- about her studies at Hampshire. recent years about the lack of access to psy- phy of Frieda From an early age, Dorothy wanted to be a choanalytic ideas among young people (i.e., Fromm-Reich- psychologist. She began her undergraduate early career professionals, graduate students mann at the studies at Hampshire by taking a typical psy- Derek Pyle and at the undergraduate level). In 2005 Chestnut Lodge. chology major course load, studying abnormal APsaA launched an outreach task force, the and experimental psychology. As Dorothy 10,000 Minds Project, in the belief that the EMPHASIS ON INDEPENDENT STUDY explained, “I found out I didn’t actually love future of psychoanalytic thought depends on The psychoanalytic studies program sits psychology. The way it was being taught, the engaging undergraduate students in psycho- within Hampshire’s unique pedagogic model, way that research was being done… it turned analytic ideas. Ten years later, Hampshire Col- providing an academic environment that out I loved something else, and I didn’t really lege emerged as an important psychoanalytic stands in contrast to that of more traditional know what that was or what category it fell vista for interested undergraduates. schools. into, if any.” Although Hampshire officially launched its Hampshire has no required general edu- When Dorothy encountered the theories psychoanalytic studies program last year, cation classes and no formal majors. There of Jacques Lacan in her second year at Hamp- Hampshire students have engaged with psy- are, however, a number of optional “con- shire, she was struck by Lacan’s descriptions choanalytic theory for a number of years centrations” of study (a category that of the unconscious, as a way to explain the prior through classes as well as independent, includes psychoanalytic studies). This allows enigmas of human behavior. “There was no faculty-sponsored study. students to develop their own interdisci- looking back for me after that… I skipped all Many universities offer psychoanalytic the- plinary paths of study, with the support of the other psychoanalysts. I was just Lacan, ory in the humanities, through gender studies, faculty mentorship. Lacan, Lacan 24/7 for the next few years.” literature and film theory courses, according During their senior year, Hampshire stu- She was particularly struck by a course to a 10,000 Minds Project study. At Hamp- dents generally take only one class per semes- taught by Annie Rogers called Meeting Lacan. shire, however, interest in psychoanalysis is ter, and spend the remainder of their time Utilizing Hampshire’s campus farm as a part not limited to humanities-based applications working on an individualized project, collo- of the course curriculum, students in Meet- of psychoanalysis; students can study Freud, quially referred to as a “Div III.” This project ing Lacan sit outside at the barn in silence, Lacan, Klein and Winnicott in clinical psychol- is akin to an extended senior honors thesis. multiple times a week during the wee hours ogy and early childhood education courses. Typical Division IIIs include students writing of morning, to watch over pregnant sheep. Hampshire is also part of a local five-college theses, but might also involve filming a movie, “Lamb watch” has a practical function, should consortium, comprising Hampshire, Mount orchestrating a large-scale musical perfor- the sheep begin labor and need human sup- Holyoke, Smith, UMass and Amherst, offering mance, or coding a new computer program. port, but the larger purpose is to disrupt the students additional access to psychoanalytic student’s ordinary routine, as a way of evok- thought, most notably in courses taught by ing enigmatic experiences that may give way to new ways of thinking and dreaming. Dorothy’s experiences on lamb watch Derek Pyle recently completed his were quite powerful, bringing her face-to- undergraduate education at Hampshire face with unconscious material. She recounts College. He is the producer and director of “emailing Annie [at 4 a.m.] and getting excited Waywords and Meansigns, an international because I thought maybe I had found a signi- project setting James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake fier in my dream.” to music unabridged. He lives in Boston. Continued on page 18

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 17 HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE

Psychoanalytic Studies Milo also took a class at Smith College well as Andrea Celenza and Glen Gabbard’s Continued from page 17 called Unruly Bodies, taught by Professor work related to sexual boundary violations. Anna Ward. Through Elizabeth Wilson’s writ- During this same semester, I took a class co- After graduating from Hampshire, Dorothy ing, in this course Milo learned about Ferenc- taught by Annie Rogers and Brown Kennedy, was accepted into Duquesne’s clinical psy- zi’s conception of the “biological unconscious.” where we alternated each week between chology doctoral program, with full funding Milo explains this as “the idea that the matter reading the works of Jacques Lacan and from the school, where she has begun to and the substance of the body can under James Joyce. study the larger world of psychology. Recall- certain traumatic instances [including hyste- During my second and final year, while ing her single-minded focus on Lacan at ria] begin to think, begin to have urges and working on my Div III, I took Literature and Hampshire, she says, “One view of it is at the wants and desires in the way the unconscious Psychoanalysis taught by Mary Russo, and a expense of ‘practicality,’ [but] magically, having mind would.” class on Lacan, taught by Annie Rogers. Russo, pursued only exactly what I loved… it ended For someone who knows intimately who has since retired from teaching, encour- up opening exactly the doors I needed open.” about the complex relationship between aged reading lots and lots of Freud alongside biological bodies, and one’s personal sense a number of great literary texts. GENDER STUDIES AND of embodiment and identity, it is no wonder My Division III work spanned some 230 PSYCHOANALYSIS Milo is fascinated by the implications of pages in two parts. One half was a series I spoke with another recent graduate of Ferenczi’s theory. of essays, many exploring Wilfred Bion’s Hampshire’s program, Milo Muise, in the spring Milo’s Division III consisted of a series of Learning from Experience. To understand how of 2014. Milo also began at Hampshire with prose poems about a young person whose Bion’s conceptions of dreaming and not a general interest in psychology, first encoun- body is infested with termites, and also an being able to dream deviated from classical tering psychodynamic theory in a course essay about the politics of embodiment. The psychoanalytic theory, I revisited Freud in taught by Peter Gilford, What is Psychother- merits of Milo’s poetic ability are impressive; depth. I became interested in psychosis, and apy? While “pretty consistently attracted to during Milo’s senior year, they were one of the question of whether there is a “psychotic psychoanalysis, and pretty hesitant about the five contestants selected to compete in the part” of a person that exists in all healthy other options [in psychology],” Milo remained national Glascock Poetry Competition. A people. I studied the work of Melanie Klein skeptical about the patriarchal baggage of prestigious intercollegiate event hosted at and Thomas Ogden, as well as Michael Rob- Freud and psychoanalysis. Mount Holyoke College, the 2014 competi- bins. I also read some Hans Loewald, and lots Milo started exploring sexual orientation tion was judged by Charles Simic, Mark Doty of James Joyce. The other half of my Division in early adolescence. In college, Milo began and Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon. Milo took sec- III was a semi-autobiographical prose-poetry understanding how queer identity was not ond place. hybrid, inspired by my own experiences in just a matter of sexual orientation but one psychoanalytic psychotherapy. of gender as well. While surrounded by sup- LEARNING MAJOR THEORIES portive peers in Hampshire’s large queer Unlike students who encounter psycho- HOPES FOR REPLICATION community, Milo started identifying as trans- analysis for the first time through the Hamp- It is unlikely other schools will easily repli- gender (transmasculine) and using the pre- shire’s courses, I transferred to the school cate Hampshire’s psychoanalytic studies, ferred pronouns of “they/them,” denoting from another university for the specific pur- because the program is embedded within that their experience of embodiment simply pose of studying psychoanalytic theory. I the school’s unique pedagogical model of does not fit into the gender binary typically briefly outline my studies here as an example faculty mentored, student-led independent proscribed by contemporary society. of the potential psychoanalytic breadth avail- study. Yet while Hampshire continues to It is not surprising Milo has struggled at able to motivated students at Hampshire. engage students with psychoanalysis, hope- times to integrate queer perspective with During my first semester at Hampshire, I fully American psychoanalysts will take notice, classical psychoanalytic thinking. As Milo undertook an independent study with Pro- and more dialogue as well as collaboration remarks, “What does a trans-Oedipus look fessor Lourdes Mattei, reading and writing can emerge between the two groups. like… or even a queer one?” about Freud’s original theories of narcissism, Yet Milo also says, “I come across so much and the later conceptualizations of Heinz psychoanalysis in queer theory.” Clearly this Kohut and Otto Kernberg. For more information about intersection is exciting for Milo, who lights up In my second semester, I continued work- Hampshire’s program visit with excitement when talking about a course ing with Mattei in another independent study https://www.hampshire.edu/ at Amherst College taught by Alicia Christoff focused on psychoanalytic conceptions of areas-of-study/psychoanalytic-studies on post-Freudian psychoanalysis, where Milo love. In addition to reading Michael Balint and or contact Annie Rogers first encountered a number of psychoanalytic again Kernberg, I learned about the post- [email protected]. applications of queer theory. Oedipal theories of Jody Messler Davies as

18 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015

Perhaps the most important aspect of our mandate has been to determine the skill set COPE for supervisors as well as teaching models to help our colleagues actualize them. This ongoing effort is implicit in our reading list, Study Group on Supervision described above. In this time, the Commit- Barbara Stimmel tee on Institutes has thought to pursue the evaluation of supervision education pro- It has been two years since we have writ- when senior analysts seek supervision, grams among the institutes. Thus it has made ten in these pages. In that time, we have con- cross-cultural teaching and learning, super­ good and economical sense for us to com- tinued the work we began several years ago, visor/supervisee dyad sharing uncomfort- bine forces. We plan to do the intersecting most prominently our reading list accompa- able moments in their work and their impact work of developing an understanding of nied by critical evaluations by members of on the supervisee’s work with the patient, what attributes comprise the capacity to our committee. The reading list is on the regional differences in teaching and learn- conduct good, even excellent, supervision; APsaA webpage and we have received both ing, conversations regarding telephonic and how to teach it; and then how to evaluate its enthusiastic comments as well as recom- televised supervision, the impact of peer presence in curricula and institute learning. mended papers. Our list has been, at times, pressure on one’s work as a supervisor, Eitingon model or not, the mutual educa- the source of other groups’ educational intersection of money and education, ines- tion between supervisors and their student endeavors and we are continuing to expand capable transference-countertransference colleagues helps form the backbone of our its contents. enactments, and more. profession—its strength, success, survival. We welcome the questions, suggestions and participation of our colleagues in all The workshops groups always stimulate aspects of the Study Group on Supervision. active and animated participation in the context Please feel free to contact me at barbara. [email protected] so we can see how you of respectful listening. can become involved.

Our ongoing and well-attended, super- In other words, we are open to discuss- Contacting the visory workshops, open to all registrants of ing all the ups and the downs, ins and outs National Office the scientific meetings, continue to confront of supervision. the myriad challenges in the hard work of The workshops groups always stimulate The American supervision. They always begin with a pre- active and animated participation in the Psychoanalytic Association 309 East 49th Street sentation by one of our colleagues: TAs, non- context of respectful listening. They also New York, NY 10017 TAs, candidates and guests from outside the enjoy a repeated roster of colleagues, Phone: 212-752-0450 Association and/or outside the United States. nonetheless we are always open and eager Fax: 212-593-0571 We hear rich clinical material, particular to include new participant members. Our Email: [email protected] problems, collaborative efforts, essentially all group has yet to create ongoing seminars World Wide Web Site: http://apsa.org/ sorts of subjects appear in the room. for APsaA members wishing to advance to National Office For example, we have had live supervision supervising analyst, although it is definitely Voice Mail Extensions sessions between a supervisor/supervisee on our to-do list. Our hope is that through Chris Broughton x19 couple, candidates candidly describing their consultation, study and collaboration, we Michael Candela x12 experiences as supervisees—what has can create meetings/seminars that will Brian Canty x17 worked and what has not, just as senior provide a venue for an exchange of ideas, Sherkima Edwards x15 analysts describe their own experiences questions and perspectives about supervi- Tina Faison x23 when teaching—particularly what they have sion. These learning groups also will be Carolyn Gatto x20 learned. The diverse topics of our sessions formed to help us think through this most Rosemary Johnson x28 have included the specific issues involved important educational endeavor: the Yorlenys Lora x18 Nerissa Steele-Browne x16 development, enhancement and sharing in Dean K. Stein x30 the skills and challenges of conducting Debbie Steinke Wardell x26 Barbara Stimmel, Ph.D., is chair of the supervision. (Evaluation will not be part of Wylie Tene x29 Study Group on Supervision. this process.)

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Possibilities for Our Future (AAPDP), and the Confederation of Indepen- need thoughtful input and support from the Continued from page 3 dent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS). Our membership to make those changes happen. place on the Psychoanalytic Consortium facili- With that, we can arrive in Chicago in June We helped organize and presented our tates these ties, as does participation of many 2016, with great possibilities for the future of first webinar on human trafficking that was APsaA members presenting at respective APsaA and psychoanalysis. literally beamed throughout the world and conferences. heard and responded to by an international We continue to work closely with NAPsaC, audience. We can now create new webinars and are in discussion about sharing joint scien- 2016 National Meeting to educate and keep psychoanalytic ideas tific sessions in the future at our June meet- Continued from page 7 fully accessible on the Internet. Our scientific ings. These collaborative efforts strengthen meetings, in Chicago, New York and this past psychoanalysis for all groups. WALLERSTEIN TRIBUTE June in San Francisco, continuing the new During the fall, I was able to spend time We will pay tribute to our late colleague, June meeting format, have been of the high- on Capitol Hill with our lobbyists Jim Pyles Robert Wallerstein. This memorial program est quality. The response by members and and Peggy Tighe, and Herb Gross, chair of our will feature commentary by Stefano Bolognini, those attendees outside APsaA has been Committee on Government Relations and Amy Wallerstein Friedman, Otto Kernberg, very positive. Clinical workshops, plenaries, Insurance. As I wrote to members following Stephen Seligman, and Harriet Wolfe. At a discussion groups, and presentations applying that visit, we are a small organization but with separate session, a film by Shelley Nathans on psychoanalytic ideas to social issues, business, big ambitions to maintain a voice in Washing- Wallerstein’s life will be shown in its entirety. music, literature and the arts continue to ton regarding all issues pertaining to mental draw many to our meetings. As reported in health, health care privacy, community vio- NEW DISCUSSION GROUPS my last column [See “Two Moments Worth lence, veterans and their families, and issues of As usual, we will have a fine array of Discus- Remembering,” TAP 49/3, page 3], efforts at practice in the context of health care reform. sion Groups, many of which have become diversity must continue, nationally and locally. hardy perennials, with participants coming The presentation of “Black Psychoanalysts CONCLUSION back each year to deepen their understanding, Speak” during the June meeting was well As I have shared before, I have often been and share their views of the topic. I would like received by a packed ballroom at the Palace preoccupied with our internal challenges to call attention to eight new discussion groups Hotel in San Francisco. My presidential sym- being productively addressed but not inter- that will be making their debut at this meet- posia have all been committed to issues of fering with keeping our eyes and our efforts ing: “Embracing or Foreclosing Change,” with diversity and race. We have kept this issue on on issues of practice, education, research, and Peter Shabad and Elizabeth Corpt; “The Diffi- the minds of our members and are working our effect on the world around us. In reflect- cult to Reach Child: A Kleinian Perspective,” toward operationalizing that consciousness ing upon the past year, I believe we have been with Karen Proner; “Psychoanalysis and Psy- into action to attract more candidates, able to address internal issues and external choanalytic Psychotherapy—a Comparison,” patients and faculty of color. A strategic plan, demands. The hard work of members chair- with Fred Busch and Ralph Beaumont; “Psy- nationally and locally, regarding diversity will ing and working on committees cannot be choanalytic Psychotherapy for Older Adults,” be presented in the next few months. recognized and appreciated enough by the with David Plotkin; “Hall of Mirrors: Impinge- Through the efforts of former president APsaA leadership and the membership. ment on the Analytic Container,” with Jessica Prudy Gourguechon, we have reconnected APsaA moves forward because of the volun- Brown, Justine Kalas-Reeves, Michael Krass, with the American Psychiatric Association tary energy and passion of those involved in Marie Murphy, Debra Neumann, and Janet and through their Psychotherapy Caucus our committees. Shaye; “Cultural Narratives in Psychoanalysis,” Harriet Wolfe and I were invited to put The hard work of the work groups to pro- with M. Nasir Ilahi, Sandra Buechler, Alan together a panel on dreams for the APA pose ways to implement the six recommen- Roland and Kaspars Tuters; “Applying Histori- Annual Meeting in Toronto. One of the first dations and in a relatively short period of cal and Social Factors in Clinical Psychoanaly- responses from the audience following our time should inspire all members. The efforts sis,” with Dorothy Holmes, Donald Moss and panel presentation was that it was terrific to of the Work Groups have allowed the Execu- Stephen Seligman; and “Working Clinically once again have a psychoanalytic presenta- tive Committee and me to keep our efforts with the Erotic Transference and Counter- tion during the APA meetings. focused on the whole organization and how transference,” with Barbara Marcus, Sarah We continue to build even stronger rela- it can and must be even more responsive to Vaughan and Nancy Kulish. Be sure to come tionships with Division 39 of the American our members. to one—or several—of these new programs. Psychological Association, the American Asso- The next few months will demand even In closing, I would like to congratulate my ciation for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social greater attention to real change, and the colleagues on the Program Committee for Work (AAPCSW), the American Academy Executive Committee, the Executive Council, their creativity and dedication in organizing of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry and the Board on Professional Standards will what will be a terrific meeting.

20 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 APsaA FELLOWS

APsaA’s Excellent New Fellows for 2015-2016

The American Psychoanalytic Association Fellowship Program is designed to offer additional knowledge of psychoanalysis to outstanding early-career mental health professionals and academics, the future leaders and educators in their fields. The 15 individuals who are selected as fellows each year have their expenses paid to attend the national meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association during the fellowship year and to participate in other educational activities. The biographies below introduce this year’s excellent group of fellows. We enthusiastically welcome them to APsaA.

Asli Baykal, Ph.D., Access Project for Moms, the first statewide Lee Lovejoy, M.D., L.C.S.W., is a first-year program providing training and consulta- Ph.D., is a resident in clinical fellow at Cam- tions for clinicians working with pregnant and the adult psychiatric bridge Health Alliance, postpartum women. She received her M.D. program at Columbia Program for Psycho- and an M.S. in immunology from NYU Medi- University and also a therapy. Previously she cal School and completed her residency and Leon Levy Neurosci- was an assistant pro- a fellowship in women’s mental health at ence Research Fellow. Asli Baykal Lee Lovejoy fessor of anthropology Columbia University School of Medicine. He received his bache- at the University of Richmond, where she She is currently writing about the transition lor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical engi- taught classes on Muslim societies in the to parenthood. neering at Tulane University in New Orleans, Middle East and Central Asia. She received a where he developed computational methods B.A. in international relations and an M.A. in Katie Lewis, Ph.D., for analyzing chaotic dynamics in dopaminer- gender studies from the Middle East Techni- recently completed a gic neurons. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. cal University in Ankara, Turkey, and she clinical faculty fellow- degrees at U.C. San Diego where he studied received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology ship at Albany Medical the subcortical control of visual processing from Boston University. Baykal conducted College and currently and attention in awake behaving primates. postdoctoral work at Emory University. She serves as a research At Columbia he developed an interest in did extensive ethnographic fieldwork in affiliate at the Austen the mechanisms by which neural circuitry Katie Lewis Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where she explored Riggs Center. She associated with affective processing influ- Uzbek society in the wake of the collapse received her doctorate in clinical psychology ences cognitive processing and selects which of the U.S.S.R. Current interests include the from Long Island University’s Brooklyn Cam- information is incorporated into decisions. role of culture in psychodynamic psycho- pus and completed her predoctoral intern- Lovejoy hopes to use psychoanalytic insights therapy, particularly the alternative paths ship at the Albany Psychology Internship to relate neural mechanisms by which affect taken in the repression, expression and Consortium. She maintains clinical interests regulates cognitive processing to the genera- interpretation of emotion. in trauma and chronic character pathology, tion of conscious awareness. and she is involved in education and training Carolyn Broudy, M.D., on performance-based measures of person- Christine Maksimo- has a private practice ality functioning. Her research primarily cen- wicz, Ph.D., received in Northampton, MA, is ters on the role of personality organization her doctoral degree an instructor at Smith in risk for suicidal behavior. As a graduate from the University of College School of student, she served on multiple professional Massachusetts Amherst, Social Work, and is the state and national committees, including a where she studied Eng- Baystate Medical Cen- three-year term as the graduate student lish with a specialization Carolyn Broudy Christine Maksimowicz ter consulting psychia- representative of the Ethics Committee of in 20th and 21st century trist for the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry A.P.A.’s Division 39. Continued on page 22

THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 21 APsaA FELLOWS

2015-2016 Fellows Petra Pilgrim, M.D., Sheikh was awarded Best Student Publication Continued from page 21 is a PGY-4 and chief Award in 2010 by the Society for Personality resident in psychiatry at and Social Psychology. North American literature. Her work is situ- the Menninger Depart- ated at the intersection of gender studies, ment of Psychiatry and Nathaniel Sowa, trauma theory, psychoanalysis and the criti- Behavioral Sciences at M.D., Ph.D., is a PGY-4 cal analysis of social class. Her research seeks Baylor College of Medi- resident in general adult Petra Pilgrim to widen conceptions of what constitutes cine. She was raised in psychiatry at U.N.C. trauma, identifying embedded trauma within Saudi Arabia which provides her an addi- Chapel Hill. After grad- ordinary classed realities and relations. tional cultural perspective when practicing uating summa cum Maksimowicz is presently working on a psychiatry. She is a first-year fellow in the psy- laude in biology from manuscript entitled “Who Do You Think You chodynamic psychotherapy training program Albion College, he Nathaniel Sowa Are?: Recovering the Self in the Working at the Houston Center for Psychoanalytic spent a year at the National Cancer Institute Class Escape Narrative,” a project that exam- Studies. Pilgrim graduated from Rice Uni- in Bethesda, MD, completing a research fel- ines how fiction reveals unrecognized dimen- versity with a double major in English and lowship. He then completed his M.D. and sions of classed injury and explores how women’s and gender studies and completed Ph.D. degrees at U.N.C. Chapel Hill, receiving trauma shapes narrative construction. She is her medical education at Texas Tech Univer- his Ph.D. in neurobiology. His Ph.D. disserta- a past recipient of the Joseph L. Boscov Fel- sity School of Medicine. Her interests include tion on the neurobiology of pain received lowship and was recently awarded the Julius psychoanalysis, long-term process groups and the national ProQuest Distinguished Disser- Silberger Essay Prize. women’s mental health. Pilgrim was recently tation Award. As a resident at U.N.C. Chapel distinguished with a Training Residents in Psy- Hill, he has received the Outstanding Resi- Karen J. Mu, M.D., chiatry Scholarship Program (TRIPS) Award dent Award from the National Institute of Ph.D., recently com- for her commitment to research. Mental Health. He conducts research in pleted her child and delivery of mental health care to resource- adolescent psychiatry Sana Sheikh, Ph.D., poor populations, as well as integrated care fellowship at U.C. San completed her doc- approaches to the treatment of mental Francisco. She grew up toral studies at the Uni- health in primary care settings. in Japan, the U.S., Can- versity of Massachusetts Karen J. Mu ada, Korea, Belgium and Amherst in social psy- Amy Vyas, M.D., is a Cote d’Ivoire; this upbringing cultivated an chology before taking child and adolescent early interest in culture and behavior, which an assistant professor psychiatry fellow at Sana Sheikh set her on a roundabout path towards a of psychology position the Menninger Depart- career in psychiatry. Mu began playing piano at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. ment of Psychiatry and at age three and continued her studies She left St. Andrews to pursue respecializa- Behavioral Sciences at through graduate school. She completed her tion in clinical psychology at Suffolk Univer- Baylor College of Medi- medical degree and Ph.D. in comparative sity. She is currently a clinical fellow at the cine. She also attended Amy Vyas pathology at U.C. Davis where she studied Bipolar Clinic and Research Program at Mas- the general psychiatry residency at Baylor, chloride channels in the inner ear. During sachusetts General Hospital. Her research where she joined the clinician educator track her post-graduate training at U.C. San Fran- focus concerns the nature of emotions as and received the Stacia Micheletto Scholar- cisco, she was the co-primary investigator on they arise in social and cultural contexts, ship and the House Officer Teaching Excel- a study examining the relationship between particularly self-conscious emotions such as lence Award. She completed her M.D. at Tufts psychiatric co-morbidities, shame and BMI in shame and guilt. Her past research also University School of Medicine. Prior to medi- adolescents. Her current professional inter- includes issues around gendered morality, cal school she earned a B.A. in English at Duke ests are in integrated care, parent and child as well as identity formation and conflicts, University, where she focused on creative therapy, and eating disorders. among Muslim British and American youth. Continued on page 23

22 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 APsaA FELLOWS writing and literary theory. In addition to psy- gender studies in Finland, Germany, Italy and psychology at Oxford, a Ph.D. in develop- chodynamic psychotherapy, her clinical and the U.S. at the University of Chicago and mental psychology at Cornell and a post- academic interests include humanism in Harvard University. Werner Larsen’s aca- doctoral respecialization in clinical psychology medical education, somatoform disorders, demic interests concentrate on the politics of at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. supporting effective interdepartmental dis- gender, love and desire. Her master’s thesis During her internship at Massachusetts Men- course in medicine, intergenerational effects for Smith College School for Social Work tal Health Center, she was trained in D.B.T. of post-traumatic stress, and practical applica- aimed to provide a radical rereading of psy- for personality disorders and C.B.T. for psy- tions of fairy tales and literature in therapy. choanalytic theory on transsexual identities. chosis in addition to psychodynamic psy- Her current interests include gender and chotherapy. She also provides international Rachel Weitzenkorn, sexual identity, transcultural experiences and community outreach and has been invited to Ph.D., is a candidate in anxiety disorders. speak about psychotherapy, mindfulness and the women’s, gender original Buddhism. Yang has publications in and sexuality studies Rachel Winer, M.D., psychology, literature and law. She received department at Emory is a fourth year psychia- the A.P.A. Division 39 multicultural fellowship University. She is cur- try resident at Stanford and the Government Award for Outstanding rently working on a dis- University. She gradu- Students Abroad by the Ministry of Educa- Rachel Weitzenkorn sertation titled “Looking ated from Icahn School tion of China. at Infants: Expression and the Boundaries of of Medicine at Mount Empirical Evidence.” Her dissertation explores Sinai with distinction David Yuppa, M.D., Rachel Winer the ways researchers conceive of evidence in after completing a year- is an attending psychi- theories of psychological pathology through long C.D.C. fellowship in epidemiology and atrist at Dana-Farber the case of infant research, combining her public health. Prior to medical school, she Cancer Institute (DFCI) background in neuroscience and ongoing graduated from Yale University with double and Brigham and Wom- training in psychoanalytic theory and method. majors in molecular biophysics and biochem- en’s Hospital (BWH) She is particularly interested in the history of istry and history of science and medicine. and an instructor in David Yuppa psychoanalysis within American psychiatry. Working with a Native American population psychiatry at Harvard She hopes to one day complete analytic in Arizona sparked her interest in understand- Medical School. He serves as liaison to the training. Her interests include the history of ing how the mind affects health and well- Division of Adult Palliative Care at DFCI medicine, affect theory, object relations and being. She has since worked in New Zealand, and associate of the Department of Medical child psychoanalysis. rural India, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Psychiatry at BWH. He completed an accel- and a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand. She erated seven-year B.S./M.D. program, earn- Laura Werner Larsen, is drawn to the intimacy of psychotherapy ing a B.S. in chemical biology from Stevens Ph.D., L.C.S.W., is a and patients’ narratives, and she is participat- Institute of Technology, where he was vale- clinical fellow at the ing in the Palo Alto Psychoanalytic Psycho- dictorian of the class of 2004. Yuppa’s medi- Program for Psycho- therapy Training Program Fellowship Year. cal training and psychiatry residency were therapy at Cambridge both completed through the University of Health Alliance where Yi Yang, Ph.D., is a Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Med- she sees individual postdoctoral fellow at ical School with a fellowship in psycho- Laura Werner Larsen patients and partici- Cambridge Health Alli- oncology and psychosomatic medicine at pates in research on the effectiveness of psy- ance where she pro- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. chodynamic psychotherapy. Before becoming vides individual, couples His entire clinical practice comprises a clinician, she earned a master’s in social sci- and group psychother- patients with advanced cancer. His interests ences and a Ph.D. in social and moral philoso- apies. She studied psy- include the application and practice of psy- Yi Yang phy from the University of Helsinki and also chology and law in China choanalytic psychotherapy in patients with taught and did research on philosophy and and received a master’s in experimental life-limiting illness.

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The Double Life of Veronique structure. Although Continued from page 10 we are apparently moored to real space Veronique is right-side up. A tension is estab- and time by the spe- lished between these polarities and the fact cific dates and loca- that these little girls are identical. tions provided, this is In each vignette, there is a speaker who is clearly not an exam- never identified, never seen and is never ple of a classic Holly- heard from again. Yet we know, with a cer- wood narrative film. tainty only partially informed by logic and intellect, in each case the speaker is the baby’s mother. Later in the film, we learn each mother died young and left a baby daughter to the father’s care. These gentle early scenes, window on her way to Krakow. Fabbri (who into which we have been so tenderly drawn, is involved with Veronique) similarly uses abruptly end, and we are thrust back out of Veronique’s ball as a lens as he explores her the film to the observing position as the through the contents of her purse. credits roll; we are returned to reality and Fabbri and the Polish Veronika are both reminded it’s only a movie. shown as curiously exploring in a somewhat What do we make of a film that employs The uncanny experience of the coincidences solipsistic way. Antek, after pursuing Veronika the devices here displayed: two brief scenes of the two girls’ lives moves the film (and to Krakow, tells her he is staying in room 287 appearing, somewhat uncharacteristically, the viewer) into a kind of parallel universe, at the Holiday Inn; Veronique is given room before the opening credits and film title, with where chronology gives way to a sense of 287 by a hotel clerk when she pursues Fabbri characters who then disappear from the timelessness and circularity. As spectators we to Paris. Again, this doubling has a rather text? Such techniques are not all that unusual become aware of a complex tangle of dou- impersonal quality; lots of hotels have rooms in contemporary, non-genre films, especially blings and reversals. Veronica starts as a 287. But it establishes a relation between European ones, but they still produce a very pianist but turns to voice when her hand is Antek and Veronique; both realize they are striking effect and compel the viewer’s atten- injured. She pursues a strenuous career pursuing someone who does not really want tion. For me as a spectator, such moments despite signs of a heart problem and knowl- them. One might wonder whether the sug- convey a message from the filmmaker: Figure edge of a family history of sudden, early gestion is being made that Antek and Vero- out what this sequence means to you. Make death. For the sake of her art, she rejects a nique would be the ideal couple, stretching sense of it for yourself, and allow the film to man who seems to love her. Veronique, on across the two stories. But Kieslowski resists unfold for you against the backdrop of your the other hand, is a singer who, on intuition, such simplistic happy endings. own fantasy. quits her studies and becomes a music Each of the Veronicas has an idiosyncratic Here is my fantasy, “Mother was only with teacher, after which she learns of her heart habit of rubbing her eyelid with a ring. Here me briefly in the opening moments of my life. problem. Her quest for fulfillment leads her is a more personal object image, but it is not Just as I was beginning to know her, to be to pursue love rather than career. explored by the filmmaker, again leaving able to hold her image in my mind, her voice An interesting tension is created, and a room for the spectator’s fantasy (Mine is that, in my heart, the pictures stopped, the music very subtle one: The oppositions are not in each case, it is the mother’s ring, and rub- silenced. Something ended forever, and when, exact but approximate, while the supposed bing it against the eyelid functions to soothe after a time, my life came back to me, I was identities also demonstrate a twist that anxiety, related to past memories of being forever changed.” In this context, the double moves them beyond the simplistic and the held and touched by mother). life is the story which begins with the line, obvious. And the iconography of the film The list of images and coincidences con- “After my mother died, this was what hap- consistently reiterates this tension. Each girl cerning them is seemingly endless but known pened to me.” has a small rubber ball decorated with stars only to the spectator, not the characters. that she carries with her in her purse. We In this sense, we see a foreshadowing of the DOUBLINGS AND REVERSALS do not know where the ball comes from, near encounters and near misses of Red, This was my fantasy, the scrim through but it seems the sort of item many people one of the films of Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs which I experienced the film. What did happen might have, not particularly personal. What trilogy. In Veronique, when the music director to Veronique? Is she two people or two sides is fascinating is the way the ball is used, as a tells Veronika she has won the competition, of one individual? (Or both?) The ambiguity is lens. Veronika sees images upside down albeit not unanimously, he embraces her. reinforced by the complexities of the film’s through hers as she looks out the train Continued on page 25

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Over his shoulder, she sees a woman glaring all of his films; in Double Life, the score works at her, presumably a judge or teacher whose in complex ways. The music consists of frag- protégé was not selected. Veronika is momen- ments of Veronika’s concert piece, and its tarily disconcerted by this hateful stare. The appearance serves different functions at dif- same woman briefly appears in the Gare St. ferent times. The theme at the beginning of Lazare as Veronique is on the verge of locat- her fatal performance is later repeated in ing Fabbri, but she is never actually the object the music classroom as Veronique’s cello stu- of Veronique’s gaze. dents labor over their instruments. These are Then there is the shoelace sent to Vero- diegetic elements; that is, they are not back- nique by Fabbri, which is doubled by the ground music for the film but function as string on Veronika’s portfolio of music. Veron- elements in the story, such as the sound we ika, at her audition, winds the string tightly hear of the orchestra playing or the students around her finger as she reaches orf the top rehearsing. But at several moments in the yet familiar image she has recorded but not notes of the melody; when she suddenly film, it is unclear whether or not the charac- seen. It is as though, belatedly, too late, Vero- releases it, it falls completely straight, a por- ters can hear the music we hear, and at other nique has put down the camera and returned tent of her sudden cardiac arrest (a flatline times, it seems the characters hear it, but Veronika’s gaze. cardiogram) when she arrives at a similar there is no source for the music at that point As Veronika is being buried, Kieslowski point in her solo at the concert. When Vero- in the narrative (extra-diegetic elements). employs the device of shooting the scene nique retrieves the shoelace from the trash We find moments when Veronique from within the grave, from the dead Veron- can and rinses it, she pulls it taut, and as she appears to hear Veronika singing. At such ika’s point of view. There were two earlier dries it with her hairdryer, the ends twist moments, their chronic but vague sense of point of view shots that were also arresting together, and she twirls it with her fingers connection to something larger than them- (pun intended), both related to Veronika’s over the rhythm strip of her electrocardio- selves gives place to an intense and uncanny cardiac illness and death. The first occurs gram. Knowing of her arrhythmia, Veronique awareness of each other. This uncanny effect when she is gasping on a bench in the park will not let the line go flat. is sustained and intensified by the misidenti- and the man in the trench coat exposes him- There is an analogy between the sheets of fied photograph and Veronika’s sudden car- self to her. The camera seems to “keel over,” the musical score Veronika studies, which are diac death. Veronika dies in performance at as though in a faint. The second is used as she knocked out of her arms by a man running the moment Veronique is having an orgasm. is dying on the stage floor at the concert. At through the square, and the sheet of paper Veronique is seized with a feeling of pro- the moment of her death, there is a long that records Veronique’s EKG rhythm strip. found grief she cannot understand. Earlier, high shot from the back of the concert hall This image leads us, finally, to another ele- on a trip to Eastern Europe, Veronique had which might be seen as the representation ment of the filmcraft, in which Kieslowski taken Veronika’s picture without noticing the of an out of body experience, as some have elaborates the mysterious connections uncanny resemblance; interestingly, Veronika described experiencing during cardiac arrest. between the two women—the film’s musical had noticed, an intriguing asymmetry never In some sense, through these camera shots, score and the sound track. Kieslowski has explained by the narrative. At this moment, we are asked to see her as living on; and commented on the importance of music in Veronika has embarked on the course that indeed, in death she appears to inhabit the will eventually result in her heart and mind of Veronique. death; we might wonder if In this way the film takes us beyond the the recognition of the dou- real, into a timeless space, a space suggestive ble is what allows her to of the eternal realm in which mother and continue on this path, per- child first experience the unfolding of their haps feeling a magical pro- relationship. In some way, Veronika and Vero- tection from the awareness nique have each become the image of the of the other. When, later, absent mother for the other. Is this enough Fabbri misidentifies the to allow Veronika/Veronique to go on? In photograph, pronouncing Kieslowski’s words, “Veronique’s constantly it to be a beautiful image faced with the choice of whether or not to of Veronique, Veronique take the same road as the Polish Veronika; suddenly, intuitively, under- whether to give in to the artistic instinct and stands her earlier inexpli- the tension intrinsic in art, or to give in to cable experience of grief love and all that it involves.” to be related to this strange Continued on page 26

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The Double Life of Veronique the story of her life, although she doesn’t yet There is a final irony, which causes the film Continued from page 25 know it. The puppet dancer breaks her leg to double back upon itself. Fabbri, the fabrica- and is, after a period of suffering, transformed teur, the maker of the magic, says to the hor- In the case of Veronika, the choice of art is into a butterfly who can dance with her rified Veronique that he will call his playThe accompanied by denial of certain realities wings. But in her metamorphosis, we cannot Double Life of…and shows her the two iden- that ultimately do her great harm. Her denial tell whether we are seeing a chrysalis or a tical puppets he has created, mirror images seems to be related to a sense she is not shroud, and we think immediately of Veron- of each other. Like a Mobius strip, The Double alone, that she is in some way magically pro- ika. Are the wings those of a butterfly, or Life is now both inside and outside the narra- tected, a kind of thinking we often see in could they be those of an angel? The music, tive. In a sense, Fabbri has also undergone a childhood about the magical protection of of course, is the music of Veronika’s perfor- metamorphosis, and the figure who emerges mother love. Veronika moves through her mance; the metamorphosis occurs at the from his chrysalis is Kieslowski. This is an world like a child, and the special “other” out same point in the musical score as Veronika’s important postmodern theme in contempo- there ultimately is unable to protect her from death. Whose life is this, anyway? rary cinema, which sets it apart from the clas- herself. Veronique, on the other hand, expe- Following the trail of Fabbri’s clues, Vero- sic Hollywood genre approach. The story of riences a profound sense of loss and grief at nique abandons herself to the adventure the film is also the story of the filmmaker the moment of Veronika’s death, and there- and uncertainty of love, opening herself to who appropriates stories from the world and after makes a number of attempts to con- another as Veronika was unable or unwilling transforms them into his cinematic art. Is he front reality and to connect with the world. to do with Antek. When she realizes Fabbri a creator of new worlds or a stealer of souls? Although she has no clear idea why she has been using her, Veronique is devastated. And, as participants in the cinematic process, must stop singing, she is convinced it is right She is ultimately mollified when he sees what are we not, also, accessories to the crime? for her. She seems, more than Veronika, to he has done and begs her forgiveness. In a Here is another quotation from Kieslowski, take responsibility for her life. It is as though sense, however, his contrition makes his speaking of his pleasure in watching the work she were to narrate her part of the story behavior even more appalling to the specta- of Bruce Schwartz, the puppeteer who ani- with an introductory line, “After my mother tor, for we realize Fabbri apparently had no mated the marionettes in the film (and in the died, I searched the world to find her. But all idea his behavior amounted to an appropria- process articulating the fascination of his own I could find was the image which she had tion of someone else’s life. When he finally work), “He animated those dolls and imme- held in her gaze, my own face.” Veronika understands, as Veronique does, about diately within the space of a second, a whole denies the reality of her illness and pays with Veronika, he still cannot seem to help himself, new world appeared. Unlike most puppe- her life; the simplistic counterpoint would be and weaves the two women into a story he teers, who usually hide their hands in gloves, that Veronique takes a different path and lives begins to experience as his own creation. His he does the opposite, he shows you his happily ever after. But Kieslowski is never Veronika does not smash her hand in a car hands. And, after a second or two, you forget simplistic, and Veronique avoids some pitfalls door, but burns it on a stove. His Veronique those hands exist, because the doll lives its only to stumble into others. One of these is pulls away although she has no experience own life”. Fabbri, the puppeteer. that there is something to fear, just as the He shows you his hands, and you forget they are there. The two indispensable, inter- STEALING STORIES locking parts of the artistic process: the In her romantic pursuit of Fabbri, spectator, experiencing and observing, inside Veronique goes to visit her friend and and outside the film, and the artist as presti- fellow teacher Catherine to find out digitator and puppeteer, alluring and luring, whether Catherine remembers the whose sleight of hand simultaneously delights puppeteer’s name. Catherine realizes and deceives. the story that was dramatized is famil- iar to her, and suddenly remembers it is from a children’s book she reads to her daughter. She says, “He must have stolen it,” goes to get the book, and returning to Veronique says, “He didn’t steal film’s Veronique pulls away it; he wrote it.” Here, is represented the most from a vocal career before she important issue in the film. Which is it? Does learns of its potential danger to Fabbri steal his stories or does he create her health. So, does he steal it, them? When Veronique watches the puppe- or does he write it? Who and teer at work in his performance, he is telling what is the artist?

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THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 27 SPECIAL SECTION: WAR

Special Section on War

Introduction Michael Slevin

In this issue, TAP publishes the last two articles of a series on Association—responsible for their psychoanalysis and war. Our responsibility for the men and roles in the torture of our prisoners women we, as citizens, send to war was the focus of the first at Guantanamo Bay. With consider- articles. In an interview with TAP, Harold Kudler spoke of his able insight and humanity he uses work as chief consultant for mental health services at the the work of Melanie Klein to under- Department of Veterans Affairs. Prudence Gourguechon wrote stand his variable emotions and Michael Slevin of our psychological investment in our warriors and our respon- motivations, and those of his oppo- sibilities to them on their return home. nents, in fighting this ethics battle. Below, Neil Altman writes of his work and psychological William Braun, also in this issue, discusses an amazing work of experience in the battle to hold his professional organization— performance art he and colleague Tracy Morgan brought to members and leaders of the American Psychological fruition and acclaim at Judson Memorial Church in New York: A theatrical reading of what he writes is the “last word” on aggression, Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. Without the Michael Slevin, M.A., M.S.W., a former TAP editor, graduated aggression of individuals, without group aggression, there would as academic associate from the Baltimore Washington Institute be no war. Unless we can understand this basic drive, we cannot for Psychoanalysis, where he completed the Adult Psychotherapy understand the totality of our human nature or put reins on Training Program. He works at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore and violence. Braun writes of bringing a Freud masterwork to a public has a private practice. space, engaging with a timely and timeless issue.

The American Psychological Association and Torture Neil Altman

In this article I will describe briefly how Shortly after The PENS Task Force report, while disavow- psychoanalytically informed thinking guided the attacks on ing any role for psychologists in torturing me through my struggle with the role of the New York and detainees during interrogations, supported American Psychological Association (APA) in Washington of a critical role for psychologists in carrying interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and other September 11, out interrogations in detention centers detention centers. 2001, the Amer- where human rights and international law ican Psychologi- were being violated. Concurrently, the cal Association APA’s Ethics Committee revised the orga- convened a nization’s Ethics Code in such a way as to Neil Altman, Ph.D., is faculty at the William Task Force on allow for psychologists to act in accord with Neil Altman Alanson White Institute and Ambedkar Psychological what is required by their organizational University of Delhi. He is editor emeritus of Ethics and National Security (PENS) to employers, even when such actions are in Psychoanalytic Dialogues and author of consider the ethics of psychologist involve- violation of the overall Ethics Code. Ethical The Analyst in the Inner City: Race, Class, ment in interrogation of detainees at principle 1.02 thus effectively disabled the and Culture through a Psychoanalytic Lens. Guantanamo Bay and other such centers. Continued on page 29

28 THE AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYST • Volume 49, No. 4 • Fall/Winter 2015 SPECIAL SECTION: WAR entire Ethics Code in cases where it con- Al-Qahtani was suspected of being the support of my psychoanalyst colleagues on flicted with employer directives. Crucially, “twenty-second” plane hijacker on Septem- the council, and the lack of support among among the employers concerned were the ber 11, 2001, who was allegedly unable to the great majority of other council members, U.S. military and the Central Intelligence take part in the attacks because he was including those who generally took positions Agency (CIA). denied entry to the U.S. He was later picked in favor of human rights. In the end, some of up in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo my psychoanalytic colleagues who were not COLLISION COURSE Bay. He was never tried for any crime because members of the council succeeded in obtain- U.S. psychology, especially clinical psychol- the military prosecutor assigned to the case ing a referendum of all APA members calling ogy, has a long history of collaboration with said the evidence against him was invalid, on the leadership of APA to impose the kind the military and the CIA. Clinical psychology, having been obtained by interrogations of moratorium I, and a few colleagues, had as documented by Frank Summers in 2008, involving torture planned and directed, as been trying unsuccessfully to get the council originated in the U.S. military. The APA has stated above, by John Leso, an APA member. to approve. consistently cultivated relationships with gov- ernment at all levels in its efforts to promote ELIMINATION OF PRINCIPLE 1.02 GUIDED BY KLEIN the economic and political interests of psy- A complaint was filed against Leso years I was guided in my political efforts to a chologists. At the same time, the APA pre- later with the Ethics Committee of APA. In great extent by psychoanalytic principles, sented itself as a guardian of the public 2014, the Ethics Committee declined to take specifically the Kleinian notions of the para- interest and a promoter of the highest stan- any action against Leso, stating (evidently noid-schizoid and depressive positions. The dards of ethical behavior on the part of psy- referring to ethical principle 1.02) Leso’s paranoid-schizoid position is a psychological chologists. Ethical principle 1.02 seemed to actions were not unethical at the time they state in which good and bad are sharply dif- make it clear when ethics collided with eco- were undertaken. The Ethics Committee ferentiated. The depressive position is one of nomic and political self-interest, the latter later revised the Ethics Code and eliminated ambiguity in which good and bad are inter- would prevail. principle 1.02 after a referendum of the twined. Guilt arises in the depressive position, The SERE program (Survival, Evasion, membership required the APA to oppose as one recognizes and takes responsibility for Resistance, Escape) was intended to train the presence of psychologists at detention the badness in oneself. Critically, these are U.S. military personnel, if captured by enemy centers such as Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, not developmental stages; one is not more forces, to resist abusive interrogation tech- Al-Qahtani remains indefinitely at Guanta- mature than the other. They are positions; niques. This program included simulated tor- namo Bay, unable to be convicted or freed one goes back and forth between them. ture to train soldiers to resist techniques, such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and overload, intended to force them to reveal critical information. Clinical psychology, as documented by Frank Summers Some psychologists, building on their knowl- in 2008, originated in the U.S. military. edge of these techniques of torture, trained interrogators in detention centers to apply them in their interrogations. In the years following 9/11, the Bush because he was tortured, while Leso goes In my paranoid-schizoid moments, the APA administration justified the use of such unsanctioned because the torture he was simply bad for its support of government- techniques, referring to them as “enhanced” directed was not considered unethical at the sponsored torture. In my depressive position interrogation methods. Former attorney gen- time, though it would have been so consid- moments, I could understand and identify eral, Alberto Gonzalez, stated international ered in years prior to and following the with the self-interest that underlay the wish law and conventions that banned these immediate aftermath of 9/11. to cooperate with the “powers that be” in techniques, such as the Geneva Conventions, Psychoanalytic psychologists were in the the government, as well as the fear and rage were “antiquated.” The psychologists James forefront of the movement to convince APA that led to the urge to retaliate and torture. Mitchell and Bruce Jensen of Mitchell Jensen to take a position against psychologists I could identify with the impulse to torture, and Associates, were employed by the U.S. working at detention centers in the years while not approving, indeed strongly disap- government to consult on the use of following 9/11. I served on the Council of proving. As a result I strove to take a strong enhanced methods of interrogation. A case Representatives, the governing body of APA position against psychologist participation at in point was the role of psychologist John during six of those years, during which I pro- Guantanamo Bay, while remaining linked psy- Leso, who planned and directed the interro- posed a resolution calling for a moratorium chologically, and thus able to dialogue with, gation of Mohammed Al-Qahtani at Guanta- on psychologist involvement at Guantanamo my colleagues who opposed my position. namo Bay. Bay. I was surprised both by the consistent Continued on page 31

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psychoanalysts, Psychoanalytic Intervention to make a state- ment to the in the Public Sphere public—not just William Braun to read Freud. We were wor- people of all races, some of whom have been ried a marathon “The inclination to aggression harmed by violence and some of whom are reading was too violent themselves. Managing violent impulses academic, too constitutes the greatest is one of the most difficult challenges faced for-analysts- William Braun impediment to civilization.” by all people. by-analysts. To We thought a possible psychoanalytic engage the public, we needed an event. —Sigmund Freud, 1929 intervention would be to remind the public We decided to enlist the help of graduate aggression is a universal problem, not just the students in theater. We found the amazing problem of Islamic militants or a problem of Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li, an NYU performance In September 2014, I was contacted by the mental illness in Santa Barbara. We, as indi- studies student. Li was on fire about Civiliza- Atlantic Monthly. They were doing a piece on viduals, but more importantly as a civilization, tion and Its Discontents. He thought the text the 75th anniversary of the death of Freud. struggle with aggressive impulses everyday, spoke powerfully to the current social and The Monthly wanted to know what the psy- and denying this fact only fans the flames of political climate. He came into his first meet- choanalytic community was doing to com- aggressive acts. ing with a beaten up, dogeared text with memorate the occasion. To my chagrin, there notes in the margins. Instead of a dry reading, had been nothing planned. We had missed THE LAST WORD ON AGGRESSION he suggested a performance piece where an opportunity. In order to accomplish this task, we chapters would be differently staged through- Then I thought, “Is this the only relevant decided to revisit Freud’s classic essay on the out the church hall and read simultaneously. story about Freud, the anniversary of his human propensity towards violence, Civiliza- Li experienced the text as fragmented and death?” It sounded like a variation of the oft- tion and Its Discontents. For us, Freud remains not following a linear argument. For this rea- written article, “Is Psychoanalysis Dead?” the last word on aggression. Our idea began son, he saw no need for the chapters to be Disheartened, I called my friend and fellow as a simple one: We would host a marathon read in order. So, he suggested presenting psychoanalyst Tracy Morgan. Tracy and I had reading. We chose Judson Memorial Church the entire work in a fragmented way. spent much of 2014 thinking about the rele- as our location because of Judson’s history vance of psychoanalysis today. We were both with social justice and activism, and because CHAPTER AND VERSE overwhelmed by the endless string of human Washington Square Park, the park on which Each chapter was staged simply in a differ- violence: the massacre in Santa Barbara, deaths Judson resides, was active almost daily with ent section of the performance space. For in Ukraine, Iraq, Gaza, Afghanistan, the deaths protests over the recent shooting of Michael instance, Chapter 1, “Religion” presented a of unarmed black men, reports of campus Brown and chokehold death of Eric Garner. person reading at a lectern under a stained sexual assaults, beheadings. In addition to the Tracy and I sent emails to friends and col- glass window. Chapter 3, “Cleanliness and violence we saw in the world around us, we leagues who we thought might be interested Order” presented two people reading, one were troubled by the amount of denial of U.S. in participating in such an event. In the end, in German, one in English, one standing still, aggression, both racial and military. we wrangled up a ragtag group of psycho- one walking along a grid on the floor. Chap- It seemed imperative we make a contri- analysts, artists, clergy, actors and activists ter 4, “Love and Necessity” was staged with bution from the perspective of psychoanaly- who convened once a week in the church two people at a long banquet table adorned sis to the conversation about violence. We basement to work on the event. We called with inaccessible chocolate cakes and good- are clinicians who work with traumatized ourselves Freud OutLoud! and were excited ies reading, one in English, one in German, to bring Freud’s words to the public. We set- reflecting that oodf is man’s most basic tled on the first Saturday after the new year necessity. Chapter 6, “Love and Death” William Braun, Psy.D., a psychoanalyst, to mount our event. We had three months involved a single tape recorder, surrounded is an assistant attending in the Department to make this happen. by mirrors, which played a reading of the of Psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital, the Off and running with our idea of a mara- chapter. Onlookers were invited to confront director of psychological testing at the thon reading (a lectern, multiple readers, their mortality. Chapter 7, “Authority” pre- New York Psychoanalytic Institute and and a reading of the text in its entirety), sented a reader inside a giant birdcage facing the former chairman of the Committee we soon concluded this was not an event a guard outside. on Public Information. that would garner attention. We wanted, as Continued on page 31

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We had no idea what we had gotten our- voices—in English and German, male and Torture selves into. What started out as a simple female, angry and reverent—reverberated Continued from page 29 reading had turned into an enormous event throughout the cavernous hall, creating a with a production team, event coordinators, sense of unsettling incivility. Working in this way from the inside of the stage managers, lighting technicians, reader APA system, I was unable to effect the kind coordinators, marketing, outreach, press READERS’ REFLECTIONS of change my colleagues, working from out- releases, food vendors, props coordinators, The audience members were not the side the council, were able to accomplish. program designers, and a fundraising arm. only people moved by the event. The read- After leaving the council, I cast my lot with The event lasted six hours. Civilization and ers also found the event to be powerful. the paranoid-schizoid position and resigned Its Discontents was read in its entirety, frag- We asked them to say a few words as to from APA. I am indebted to an anonymous mented, twice. Over 600 people attended why they agreed to be part of such a read- reviewer of this article for pointing out that the event. Repeat: Over 600 people attended ing. Michael Cunningham said, “Freud has in the depressive position, in which one the event. We were completely amazed at been required reading for as long as I can experiences other people, as well as oneself, the turnout. We received press coverage in remember. He matters to me as much as do as containing both good and bad, one the New York Times, Daily News, New York writers like Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and Woolf.” expects others to experience guilt for their Magazine and Time Out. Our readers included Dale Peck, novelist, critic, and columnist, said, own badness. This helped me to understand Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cun- “Civilization and Its Discontents reminds us better why I often retreat from the more ningham, philosopher and author Simon it’s sometimes necessary to step back and “hard line” positions of some of my col- Critchley, professor and author Stanley realize the problems we confront are symp- leagues about APA’s involvement with tor- Aronowitz, writer Nick Flynn, journalist Eliza- toms of a tension that is as old as civilization ture. The rationalization by APA officials of beth Rubin, psychoanalysts, actors, academics, itself, and unless we address the underlying APA’s position seemed to deny guilt. Some architects, clergy and war veterans. condition, we will never cure the disease.” of my colleagues seemed to me to be trying The event was dizzying, moving and “To read Civilization and its Discontents in to force guilt onto these officials, which I powerful, almost dreamlike: an experience 2015 is to bear witness to the deadly vio- thought only made APA take a more defen- to which one needed to take time to orient lence whose daily presence is all too familiar sive position. oneself, to take note of one’s feelings and to us and imagine the conditions that might I find myself most in agreement with to interpret its effect. The event was chal- provide a loving counterweight to that vio- Slavoj Zizek who wrote in the “London lenging and required work from the audi- lence,” added Simon Critchley. Review of Books,” in 2004, that he could ence. As chapters were read simultaneously, And finally, Micah Bucey, community minis- resonate with the impulse to torture; the the audience members came in close, lis- ter of the arts at Judson Memorial Church, problem as he saw it was the effort to tened, then moved on, where and when who was instrumental in helping us mount avoid the associated guilt. A one-dimen- they chose throughout the two-levels of this event, said, “I spend a lot of time trying sional paranoid-schizoid position gives rise the performance space. Some could not to convince myself and others of innate to the idea that torture serves the forces tolerate the frustration and left early. Oth- human goodness, but this is meaningless of good against evil, thus giving no cause ers engaged with the event and felt richly without acknowledging the destructive and for guilt. Adding the depressive position to rewarded. People read along with their violent impulses we all feel. Civilization and Its the mix, one notes as one engages with own old, tattered copies from college. Oth- Discontents explores what it means to be those thought to terrorize, one is drawn ers bought a copy of the text at the event. human, warts and all. In our current crises of to terrorize. People stayed for hours. human destruction, we need honest explora- For me, an essential psychoanalytic contri- There is something powerful in the spo- tion now more than ever.” bution is the insight that in efforts to solve a ken word. As psychoanalysts, speech is the As for Freud OutLoud!, Tracy and I have problem, one first becomes the problem, as material in which we work. To hear a text spoken about mounting other Freud read- it were. In psychoanalysis, the analyst must being read out loud is a different experi- ings. The Future of an Illusion keeps coming to become the pathogenic object in order to lay ence from reading it silently to oneself. I did mind, but we both agree the time of Civiliza- that ghost to rest, according to Hans Loewald. not expect to be so surprised by the differ- tion and Its Discontents is not over. It needs to In politics, as in psychoanalysis, it makes all ent voices, big and small, their varying inflec- be repeated and cannot be overemphasized. the difference if one is able to observe and tions and emphases. It allowed me to hear Our hope is other institutes, other cities, will think about this process, ceaselessly striving Freud in a way I had never heard him produce similar events. In fact, we were very to extricate oneself from entanglements that before. Some readers were angry and dra- happy to hear the Freud Museum in London seem to replicate the problems one intends matic, others were serious and contempla- took our lead and staged a marathon reading to remedy, ceaselessly and inadvertently tive. The cacophony created by all of the of Civilization and Its Discontents. entering into new ones.

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