Ronald Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition

 

At the Freud Museum London 

7th - 9th March 2014


Ronald Fairbairn was the father of object relations theory, which now permeates modern psychoanalytic thought. He developed a distinctive psychology of dynamic structure that began with the infant's need for relationships, and in which mental structure is based upon the relations between ego-structures and the internal objects that result from introjection and psychic modification of these early relationships. This conference will outline the basics of Fairbairn's contribution, and then explore the ramification and development of these ideas to clinical work, and broadly to applications in modern psychoanalytic thinking.

 


Conference Program  

 

Friday March 7

 

Opening Panel: Internalization and the Status of Internal Objects

Norka Malberg: On Being Recognized 

Viviane Green: Internal objects: Fantasy, Experience and History Intersecting?

David Scharff: Internal Objects and External Experience

 

Saturday, March 8

 

Presentations and Discussion

Marie Hoffman: Fairbairn and Religion

James Poulton: Philosophical Foundations of Fairbairn

Gal Gerson: Hegelian Themes in Fairbairn's Work

Steven Levine: Fairbairn's Theory of the Visual Arts and its Influence 

Johnathan Sklar: Discussion of Steven Levine's Presentation 

Tamas Pataki: Wish Fulfillment and Fairbairn

Molly Ludlam: Fairbairn and the Couple - Still a Creative Threesome?

Jill Scharff: Fairbairn's Clinical Theory

 

Panel: Psychic Growth

Lesley Caldwell: Being at Home with One's Self: the Condition of Psychic Aliveness?

Anne Alvarez: Paranoid-Schizoid Position or Paranoid and Schizoid Positions?

Graham Clarke: Psychic Growth and Creativity

 

Wine and Cheese Reception

Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition (Karnac Books)  

on sale in museum shop

 

Sunday, March 9

 

Presentations and Discussion

Eleanore Armstrong-Perlman: The Zealots and the Blind: Sexual Abuse Scandals from Freud to Fairbairn

Carlos Rodriguez-Sutil: Fairbairn's Contribution to Understanding Personality Disorders

Valerie Sinason: Abuse, Trauma and Multiplicity

Ruben Basili: Recent Work from Argentina's Espacio Fairbairn

Video Reflections on Fairbairn from Otto Kernberg and John Sutherland

Hilary Beattie: Fairbairn and Homosexuality: Personal Struggles amid Psychoanalytic Controversy

 

Panel: Groups, Social Issues and the Social Unconscious

Earl Hopper, Chair and Discussant 

Julian Lousada: Psychoanalysis Goes to Market ?

Stephen Frosh: What Passes, Passes By: Why the Psychosocial is Not (Just) Relational

Ron Aviram: The Large Group in the Mind (With Special Reference to Prejudice, War, and Terrorism)

 

Closing Group Discussion

Drs. Clarke and Scharff, Co-Chairs

 

Conference Contributors

 

Anne Alvarez, Ph.D., M.A.C.P.
Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, London; author of Live Company: Psychotherapy with Autistic, Borderline, Deprived and Abused Children and The Thinking Heart: Three Levels of Psychoanalytic Therapy with Disturbed Children.

Eleanore M. Armstrong-Perlman, M.A. in Philosophy of Mind; Tavistock Qualification, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Family Therapy. Former Chair, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training; Former Theoretical Concepts Editor, British Journal Psychiatry.

  

Ron B. Aviram, Ph.D.

Instructor in Clinical Psychology (Psychiatry) Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Clinical Supervisor, New York Presbyterian Hospital's doctoral internship. Psychoanalytic training, William Alanson White Institute. Author: The Relational Origins of Prejudice: A Convergence of Psychoanalytic and Social Cognitive Perspectives.
 

Rub�n Mario Basili, M.D.

Psychiatry (University of Buenos Aires, honours degree), Training Analyst and Training Supervisor, Argentine Psychoanalytic Association (APA). Author,  books and papers. Founding Member and Coordinator, Espacio Fairbairn, APA.
 

Hilary J. Beattie, Ph.D.

Psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice, New York City; Faculty, Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and Columbia Psychoanalytic Center. Research in psychoanalytic approaches to literature and the Scottish contribution to psychoanalysis. 

 

Lesley Caldwell, Psychoanalyst

British Psychoanalytic Association; Private practice, London. Honorary Reader, Psychoanalysis Unit at UCL where she organises the Interdisciplinary Programme and teaches in the masters and doctoral programmes. 

 

Graham Clarke Ph.D. 

Visiting Fellow, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of`Essex, U.K. Author of Personal Relations Theory: Fairbairn, Macmurray and Suttie. Co-Editor, Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition.

 

Stephen Frosh, Pro-Vice-Master and Professor,

Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. His most recent books are Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions; A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory; Psychoanalysis outside the Clinic; and Feelings. 

 

Gal Gerson, D. Phil.

 Senior Lecturer, University of Haifa's School of Political Sciences. Publications on the history of liberalism, gender in political theory, and the interface between political thought and psychoanalytic theory.

 

Viviane Green

Adult, child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist working in English and French.  Part time lecturer, Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck College.

 

Marie T. Hoffman

Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Co-Director, Society for Exploration of Psychoanalytic Therapies and Theology; Director, Brookhaven Institute for Psychoanalysis and Christian Theology; Co-Director, Brookhaven Center, Allentown, PA.

 

Earl Hopper, Ph.D.

Member, British Psychoanalytic Society; past president, International Group Psychotherapy Association; author, The Social Unconscious and Traumatic Experiences in the Unconscious Life of Groups.

 

Otto F. Kernberg, M.D., FAPA 

Director, Personality Disorders Institute, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Westchester Division; Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University; Past-President, International Psychoanalytic Association; Training and Supervising Analyst, Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research; author,13 books and co-author of 12 others. His latest book is The Inseparable Nature of Love and Aggression.

 

Steven Z. Levine, Ph.D. 

Leslie Clark Professor in Humanities and Chair, Department of History of Art, Bryn Mawr College; Author of Monet, Narcissus, and Self-Reflection: The Modernist Myth of the Self and Lacan Reframed: A Guide for the Arts Student.

 

Julian Lousada  Psychoanalyst , BPA

Chair, British Psychoanalytic Council; former Clinical Director,  the Adult Department,  Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

 

Molly Ludlam, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist 

with couples, individuals, and parents at The Scottish Institute of Human Relations. Member, British Society of Couple Psychotherapists and Counsellors. Editor, the journal Couple and Family Psychoanalysis. Co-edited, with V. Nyberg, Couple Attachments: Theoretical and Clinical Studies.

 

Norka T. Malberg, DPsych

Associate Clinical Professor, Yale Child Study Center; Private Practice , New Haven CT ; Senior Clinical Advisor and Trainer, Child FIRST.  Member, Contemporary Freudian Society and Western New England Psychoanalytic Institutes and Societies. President, Section II (Child and Adolescent) of Division 39 (Psychoanalytic Psychoanalysis) /American Psychological Association. Clinical Faculty, The Anna Freud Center.

 

Tamas Pataki,  Honorary Senior Fellow,
University of Melbourne (School of Historical and Philosophical Studies). Co-edited, with Michael Levine, Racism in Mind. Author: Against Religion, and the forthcoming Wish-fulfillment in Psychoanalysis and Philosophy: The Tyranny of Desire.


James L. Poulton,
Ph.D.
Psychologist in private practice, Salt Lake City; Adjunct Professor in Psychology, University of Utah; Faculty International Psychotherapy Institute, Washington, DC. Author, Object Relations and Relationality in Couple Therapy.

 

Carlos Rodr�guez-Sutil, Ph.D.

President of the Relational Psychotherapy Institute and Board Member, IARPP-Spain. Published more than 80 articles and books. Private practice.

 

David Scharff, M.D.

Chair and Former Director, the International Psychotherapy Institute, Washington, DC; Chair, Work Group on Family and Couple Psychoanalysis, International Psychoanalytic Association; 30 books and many articles, including (with Ellinor Fairbairn Birtles) From Instinct to Self: Selected Writings of W.R.D Fairbairn, and (with Graham Clarke) Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition. Editor, the journal Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China.

 

Jill Savege Scharff, M.D. 

Co-founder, International Psychotherapy Institute (IPI); Founding chair and supervising analyst, International Institute for Psychoanalytic Training at IPI; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University; psychoanalyst, couple and family therapist, Chevy Chase, Maryland; author and editor of 25 books, including The Psychodynamic Image: The Work of John D. Sutherland on Self and Society, and The Legacy of Fairbairn and Sutherland.

 

Valerie Sinason, Ph.D.

Director, Clinic for Dissociative Studies; President, Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability. Poet, writer, child and adult psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst; former Consultant Psychotherapist, the Tavistock Clinic and St Georges Hospital. Edited Trauma, Dissociation and Multiplicity.

 

Jonathan Sklar, M.D.

 Training analyst and fellow, British Psychoanalytic Society. Full-time private practice, London. Former consultant psychotherapist, Addenbrookes and Fulbourn hospitals, Cambridge. Teaches 'Ferenczi and Contemporary Psychoanalysis' at University College London, and regularly in Chicago and South Africa. Former Vice President, European Psychoanalytic Federation (2007-2011.)  Author, Landscapes of the Dark: Psychoanalysis, Trauma, History (Karnac, 2011).

 

John D. Sutherland, M.D., Ph.D.   

Was Medical Director, The Tavistock Clinic, Founder, Scottish Institute of Human Relations; Editor, International Journal of Psychoanalysis and The Library of Psychoanalysis; Author, Fairbairn's Journey to the Interior.

 

Ivan Ward  Deputy Director and Head of Learning,  

The Freud Museum, London; Series Editor, Ideas in Psychoanalysis (Icon Books;) His most recent publication is Television and Psychoanalysis (Karnac), co-edited with Caroline Bainbridge and Candida Yates.

 


Conference Information

The conference convenes at 6 pm on Friday, March 7 and ends at approximately 5 pm on Sunday, March 9. It will include a reception and sales of the book on Saturday.

 

 

 

 

Registration Fee  

for the full conference is �130, with lower student and member fees, as well as discounted one-day and evening-only registration. Please see the website for full information on fees. Members of the Freud Museum London, IPI and Essex University are eligible for these reductions.

 

 

Accommodation

 

The Freud Museum London will send a list of local hotels upon request.

 

 

Continuing

Education Credit

 

American participants in psychology, social work and counseling will be able to apply for 12 hours of continuing education credit. Detailed information from info@theipi.org