Selected Facts, Fall/Winter 2019

This issue includes a letter from Maxine Nelson as President and Acting Director of Training, as well as Becky McGuire's first letter as Candidate President. Congratulations Becky, on your new role!

As usual, we offer accounts of some of our members under NPSI Member and Candidate News. We also have committee reports from the NPSI Institute in which you will learn about some of the accomplishments and goals of the dedicated NPSI committees.

In Regional and International News, NAPsaC President Robin Deutsch fills us in on the activities and upcoming programs at NAPsaC, and CIPS President Batya Monder reports on upcoming events at CIPS.

In Society News, we provide you with information on how to access our video recordings via the My NPSI program.

We are excited to include "The Death Drive is Alive and Well," the latest installment of David Jachim's Analyze This!

If you have questions or comments about the articles we publish, or if you have an idea for a story you would like to see included in an upcoming issue, please email me at admin@npsi.us.com . Also, feel free to forward the newsletter to colleagues. Forwarding directions are at the bottom of every issue.

Hollee Sweet

Managing Editor

NPSI Board of Directors

President: Maxine Nelson

Secretary: Michael Dougherty

Treasurer: Eileen Fletcher

Acting Director of Training: Maxine Nelson

Director: Caron Harrang

Director: David Jachim

Director: Carolyn Steinberg

Administrator/Recording Secretary: Hollee Sweet (non-voting)

Candidate Representative: Anna Delacroix (non-voting)

Candidate Representative: Nicole Wiggins (non-voting)

Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is a non-profit corporation dedicated to educational and scientific activities based in Seattle, Washington. The primary mission of the organization is to provide the highest quality psychoanalytic education and training for individuals seeking to become psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists. The organization also supports the ongoing professional growth and development of our psychoanalyst, candidate, and community members. In so doing, the organization aims to contribute to the current regional, national, and international psychoanalytic understanding of mental life and to the emotional health, creativity, and well-being of those treated through the practice of psychoanalysis.

Letter from the Pr esident

"On my Mind..."

It's hard to believe that it's been a year since I penned my first letter for Selected Factsas NPSI President! The past year has been active and quite fruitful in terms of the organization, and I hope to share some of the many highlights here. Since I'm also continuing to serve as Acting Director of Training, I will write a combined letter for this issue of the newsletter.

Founded in 1999, NPSI is now 20 years old, a fact that needs to be both acknowledged and celebrated. At the Annual Membership Meeting on September 20, two new officers were elected to the Board of Directors: Community Member Eileen Fletcher, SPHR/SHRM-SCP, was elected Treasurer, and Full Member Carolyn Steinberg, MD FRCPC FIPA, was elected Director.

Eileen brings years of experience with non-profits and has been working closely with Administrator Hollee Sweet to ensure that we employ fiscal policies and procedures that are both comprehensible and in compliance with industry standards. Although Carolyn resides in Vancouver, BC, she has jumped right in, becoming the Alternate Director to the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS), as well as agreeing to co-chair the newly formed Distance Learning Committee with me. In addition to the two newly elected Board members, Alison Kneisl, MD MBA MS, will be joining the Board in January. Alison brings much needed expertise in areas that require strategic planning, analysis, and organizational or project management skills, and we look forward to her participation. Finally, I am pleased to announce that that Frances Schopick, JD MSW, of Schopick Law has agreed to serve as legal counsel to NPSI, joining our Advisory Council. A licensed social worker as well as an attorney, Frances brings a unique combination of expertise to her work with us.

Under the capable leadership of Continuing Education Chair Jeff Eaton, NPSI co-sponsored an ethics workshop, "Ethics Today: Examining the Volk Decision from Many Angles" with the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Studies and the Center for Object Relations (COR) on November 9. The highly successful event featured Bradford Cokelet, PhD, Advisory Council member and ethics expert from the University of Kansas, as well as NPSI full members Jeff Eaton, MA FIPA and Chris Keats, MD FIPA, and community members Laura Groshong, LICSW and Eric Huffman, LICSW.

As many of you may already know, NPSI has been involved in a Self-Study process for the past year to investigate and understand how group dynamics might be hindering our organizational development, one consequence being there is no current succession plan for the positions of President-Elect and Director of Training . Dana Blue, LICSW FIPA, has chaired the Self-Study Committee, with representation from training analyst, full member, and candidate constituencies, which devised a survey that was administered last February. The Committee then spent a number of months compiling, aggregating, and anonymizing the results of the survey, and is in the final stages of drafting a report on the findings, which will be used as part of a retreat with constituent members scheduled for early February 2020. The retreat will be facilitated by John Lundgren, MD FIPA of Los Angeles and Len Levis, PhD from Oakland, CA, both of whom are experienced group relations consultants. Plans are currently in place to also survey NPSI community members, and you'll be hearing about that soon.

The NPSI Institute is also continuing to grow and develop in a number of different ways. A major accomplishment has been the establishment of a rotating Education Committee Chair until there is someone in the role of Director of Training. The rotations are four months in length and include chairing the EC/Faculty meetings, attending Board meetings to report on EC activities, and being responsible for discrete activities deemed pertinent to the particular four-month term. Thus far there have been two rotating EC Chairs - Barb Sewell, MaMFC MDIV MRE MIPA and Caron Harrang, LICSW FIPA - and the consensus is that the rotation system has worked quite well. Not only has the Education Committee continued to function without a designated Director of Training in place, but the process has enabled the work of leadership within NPSI to be shared by more individuals. I'm pleased to announce that NPSI welcomed a new cohort of analysts-in-training in September - Mara Applebaum, MA PhD LMHC, Samantha Good, LICSW, and Helen Widlansky, PhD. They join an already dedicated, hardworking group.

The Analyze This! column by David Jachim, PhD FIPA returns in this issue with a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay titled, "The Death Drive is Alive and Well." David's intention is to stimulate conversation among readers and invites your comments. Please write to him directly at dpjachim@comcast.net.

In closing, I'd like to invite each of you to consider strengthening your connection to NPSI by asking yourself what experience during 2019 stands out as most meaningful for you personally. Was it listening to a presentation or participating in a discussion at a Scientific Meeting? Was it a relationship that formed or deepened as a result of learning together in a seminar, co-teaching with a colleague, or working with others on one of our committees? Your answer to these questions may propel you to step forward and join the cadre of volunteers who donate their time, creative energies, and professional capabilities to help us continue to grow as a psychoanalytic membership organization and training institute.

Wishing you all the best in the New Year!

Maxine Nelson, LICSW FIPA

President and Acting Director of Training

Letter from the Candidate President

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

- Buddha

As we begin another year in psychoanalytic training, the candidate cohort has grown, and the mantle of Candidate President has been passed on to me. I feel grateful to those who served as Candidate President while I've been in training - Nicole Wiggins, David Parnes and Margaret Bergmann-Ness - as they have all been role models which I can now draw from as I begin my presidency. I'd also like to thank the entire candidate cohort for trusting me to lead for the next two years.

I'd like to welcome our new cohort, Mara Applebaum, Sam Good and Helen Widlansky, and a hearty welcome back to the rest of the candidates! We have a robust group that totals 13 now, with 6 being senior candidates, 4 in their 3^rdyear, and 3 in their 1^styear. This configuration represents growth, development and hope. Our senior candidates provide an enduring steadiness while our 3^rdyear candidates demonstrate dedication and our 1^styear candidates bring new energy. Not only is this a hopeful sign for the growth and development of NPSI, it also represents the dedicated work of those in leadership positions and those serving on committees at NPSI.

The world has changed since I entered training seven years ago. The election of Donald Trump has changed both domestic and international politics. Some of my colleagues talk about an unofficial diagnosis they are giving to some patients which they call TIAD, Trump Induced Anxiety Disorder. I too feel the cultural disruption in my personal and professional life.

During this type of cultural catastrophic change, the urge to panic and rush to action is ever present. In analytic work, we give priority to opening space for thinking and resist the urge to jump to action. Yet, when our culture is in crisis, action is a necessary step. So, we must hold the tension between slowing down to think, understand and make meaning, and the urge to press forward to action. Engaging in an analytic thought process has the potential to increase our ability to think and make meaning out of cultural experience and then the path forward to action may be more productive. For example, Hattie Myers in our analytic community has responded by creating a space to share our analytic perspective about this cultural crisis through the online magazine Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action. The most recent edition of Room is available at this link: http://www.analytic-room.com.

The best way to describe Room is from their website: " Responding to an unsettling and turbulent political reality, Room: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action is devoted to maintaining connections to ourselves and to our community through writing, art, music, and activism - disciplines that share with psychoanalysis a capacity to uncover the 'hard to reach' corners of our humanity. We invite contributions from mental health professionals, writers, artists, photographers, and musicians working all around the world."

Another example is the book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2017), edited by Brandy X Lee with contributions from 27 psychiatrists (including psychoanalysts), psychologists and other mental health professionals. They decided the duty to warn the public outweighed the ethical obligation set forward by the American Psychiatric Association to refrain from providing professional opinions of public figures they have not treated (also known as the Goldwater rule).

I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge that others outside of the analytic community have the capacity to think and act. We need only look at the courageous civil servants who have recently begun to speak truth to power. To mention a few: the Whistleblower, Marie Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill and William Taylor. Perhaps one reason why it has taken so long to hear from them is that they have been holding the tension between thought and action for the past three years and now they have finally reached the point where action is required.

If we cannot think, how can we possibly become? For me, analytic training has proved to be the path that is allowing me to increase my ability to think and metabolize experience including our current cultural experience. The analytic process organizes the mind and disciplines emotional states, and isn't that what is needed most right now so we can take appropriate action?

Becky McGuire, MS LMHC

Candidate President

Regional and International News

Report of the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation (NAPsaC)

By Robin A Deutsch, PhD FIPA, President

I'd like to bring you up to date on NAPsaC events. As most of you know, the mission of NAPsaC is to promote cooperation amongst all the North American IPA Societies (CIPS, Canadian Psychoanalytic, APsaA), Vermont and, until there is an Asian IPA region, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. I've been NAPsaC President for 1½ years. As I've gotten to know the organization more fully, I am hoping to build on the effective contributions of my two most recent predecessors, Maureen Murphy and Lee Jaffe. Both worked hard on the infrastructure of NAPsaC and establishing a solid organizational structure. As a result, it's my goal to continue building the structure of NAPsaC and to further the work on programming that will benefit NAPsaC's members. To this end, an anonymous donor has contributed the funds to support a calendar function on the NAPsaC website. This calendar will include international events as well as events of our North American members.

Recent Programs

Since our previous newsletter we have held NAPsaC Clinical Workshops at the APsaA meetings in New York in February 2019. At the London IPA Congress in July 2019, NAPsaC offered both a child and adult Clinical Workshop. In these workshops, NAPsaC creates an opportunity to look at the functioning of our analytic minds in real time with clinical material not previously reviewed by the discussants or the group. The discussants contribute their thoughts about the process of the dyad, and the group is also invited to respond to both the clinical material and the discussants' thoughts. These are lively and clinically relevant programs.

Upcoming Programs

As we know, our psychoanalytic cultures differ not only across the world but across town. NAPsaC's collaboration with other psychoanalytic organizations offers all of us the opportunity to share with other analysts the unique perspective that each analyst and analytic organization has developed. With this in mind, the NAPsaC Program Committee has continued to arrange co-sponsored workshops with other psychoanalytic organizations. The next Clinical Workshop will be held in New York at the APsaA Annual meeting on February 15, 2020.

Committee on Intra-regional Collaboration

NAPsaC's Committee on Intra-regional Collaboration, chaired by Maureen Murphy, has been working on a wide range of organizational issues, including NAPsaC's organizational structure. This is an important question since our organizations are of varying sizes, and how to give each equal voice and vote is an important issue for NAPsaC's future.

International and IPA News

NAPsaC continues to work together with the IPA, the two other regional organizations (European Psychoanalytic Federation (EPF) and Federación Psicoanalítica de América Latina (FEPAL)), and the Regional Association (APsaA) on topics of joint interest. I attended the Presidents Meetings in Madrid in April 2019 and in London in July 2019 where there was much focus on remote analysis. The Regional Organizations (NAPsaC, EPF, FEPAL) and the Regional Association (APsaA) were invited after the London Congress to join the new IPA Board as well as IPA Officers to discuss facilitating engagement within international organizations. NAPsaC is a partner in the e-Journal, Psychoanalysis.Today along with APsaA, EPF, FEPAL and the IPA. APsaA and NAPsaC share the North American financial contribution to support Psychoanalysis.Today. In London, the Regional Organizations and Regional Association met with the editors of Psychoanalysis.Today; one topic of conversation was increasing involvement of analysts in contributing content to the e-Journal.

Join Us

While NAPsaC is still a developing organization, it is getting more recognition alongside the other Regional Organizations. One of our goals is to establish a structure that is unique to North American needs.

Still, there is too much work to rely solely on the ExCom and the Board of Directors. If each of us takes on a small task, our organization will continue to grow. While there are many ways to get involved, NAPsaC currently has openings on the Program Committee. We also invite volunteers for the Speakers Bureau to respond to events of social/cultural/political importance, i.e., immigration, climate, and economics. In addition, we need to develop a Communications Committee to work on the website and other social media outlets. If you are enthused about bringing your creativity and joining with other analysts in developing NAPsaC as a regional and international organization, please contact me at robindeutsch@earthlink.net.

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Report of the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS)

By Batya R Monder, LCSW BCD FIPA BCpsa, President

As of July 1, 2019, I assumed the presidency of CIPS. For that reason, I was invited to write a short piece for Selected Facts.

My term and that of CIPS Vice-President, Lisa Halotek, began with a flurry of activity as we prepared for the CIPS reception at the IPA meeting in London later in July. Helping us in this and many other matters was Terrence McBride, now Past-President of CIPS. Many CIPS members came and enjoyed the party despite the fact that we were in a space that had no air conditioning on the hottest day on record in London!

We are now busily planning for another CIPS cocktail reception and book signing in New York during the week of the APsaA meetings. The CIPS reception will be on Thursday, February 13, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm. A Save the Date e-Blast has gone out to announce it.

If you will be attending the APsaA meetings, please plan on joining us at the CIPS reception. We will be celebrating the most recent book in the CIPS Book Series, Trauma and the Destructive-Transformative Struggle: Clinical Perspectives, edited by Terrence McBride and Maureen Murphy. I hope to meet many of you in New York. An invitation requesting RSVPs will be sent in December. Look for it in your inbox.

CIPS has run teleconferences for many years. In fact, one of our longest running teleconferences is the Bion group led by two NPSI members, Maxine Anderson and Marianne Robinson. Under our new chair, Elizabeth (Beth) Reese, the CIPS teleconferences can choose to be videoconferences. New this coming year will be short courses by authors of new books. Two such courses are already scheduled: Bruce Reis will teach from his new book, Creative Repetition and Intersubjectivity, on two Sundays in December. Fred Busch will lead a videoconference on Psychoanalytic Technique in February, drawing from his most recent book, The Analyst's Reveries: Explorations in Bion's Enigmatic Concept, and from an earlier book, Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: A Method and Theory of Psychoanalysis. Both courses will be announced with e-Blasts indicating how you can register. Other videoconferences are in the planning stage and will be announced when they are able to be scheduled.

CIPS has a certification program for psychoanalysts. Some of you may already have acquired this certification. If not, you can learn more about it on the CIPS website, cipsusa.org. We are offering another sign-up period this spring from March 15 to April 30, 2019.

Maxine Nelson, NPSI President and one of the Directors of CIPS, is organizing a task force to explore how CIPS and its component societies can issue CE's to out-of-state participants.

The CIPS newsletter, News Briefs, will be published early in December with more information about CIPS and its component societies.

I look forward to a productive year ahead, working closely with all members of the CIPS Board, including your very own Maxine Nelson and Carolyn Steinberg.

NPSI Society News

MY NPSI Library

In 2018, NPSI began a new program video recording selected scientific meetings and plenary presentations from the 2018 International Evolving British Object Relations (EBOR) conference on "The Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond."

If you're on our mailing list, you've received individual email flyers for these events. If you're not on our list or they've disappeared from your inbox, you can access the full library of recordings on our website at: https://npsi.us.com/news-media/my-npsi . New recordings are added as they become available, so check back often.

For your convenience, all videos available thus far are shown below (most recent on top). If you wish to purchase any of the EBOR recordings, click here

to view the website page for the EBOR recordings. To purchase the scientific meeting recordings, simply click on the links below each title (shown below).

If you would like to purchase all available recordings for the calendar year, the cost is $125 for NPSI members, and $150 for non-members. To do so, please see our My NPSI page, linked above.

If you have questions or need help accessing recordings, please contact NPSI Administrator Hollee Sweet at admin@npsi.us.com .

"Intuition: An Overview" presented by Jeffrey Eaton, MA FIPA (Scientific Meeting - October 2019)

In this video recording Jeffrey Eaton presents a brief overview of the concept of intuition drawing on Freud, Bion and Grotstein. The emphasis is on the therapist's experience of intuition as an aspect of evolved listening.

Click here to purchase the October 2019 Scientific Meeting recording.

"Unconscious Phantasy, Part 1" presented by Jeffrey Eaton, MA FIPA (Scientific Meeting - December 2018)

In this presentation Jeffrey Eaton explores the topic of unconscious phantasy, which he claims is central to understanding the theoretical models developed by Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion, Donald Meltzer, and many analysts in the British object relations tradition.

Click here to purchase the December 2018 Scientific Meeting recording.

"Winnicott, Klein and Bion: Further Thoughts on the Nature of the External Object - Holding and Container/Contained" presented by Joseph Aguayo, PhD FIPA (EBOR 2018) - In this EBOR 2018 presentation video, Joseph Aguayo gives a concise overview of how Winnicott collaborated with, then fell out with Melanie Klein's theories over what he termed the "environmental factor" after he published his landmark paper on "Transitional Objects" in 1953. Nonetheless, he continued a postal dialogue with other members of the London Klein group before and after Klein's death in 1960, specifically with Wilfred Bion in attempts to persuade him of the mother's importance in the infant's early development. By the time Bion took the mother's containing (or environmental) function into consideration, Winnicott believed that his own contributions were once again being in a sense appropriated by another Kleinian, while they continued to ignore and not cite his own research.

"Being After Winnicott: Minding the Body, Embodying the Mind" presented by Lesley Caldwell, MA PhD FIPA (EBOR 2018) - Lesley Caldwell's plenary presentation at EBOR 2018 argues for returning the body to a central place in clinical work. Neither Winnicott nor Bion placed the body at the center of their work with adult patients. Yet their interest in what happens in the consulting room for both analyst and analysand offers signposts on how to deploy a psychoanalysis that does acknowledge the body as a central marker of identity and seeks to understand the variety of ways that analytic communication proceeds through bodily phenomena and bodily presence. The close links between the body, identity and the self have increasingly seen psychological disturbance and difficulty gather around bodily symptoms, bodily change, bodily limits and body modification. In the same period, psychoanalysis has focused on "states of mind" in a way that parallels the body's eclipse. These observations are applied to an analytic case showing how the analyst can make use of bodily experience to deepen understanding of analytic process.

"Does the Body have a Mind?" presented by Robert Oelsner, MD FIPA (EBOR 2018) - Does the body have a mind? With this question Robert Oelsner's EBOR 2018 plenary presentation takes the viewer on a tour starting in the consulting room with an actual analysand. The milestones are analytic contributions and discoveries from early Freud on towards Melanie Klein, Meltzer, McDougall, and the French somaticists Marty and de M'Uzan. From there, early and late Bion are explored and the groundbreaking originality of his thought is highlighted. It ends with Bion's rather nihilistic view of life and the reaches of psychoanalysis, which he stated after having a lifetime experience as a person and an analyst.

"Winnicott, Bion and Beyond: Erotic Embodiment in the Analytic Field" presented by Dianne Elise, PhD FIPA (EBOR 2018) - While there is increasing interest in somatic life within psychoanalysis, attention to the body in its libidinal aspects remains somewhat limited in scope. Winnicott's formulations of psyche/soma, indwelling, and personalization have been understood predominantly as apart from the sexual body. Bion's theorizing as well has tended to be utilized in a decidedly asexual manner, with "passion" and "intercourse" thought of as mind-to-mind phenomena. Analytic field theory drawing on Bion integrates bodily experience, but not necessarily the sexual body. When erotic embodiment is considered within our current models, the focus tends to be on oedipal level transference and countertransference. In this presentation Dianne Elise integrates Winnicott's emphasis on the psyche/soma with a Freudian focus on embodied libidinal life, elaborates Kristeva's (2014) concept of maternal eroticism, and suggests a parallel in the field to analytic eroticism.

"The Body's Way of Dreaming: Music and Psychical Life Beyond Representation" presented by Peter Goldberg, PhD FIPA (EBOR 2018) - In considering the special role that musicality and music play in psychical life, Peter Goldberg proposes that musical sound patterns (tempo, rhythm, tone, harmony, dissonance) provide a psycho-sensory pattern language that makes sense of the psychology of the body. This suggests a specific psychical role for music in shaping an essential non-representational domain of psychical life, a domain of psycho-sensory, embodied experience unmediated by words or symbols, possessing its own mode of organization and functional transformations. In this recording, Goldberg suggests the existence of something like a "beta function" that gives shape and form to psychical processes at this undifferentiated, pre-reflective level of being-in-the-world. His formulation highlights music's function in bringing psychical life closer to the psychology of the body as well as the way in which music is implicated in the counter-tendency towards mind-body dissociation.

"Psychoanalysis, Human Flourishing, and Good Character" presented by Brad Cokelet, PhD with Jeffrey Eaton, MA FIPA, Discussant (Scientific Meeting - September 2018) In this presentation, philosopher Brad Cokelet (University of Kansas) orients discussion with a short lecture on Ancient Greek theories of human nature and the way these theories shaped Plato's and Aristotle's accounts of good character and the good, happy life. Brad and discussant Jeff Eaton initiate a group dialogue focused on three questions:

1. How does psychoanalysis challenge Greek understandings of human nature?

2. Can a psychoanalytic understanding of human nature provide us with relevant accounts of good character and the good life?

3. How might psychoanalysis aim to facilitate good character development?

Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle taught that to really flourish as a human being, you need to harmonize the potentially conflicting parts of your human psyche and thereby develop good ethical character. These views are founded on deep assumptions about human nature and our shared human potentials, assumptions that are both attractive and contentious, not least because they are more optimistic than the pessimistic Judeo-Christian views that dominate much of Western thought. This presentation introduces Greek views of human nature, flourishing, and good character and puts them into conversation with psychoanalytic views. Cokelet argues that psychoanalysis raises distinctive doubts about Aristotle's and Plato's theories of human nature - specifically, doubts about Greek accounts of psychic harmony leading to human flourishing and good character. The presentation considers how things might look if we substituted a psychoanalytic account of human nature for the Greek ones. Specifically, can we expect psychoanalytic treatment to facilitate positive (ethical) character change and flourishing? If so, does this lead to an implicit critique of moralistic views, which associate ethical development with the efficient operation of a strong super-ego?

Click here to purchase the September 2018 Scientific Meeting recording.

"The Ego is First and Foremost a Body Ego" presented by Judy K Eekhoff, PhD FIPA (Pre-EBOR 2018 Scientific Meeting - June 2018) - In this recording Judy K Eekhoff gives a presentation on two Thomas Ogden papers: "On the Concept of an Autistic-Contiguous Position" (1989) and "Some Theoretical Comments on Personal Isolation" (1991). In these papers, Ogden highlights the role of early infantile sensuous experience as foundational in the development of the mind and in the experience of a subjective sense of self. As such, the body then becomes a lifelong representation of the creative couple, not only of sensuality and sexuality, but of an essential element in representation and symbol formation.

Click here to purchase the June 2018 Scientific Meeting recording.

"Winnicott's View of the Mind in Relation to Psyche-Soma and the Development of Healthy Dependency in the Analytic Setting" presented by Caron Harrang, LICSW FIPA (Pre-EBOR 2018 Scientific Meeting - April 2018) - In this recording Caron Harrang gives a presentation on two pivotal papers by Donald Winnicott: "Mind and its Relation to Psyche-Soma" (1954) and "Dependence in Infant-Care, in Child-Care and in the Psycho-Analytic Setting" (1963). Interestingly, these papers were first presented by Winnicott to vastly different audiences. "Psyche-Soma" was presented to the British Psychological Society on December 14, 1949 and the "Dependence" paper to the Los Angeles Psychoanalytical Society on October 4, 1962 and again a few weeks later to the Boston Psychoanalytic Society on October 24, 1962. Caron's presentation explores the following questions in relation to these papers: What is the historical context of the development of Winnicott's concept of psyche-soma? How did his understanding of the mind's relationship to the body and thirteen years of practice as a psychoanalyst contribute to his view of healthy dependency as it develops within the baby's relationship to primary objects? What happens when the development of healthy dependency is thwarted and how does this manifest in adulthood? How are these manifestations evident in the transference/countertransference relationship or in the analytic field? What is Winnicott's understanding of the positive role played by psychosomatic symptoms? How did Winnicott speak to patients about their bodily experience as evident in the transference?

Click here to purchase the April 2018 Pre-EBOR Scientific Meeting recording.

NPSI Institute News

Education Committee

Maxine Nelson, LICSW FIPA (Acting Director of Training)

Caron Harrang, LICSW FIPA (Rotating Chair of EC - September - December 2019)

Dana Blue, LICSW FIPA (Chair, Admissions Subcommittee)

Dana Blue, LICSW FIPA (for Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst Subcommittee)

David Parnes, LICSW FIPA (Chair, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Subcommittee)

David Rasmussen, PsyD FIPA (Chair, Progression Subcommittee)

Barb Sewell, MaMFC MDIV MRE MIPA (Chair, Curriculum Subcommittee)

Margaret Bergmann-Ness, LICSW (Candidates Subcommittee)

Becky McGuire, MS LMHC (Chair, Candidates Subcommittee)

Hollee Sweet (Recording Secretary)

The mission of NPSI is to provide the highest quality psychoanalytic education and training for individuals seeking to become psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists.

The NPSI Institute contains our training programs, and the Education Committee (EC) is responsible for the cultivation and maintenance of its programs. The EC is comprised of the chairs of various subcommittees: Admissions, Candidates, Faculty and Curriculum, Progression, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program, and Training and Supervising Psychoanalysts and possible ad hoc committee chairs. The EC functions to establish policy for the Institute, and as a bi-directional communication hub to coordinate activities of its component subcommittees. To further this coordination, the Director of Training also sits on the NPSI Board of Directors. Some or all members of the EC meet on an as-needed basis with the candidate group to discuss policy implementation and other pressing concerns.

Following are brief descriptions of each subcommittee. To read a full report detailing their past year's activities, click here.

Admissions Subcommittee

Margaret Bergman-Ness, MA LICSW (Candidate Representative)

Dana Blue, LICSW FIPA (Chair)

Ambre Lane, MD (Candidate Representative)

David Parnes, LICSW, FIPA

The primary task of Admissions is to process applications for admission to the training program at NPSI. To accomplish this, the committee holds several clinical open houses throughout the year. The chair arranges for interviews with each applicant, which are then discussed by a team that includes the reviewers and the Admissions subcommittee (excluding candidate representatives). The primary accomplishments of Admissions this past year were to admit a new training cohort, arrange advisors for the new cohort, and prepare the Education Committee Policies and Procedures Manual.

Candidates Subcommittee

Margaret Bergmann-Ness, LICSW, Candidate Past-President

Becky McGuire, MS LMHC, Candidate President (Chair)

All current candidates (see the NPSI Member Roster here)

During the academic year of 2018-2019, the Candidate group continued to meet monthly in order to provide a forum for the exchange of information between the NPSI Board, the Institute's component subcommittees, and the candidates. Candidates also facilitated this ongoing exchange of information through service as representatives on the Education, Curriculum, Admissions, and Progression committees, as well as on the NPSI Board.

The monthly meetings also served as a forum for candidates to provide informational and collegial support to one another. Additionally, a candidate retreat was held in November 2018 to focus on candidate development. The group found the retreat a helpful and containing opportunity to think more deeply, and a decision was made to hold annual retreats.

The candidates also held an informal retreat in August 2019 to view the IPA's webinar on confidentiality from June 2019. This meeting inspired the group to continue addressing issues of confidentiality, in formats yet to be determined, but to include setting aside time at the next formal candidate retreat, as well as in ongoing additional meetings.

Curriculum Subcommittee

Anna Delacroix, MA LMHC (Candidate Representative)

Esti Karson, PhD FIPA

Barbara Sewell, MaMFC MDIV MRE MIPA (Chair)

In addition to ongoing tasks guided by curriculum policies and procedures, the Curriculum subcommittee has focused on filling teaching positions for each academic term in the Institute's psychoanalytic training program. The subcommittee has been improving the quality of instruction by evaluating and updating syllabi and working with the feedback from instructors and candidates regarding readings and class participation. Moreover, the subcommittee has listened to candidate feedback regarding the syllabi and courses, and is incorporating some of that feedback into course curriculum and syllabi.

Progression Subcommittee

Lynn Cunningham, PhD LICSW (Candidate Representative)

Judy K Eekhoff, PhD FIPA

Julie Hendrickson, MA LMHC FIPA

Esti Karson, PhD FIPA

David Rasmussen, PsyD FIPA

The Progression subcommittee meets the fourth Wednesday of each month. October, December, February, April and June meetings review reports on control cases. On alternate months the committee discusses policies and procedures and clarifies those in light of evolving needs.

In addition to its work reviewing reports, faculty evaluations of candidates, and working through specific issues with candidates during the year, Progression also made a change at the candidates' request to combine the final control case report with the last 6-month report, met with each candidate to discuss their progress in training, changed the filing system so that all files are maintained onsite at NPSI, and is currently updating the Candidate Handbook.

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program Subcommittee

John Allemand, LICSW (Community Member)

David Parnes, LICSW FIPA (Chair)

Samantha Good, MSW LICSW

Dina Maugeri, MA LMHC

Becky McGuire, MS LMHC

Helen Widlansky, PhD

In the Fall of 2015, NPSI faculty inaugurated a new certificate course titled, "The Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis," organized by Co-Chairs Maxine Anderson, MD FIPA, Dana Blue, LICSW FIPA, and Adriana Prengler, LMHC FIPA. Course participants met weekly through the academic year to study the bedrock concepts of psychoanalytic theory and technique. Faculty rotated monthly, so that by the conclusion of the course, students had met many NPSI full member and senior candidate instructors in addition to becoming better acquainted with many of the psychoanalytic concepts that underlie our field. A Clinical Study Group was added in the Fall of 2018 and met September 2018 through June 2019. Offered by Don Ross, MD FIPA, the group utilized clinical material brought by participants to enhance their understanding of psychoanalytic theory and technique.

NPSI Member and Candidate News

Full Members in Action

by David Parnes, Reporter

On November 9, NPSI, the Center for Object Relations (COR) and the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study co-presented "Ethics Today: Examining the Volk Decision from Many Angles." This workshop focused on the Volk Decision and its legal, ethical and clinical implications. Jeff Eaton, MA FIPA was the moderator and a presenter, along with Christopher Keats, MD FIPA, NPSI Community Members Laura Groshong, LICSW and Eric Huffman, LICSW, NPSI Advisory Council Member Bradford Cokelet, PhD, and Casey Moriarty, JD.

Judy K Eekhoff, PhD FIPA presented her paper, "Primitive Identification & Confusional Mental States" at the 44^thAnnual Canadian Psychoanalytic Conference, Emotional Turbulence: Working Clinically with Unformed Experience. The conference was held on May 29 through June 2, 2019 in Vancouver, BC.

The CIPS book, Trauma and the Destructive-Transformative Struggle: Clinical Perspectives (2019), co-edited by Terry McBride and Maureen Murphy and published by Routledge, includes chapters by Maxine Anderson, MD FIPA, Judy K Eekhoff, PhD FIPA, and Maxine Nelson, LICSW FIPA. The book evolved out of the 2014 CIPS Clinical Conference, Trauma, Destruction and Transformative Potential, which was held in New York City in May 2014 during the opening of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Covering a wide range of topics related to trauma, the book also presents varied theoretical viewpoints from which the writers think and practice.

This academic year, NPSI's Scientific Meetings consider the theme of intuition. At the October meeting, Jeffrey Eaton, MA FIPA presented an overview of the concept of intuition drawing on Freud, Bion, and Grotstein and sketched a model to contextualize the concept of intuition within a practical clinical context, emphasizing the therapist's experience of intuition as an aspect of evolved listening.

On December 18, Judy K Eekhoff, PhD FIPA was the presenter for NPSI's Scientific Meeting. Her presentation, "Intuition: An Emotional Foundation of Analytic Transformation," used Bion's ideas of reverie and his models of transformation as well as a clinical example to illustrate his ideas about Transformations in O.

Continuing the theme of intuition, other Scientific Meeting presenters scheduled for 2020 include Maxine Anderson, MD FIPA, Caron Harrang, LICSW FIPA, and Robert Oelsner, MD FIPA.

Barb Sewell, MaMFC MDIV MRE MIPA, will be a presenter in a five-week course on the teaching of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Presented by the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study and the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society & Institute, the course is titled, "The Unconscious Goes Back to School" and runs from January 9 through March 5, 2020.

Last May, Robert Oelsner, MD FIPA presented in German his paper, "Does the Body Have a Mind?" to the German Psychoanalytic Annual Congress in Frankfurt where he also conducted a clinical seminar for candidates from various German psychoanalytic institutes.

In September Robert was invited to the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association where he taught a cycle of clinical seminars for senior analysts and also presented a new paper entitled, "Melanie Klein and the Cat of Bion - Ethical Dimensions in Kleinian Technique."

On November 19, Maxine Anderson, MD FIPA presented "Protecting Our Humanity in the Midst of Tribal Warfare: Thoughts for Our Time" at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Her talk drew upon ideas put forth in her most recent book, From Tribal Division to Welcoming Inclusion (Routledge, 2019). About the presentation, Maxine writes, "In these turbulent times, it is easy to surrender our quiet spacious thought for the excitement and often-delicious outrage emanating from polarized, tribal convictions. Significantly, the allure of such reversion involves descent from our humane toward our inhumane levels of experience. This talk explores the dynamics of this descent and emphasizes the protective factors which re-establish the links with our humanity and its quiet, open-minded thinking."

Discussant for Maxine's talk was Stan Case LCSW PhD FIPA, who responded with his offering, "Whose Humanity Do We Protect? Love, Lore, and Law."

Caron Harrang, LICSW FIPA is pleased to be working with Joseph Aguayo, PhD FIPA as Co-Director of the Fifth Annual Regional Bion Symposium (April 16-18, 2020) in Los Angeles, where Giuseppe Civitarese, MD FIPA will be this year's plenary presenter. The Symposium was founded by Joe Aguayo and Larry Brown, inspired by Jim Grotstein, who strongly supported a venue for American psychoanalysts interested in the work of Wilfred Bion to gather and learn through small and large group discussion. For additional information, contact caron@caronharrang.com or joseph.aguayo@gmail.com .

On January 21, 2020, Oscar Romero, MD FIPA will present his paper "The 'Cruelty' of the Psychoanalytic Method and Antonin Artaud's Theater" at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.

Analyze This!

The Death Drive is Alive and Well

By David Jachim, PhD FIPA

"So do the shadows of our own desires

stand between us and our better angels,

and thus their brightness is eclipsed."

- Dickens

In 1920 Freud delivered his landmark work, "Beyond the Pleasure Principle." In this work he formulated the concept of an additional human instinct, the Death Drive. Since that time his concept has been contested, criticized and, in other circles, extolled as a useful, valid psychoanalytic concept. Whether you ascribe to Freud's version of a Death Drive or its varied theoretical permutations (e.g., DiMasi, Feldman, Joseph, Rosenfeld, etc.), one cannot deny the presence of destructiveness in the array of human existence.

Fueled by biological-instinctual and/or socio-cultural factors the Death Drive clearly manifests itself in clinical phenomena as negative therapeutic reactions, vagaries of envy, addiction behaviors, sadism/masochism, dimensions of severe primitive superego, repetition compulsions, etc. These aspects have gained consensual validity across many psychoanalytic schools. What is more is that there seems to be no evidence to show that these pernicious issues are waning amongst psychoanalytic practices.

Even more concerning is the increase in socio-cultural manifestations of human destructiveness. In this vein we see the proliferation of mass shootings, intolerance of religious orientation, prejudices towards immigrants, genocidal trends, growing elitism and suicide. Politically, we see the dismantling of democratic structures in the United States, destruction of unification processes in Europe via Brexit (Lackinger), and the rise in authoritarianism and populism in many countries such as Italy, Turkey and Poland.

One of the most serious reflections of the Death Drive is the rapid destruction of the planet Earth itself, evidenced by climate change. We are at (some say beyond) a tipping point of unrepairable damage to our planet, a crime emanating from a psychotic dimension of the human psyche (Moss et al., IPA Congress 2019) that denies reality (scientific evidence) and resorts to omnipotence (more money, more territory and "JOBS, JOBS, JOBS"). Nowhere is this better evidenced than within the current United States Presidential administration (abetted by the US Senate) that labels climate change as "fake," withdraws from international alliances to fight climate change, and dismantles the Environmental Protection Agency. These chants have become "the new normal," dulling popular consciousness as only the Death Drive can do.

In so many aspects, the Death Drive is alive and well and not so silent. Nonetheless, what can we, as psychoanalysts, do in the face of such powerful forces? Clinically, I believe we can re-dedicate ourselves to the democratic process that true psychoanalysis promotes. Psychoanalysis can ensure that all voices within our patients' psyches are heard and that unfettered primitive superegos are captured or at least contained. Within our own psychoanalytic institutions, we can confront theoretical "-isms" and promote good work group functions. We can also bring these egalitarian principles to the public by making our work more accessible and by supporting healthy sublimation of dangerous aggressions via the arts, media, sports, etc.

We will never totally defeat the Death Drive but by accessing Eros these acts of love can alter its malignant valency. I do believe Dr. Freud and Ms. Klein would agree. What other alternative do we have?

David Jachim, PhD FIPA, is a psychoanalyst who practices in Seattle, working primarily with adults and older adolescents. He is a Past President of NPSI and currently serves as a Board Director for that organization.

You can read all of David Jachim's Analyze This! essays here.

Selected Facts Next Issue Deadline:

The next issue of Selected Facts will be published in June 2020. The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2020.

Please feel free to contact Hollee Sweet with general questions or our reporter with news items or ideas for stories.

Hollee Sweet Managing Editor admin@npsi.us.com	Anna Delacroix Copy Editor annadelacroix50@gmail.com
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