Programs, Seminars & Lectures
Minding Time: Psychodynamic Perspectives on Time, Aging and Mortality
- First Location: Chestnut Hill
- Date: February 17, 2012
- Time: Friday mornings, 9:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. (twice, monthly)
- Fee: $450 for 10 sessions
- Instructor: Paul Koehler and Karen Fraley
- Second Location: Doylestown
- Date: September 7, 2011
- Time: Saturday mornings, 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (twice, monthly)
- Fee: $400 for 10 sessions
- Instructor: Paul Koehler
The seminar will focus on the experience and the representation of time in the internal world of the individual and on how those experiences and representations are manifested it the clinical encounter. We will use as our texts two volumes of selected papers: Is It Too Late?: Key papers on Psychoanalysis and Ageing, edited by Gabriele Junkers; and The Experience of Time: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini and Jorge Canestri.
We will consider what is distinctive about truly living "in" time and being sufficiently cognizant of--and also able properly to mourn--the passage of time, the realities of aging, and the inevitability of death.. We will contrast this with the tendency--latent in all of us but often very present in our most difficult patients----to try to live "outside" of time.
We will also consider how the respective--and sometimes very different--stages of life of the therapist and the patient might affect the experience of the transference and the countertransference and, consequently, the course of the therapy.
In addition to lecture and discussion of the readings, participants will be invited to share case material for illustration, discussion and elaboration.
C.E. credit for social workers will be authorized through the Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Work. C.E. credit for psychologists and for certified counselors will be authorized through the International Psychotherapy Institute, Washington, DC, by the American Psychological Association and the National Board of Certified Counselors, respectively.
For further information or to enroll, contact Paul Koehler at (215) 345-8730 or pmkmsw@gmail.com; or Karen Fraley at (610) 827-1641 or kfraley1@verizon.net.
Object Relations Clinical Supervision Group
- Time:Friday afternoons 12:30-2:00pm (twice monthly)
- Fee: $50 per group
- Location: Chestnut Hill, PA
- Instructors: Karen Fraley LCSW
Therapists of all levels of clinical experience are welcomed to join fellow colleagues in a supportive and nurturing atmosphere to discuss cases and clinical experiences, using an object relations approach.
- We will pay particular attention to the principles of projective identification and the therapist's use of the self as the cornerstones of the therapeutic process.
- Working with projective identifications is the bread and butter of our work. However these phenomena can be particularly difficult to contain because they are often unconscious communications, and representing split off parts of the self which are outside our patients' conscious awareness.
- Using object relations theory and techniques, we will discuss and play with the concept of projective identification, and explore the implications for the therapeutic relationship of these powerful experiences.
Contact: Karen Fraley, please email: kfraley1@verizon.net, or call 610-952-0435 for more information.
The Wizard of Oz Teaches Object Relations Theory
- Date: TBA
- Time: TBA
- Fee: TBA
- Location: TBA
- Instructor: Charles Ashbach, Ph .D.
This program is a 2 session seminar using the film of The Wizard of Oz to present the essential elements of an object relations understanding of the psyche. Contents include a detailed discussion of psychic structure, from a Kleinian perspective, as well as the problems of innocence, guilt, Oedipal conflict and trauma. The group will utilize clinical case material to exemplify the application of object relations theory.
Oedipus
- Date: TBA
- Time: TBA
- Fee: TBA
- Location: TBA
- Instructor: Charles Ashbach, Ph.D.
This is a 3 seminar program involving the reading of Sophocles' drama: Oedipus Rex. The goal is to understand the relational context that gives rise to the conflicts between the generations and the sexes. We will explore the "back-story" of the myth, and the role of parental aggression and its link to the impulses and fantasies of the child.
The Oedipus complex occupies a central place in psychoanalytic thought and we'll contemplate the complexities of the story, and point to the issues that arise in the clinical encounter. Clinical case material will be utilized from the members to demonstrate therapeutic implications.
Suffering, Sacrifice and Psychotherapy
- Date: TBA
- Time: TBA
- Fee: TBA
- Location: TBA
- Instructor:Charles Ashbach, Karen Fraley, and Paul Koehler
A 6-part seminar series that explores linkages between the practice of psychotherapy and the multiple burdens of suffering, sacrifice, and masochism that constitute much of the profession. The connection between the Greek concept "Therapon" meaning servant or slave, and the role of the therapist will be explored in depth.
Clinical concepts of holding and containment; of counter-transference and acting-in will all be explored through in-depth clinical examples.
Seminars
Foundations of Western Literature
- Date: Begining January 2011
- Time: Sunday evenings 7-9pm (monthly)
- Fee: $450
- Location: Chestnut Hill, PA
- Instructors: Charles Ashbach, Karen Fraley, and Paul Koehler
This will be an on-going seminar which will meet monthly to discuss and study the great works of Western literature. The seminar will meet on Sunday nights, 10 meetings per year, beginning in September, 2010.
Goals of this seminar include:
- To gain an understanding of unconscious process and how they relate to the study of these enduring works.
- To appreciate the elegance and wisdom in these works of literature -- and explore the possibilities, parameters, and paradoxes as they relate to the human condition.
- We will begin with the Epic of Gilgamesh, and will next move on to the study and reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey. These reading choices will likely be enough to occupy us for the first year of our study.
We anticipate that we will continue the following years to come by reading:
- The major plays of Sophocles
- The Aeneid of Virgil
- Beowulf
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Dante's Divine Comedy
- Milton's Paradise Lost
- The major plays of Shakespeare
- Goethe's Faust
We will go on to read works by Melville, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and Camus.
