Newsletter – January 2016

Director’s Column

Roger J. Segalla, Jr., PhD
These are anxious times we live in. The unprovoked, horrifying, terrorist attack in Paris which killed 130 people, and wounded 368 others, was a random attack against civilians who were simply going about their lives. These victims of brutal violence were eating out in restaurants, attending a sports event and out on the streets of a city that moments before the attack must have felt safe and predictable. Nineteen days later, in the U.S., while celebrating the upcoming holidays, 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured when a couple opened fire on another group of innocent civilians who were simply going about their lives, unaware that the normalcy of everyday life would be ended in violence and brutality. Obviously, these events did not just affect the people killed and wounded and their friends and families. These events affected all of us and they have reawakened a state of anxiousness that we all felt so intensely following the September 11th terrorist attacks. Along with the mass shootings that now seem, sadly, to occur on a regular basis, these terrorist attacks have brought a level of tension and anxiety to everyday life in a way that rivals the worst days and weeks of the Cold War when we all faced the daily threat of annihilation.

As therapists, the people that come to us for assistance bring with them these accumulated anxieties along their own histories of trauma, depression and existential angst associated with difficult childhoods and dysfunctional families. We therapists must take in and metabolize all these anxieties and difficult feelings while dealing with our own feelings of uncertainty about the safety of walking down the street, sitting in a restaurant or shopping in a crowded mall. The impact of all this tension and angst can take its toll on those of us who open our feelings to find the empathy so critical to successful psychological treatment. It is especially important that during these anxious times, we therapists learn to turn to each other for support and for help in processing the impact of listening and empathizing with all this anxiety. This year, I urge all of you to reach out to your fellow ICP+P members for this critical support. We are a community of mental health professionals and as such we need to rely on each other to cope with the emotional impact of these difficult times. We need to give ourselves the permission to lean on one another and find ways to protect our own mental health, even as we seek to treat the mental health of those that come to our offices for professional assistance.

With care and concern, and best wishes for a Happy New Year.
Roger

Note from the Editor

Jonathan Lebolt, PhD, DCSW, CGP

Jonathan Lebolt, PhD, LCSW, CGP

Dear ICP+P’ers,

Happy New Year! This year promises to be an exciting one at ICP+P, starting with our experiential couples conference, Beyond Betryal: Couples Therapy after the Affair, in February; continuing with short courses on practice with clients who are LGBTQIA-2S and with couples; and culminating in our 22nd Annual Conference, on
Connectedness: Intimate Moments of Therapeutic Growth, with Richard Geist, EdD, in April, a quintessential topic for an institute specializing in relational (as well as self psychological) practice. And we may also look forward to the first installments of our third year-long institute, the Institute on Embodying the Unspoken Self, commencing with Beatrice Beebe on attachment in September, and Stephen Porges on polyvagal theory in December.

This will be a vital year for our newsletter, Connections, as well. We hope to feature reviews of the three books by or about our co-founder, Joe Lichtenberg, published this fall, and to continue reviews of Psychoanalytic Inquiry by the inestimable Eileen Boyle and Gwen Pla, as well as reviews of International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology by Yours Truly and a surprise new special editor!

This month’s issue of Connections features a timely and powerful letter from our director, Roger Segalla, about the need for mutual support in arduous, violent times, and a mini-preview of the annual conference from the chair of our Contemporary Approaches to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (CAPP) Program, Janna Sandmeyer.

Let 2016 be the year that you write that article you were thinking of writing for the newsletter, teach that short course, volunteer for a committee, or otherwise get more involved in our wonderful organization. And may this be a happy–and peaceful–new year for us all.

Yours,
Jonathan
therapy@doctor-jon.com

Reviewers wanted

Reviewers Wanted!
Three books by, co-written, and about our co-founder, Joe Lichtenberg, MD, were published this fall by Routledge:

1. A Developmentalist’s Approach to Research, Theory, and Therapy: Selected Works of Joseph Lichtenberg.
2. Enlivening the Self: The First Year, Clinical Enrichment, and The Wandering Mind (also by Frank M. Lachmann & James L. Fosshage).
3. Psychoanalytic Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice: Reading Joseph D. Lichtenberg (edited by Linda Gunsberg and our Chair of Psychoanalytic Training, Sandra Hershberg, PhD).

Please contact Jonathan Lebolt, PhD, Newsletter Editor, at Therapy@Doctor-Jon.com or 240-507-7696 if you’d like to review one or more of these books for the newsletter.

Volunteerism is Alive & Well at ICP+P: Successor Continuing Education Chair Steps Forward

Eleanor Howe, PhD

Six years ago, Deborah Marks was ready to move on from her role as CE Chair. I was a member in my second year and was interested in learning more about the ICP+P operations. My energy to jump in came at a good time for Deborah. Now the same is happening to me.

After exactly six years, I find myself ready to pass on the reins of the CE Chair role. It has been a fulfilling volunteer job for me. The CE Committee is staffed with experienced and able members, making the committee productive and a joy. The CE tasks require an interface with each training program, conference, short course and many study groups. Thus, the role has given me an appreciation for the amount and the content of the training that ICP+P conducts. The scope of what we do is amazing.

I am thrilled to announce that Jonathan Lebolt has offered to assume the CE Chair mantle. We are fortunate that Jonathan will bring to the role not only his considerable energy and enthusiasm, but also prior experience overseeing the CE process for social workers from another organization. I experience in Jonathan a kindred willingness to give of himself to ICP+P, and a kindred interest to know our organization through what we do and how we do it. Jonathan and I will embark on a training process before we officially transfer the reins. Please join me in welcoming Jonathan into this role of signature importance for our learning community.

2016 CAPP Outreach Opportunities

CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY (CAPP) PROGRAM

ICP+P’s CAPP Program is pleased to announce the following programs, offered free of charge, as an introduction to topics and clinical applications included in the training experience.  For further information about applying to the CAPP Program, you may contact Janna Sandmeyer, PhD, Program Chair, at jannalou@me.com or 202 306 6500.

Open Houses and Case Presentations

All sessions will meet Saturday mornings from 10 AM to Noon at the ICP+P Office, 4601 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 8, Washington, DC, 20008.   For further information or to sign up, you may contact Mary Jean Kane, LCSW, at mjkanelcsw@gmail.com, 703 550 4298, or Sharon Ballard, LICSW, at sfballard@gmail.com, 301 681 9809.

Session 1: January 23, 2016 ~ The Therapist’s Use of Self: A Self Psychological and Intersubjective Perspective

The ways in which the therapist uses her self from a Self Psychological and Intersubjective perspective will be demonstrated and discussed with participants. Case material and discussion will illustrate concepts from Self Psychology and Intersubjectivity, how the therapist thinks about and experientially employs these perspectives, and how the therapist’s sense of self is challenged in her work.

Mary Jean Kane, MSW, LCSW, is a contemporary relational psychoanalyst and a couple and group psychotherapist. She currently leads a mixed adult Relational Psychotherapy Group. Her training includes the ICP+P Psychoanalytic Training Program, the ICP+P Psychotherapy Training Program (now the CAPP Program), the Washington School of Psychiatry’s Group Psychotherapy Training Program, and training in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy and Imago Relationship Therapy. Mary Jean has a Private Practice in Falls Church, VA. She is on the ICP+P teaching faculty and does clinical supervision and consultation.

Session 2: February 20, 2016 ~ “Tigger, Eeyore, and the Crunch of (Mis)Recognition”

Participants will be introduced to contemporary Relational views of therapeutic impasse. The central notion of the co-contributions of both patient’s and therapist’s internal and intermingling conflicts and psychologies to the treatment process, particularly when they catalyze to create treatment ruptures and/or impasses, will be discussed using an extended case example.

William Pinney, PhD holds faculty appointments at ICP+P’s Contemporary Approaches to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (CAPP) Training Program, the Washington School of Psychiatry’s (WSP) Supervision Training Program, Georgetown University’s Counseling and Psychiatric Service, and supervises at the University of Maryland’s Psychotherapy Clinic and Research Lab.

Session 3: March 19, 2016 ~ A Case Illustration of Core Concepts in Self Psychology

Using a detailed case example, we will explore Kohut’s seminal contributions in empathy, selfobject transferences, and disruption and repair as they manifest in the therapeutic relationship.

Janna Sandmeyer, PhD, is Chair of the Contemporary Approaches to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy program, and is faculty and supervisor at the Washington School of Psychiatry.

Pre-Program Study Group

Meetings will be held the second Tuesday of each month, January to May, from 7:15 to 8:30 PM in Monica L. Callahan, PhD’s office, 4915 St. Elmo Ave., Suite 404, Bethesda, 20814.

This group is designed particularly for people who plan to apply to the CAPP program for the training class beginning in September, 2016.  We will be reading and discussing clinically-relevant writings representative of contemporary Self Psychology and Relational theory, including chapters from Joseph Lichtenberg’s book Craft and Spirit and recent journal articles.  Later readings will be selected based on the interests of the group.

Monica L. Callahan, PhD is a faculty member and supervisor in ICP+P’s CAPP Program and in its Psychoanalytic Training Program.  She is Chair of ICP+P’s Fellowship Program.

For further information or to sign up for the study group, you may contact Monica Callahan at Callahanml@erols.com or 301 587 6211.

Beyond Betrayal:  Couples Therapy After The Affair

Couples Conference

Saturday, February 27, 2016
Registration: 8:30-9am
Program: 9am-12:30pm

National 4-H Conference Center
7100 Connecticut Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815

The Couples Therapy Training Program of ICP+P will present an experiential conference on working with couples embroiled in the aftermath of an affair. Using a participant-observer model, the audience will watch two vignettes of ongoing treatment with a couple. After each vignette, there will be time to explore audience reactions and questions.

Conference participants will observe the therapist containing intense affect, addressing underlying dynamics in the couple, and working to repair the rupture. The format will provide participants the opportunity to learn from each other as we engage together in this experiential process.

Following the experiential part of the conference, there will be a theoretical presentation to integrate the theory and practice of working with couples where there is an affair.

At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:

1. Summarize the emotional themes often present in couples struggling with the aftermath of an affair.
2. Explain how the underlying dynamics in each individual and in the couple contribute to the affair.
3. Discuss repairing the rupture in the couple’s relationship using theoretical principles from self and relational psychologies and from object relations.

Click Here to see the full flier…

Click Here to register online…

Annual Conference ~ Connectedness: Intimate Moments of Therapeutic Growth

with Richard Geist, EdD

April 16, 2016   
9:00 am-4:30 pm
7100 Connecticut Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815

Every therapeutic couple struggles to find the bond that drives the therapeutic process and facilitates development. Dr. Geist captures this clinical phenomenon in his construct of Connectedness, a sense of participating in another’s subjective emotional life while simultaneously experiencing that other as participating in one’s own subjective life.

Dr. Geist is our featured speaker at this year’s annual conference, sponsored by ICP+P’s Contemporary Approaches to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (CAPP) training program. There will also be a case presentation by Janna Sandmeyer, PhD and discussion by Sally Bloom-Feshbach, PhD.

2016-2017 Institute ~ Embodying the Unspoken Self:
Attachment, Trauma, Neurobiology and the Body

Coming Soon . . .

Embodying the Unspoken Self:
Attachment, Trauma, Neurobiology and the Body
ICP+P’s Third Year-Long Institute – 2016-2017

This Institute will explore new developments in understanding neurobiology, physiology, and the impact of early attachment experiences and of trauma.  Following on previous programs which have emphasized the emotional, cognitive and relational aspects of clinical work, the Institute on Embodying the Unspoken Self will emphasize the body and how to access implicit memory and integrate previously inaccessible pieces of the past by attending to body communications.  Trauma will be addressed at both theoretical and clinical levels, with a focus on developmental trauma, i.e. injuries resulting from nuanced early failures of care, the “hidden traumas” of infancy that may be overlooked. Such experiences are less frequently identified as traumatic, relative to more dramatic disruptive events that receive the bulk of attention in the trauma literature.  These early traumatic experiences occur as attachment patterns are being established, prior to the development of expressive language. Therapists will benefit greatly from learning to “read” the language of the body as it reveals early life experiences.

The Institute will consist of four weekend conferences – a pre-conference on Friday afternoon and a full-day conference on Saturday.

Beatrice Beebe, PhD on Attachment
September 24, 2016

Stephen Porges, PhD on Polyvagal Theory
December 10, 2016

Kathy Steele, MN, CS on Structural Dissociation
February 25, 2017

Ame Cutler, PhD on Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
May 6, 2017

For more details, see our website, www.icpeast.org.Check back frequently for new information and updates.

Upcoming Events

ICP+P Connections is the e-Newsletter of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, issued at the beginning of each month.

Please e-mail articles, announcements, and artwork in JPG/PNG format to Jonathan Lebolt, PhD, DCSW, CGP (Editor) (240-507-7696) at Therapy@Doctor-Jon.com or Nancy Der, ICP+P Administrator (Managing Editor) (202-686-9300 ext.5) at administrator@icpeast.org by the 23rd of the previous month.

Past newsletters