Past Conferences and Programs2018-12-15T20:14:13-05:00

From Reactivity to Empowerment in Couple Therapy: An Integrative Relational-Neurobiological Approach ~ Mar 26, 2023

This conference explores ways to identify and diagram the couple’s dance using the Vulnerability Cycle Diagram first described by Mona Fishbane and Michele Scheinkman in 2004. Dr. Fishbane’s approach enhances partners’ relational empowerment, including self-regulation, choice, living according to one’s higher goals and values, and reaching for one’s “best self.” Dr. Constance Cannon will be presenting a middle-aged, heterosexual couple. She and Dr. Fishbane will discuss how the concepts presented can be applied to the clinical case material.

The Golden Allure of Celebrity: Reflections by a Psychoanalyst/Musician about Boundary Crossing in Psychoanalysis and Music ~ Dec 3, 2022

Dr. Nagel will explore how the allure of celebrity in music may provide fertile ground for sexual, erotic, and romantic boundary crossings in the teacher and student dyad. The same dynamic may occur in other dyads in which there is a power differential, such as therapist and patient or supervisor and supervisee. The psychological and institutional fallout from such boundary crossings is powerful, shameful, and harmful to everyone involved.

Relational Perspectives Institute II: Expansion, Challenge & Opportunity ~ 2021 – 2022

The Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (ICP+P), created a series of conferences, the Relational Perspective Institute (RPI) over four weekends in 2009-2010. This project was inspired by the recognition of a fundamental paradigm shift in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy from Freud’s drive structure theories and toward a set of perspectives that place human relationships and relational needs at the center of psychoanalytic theory and practice. In the original RPI, the foundations of relational theory and practice were described by five luminary thinkers from the relational field.

Undercurrents: Historical Trauma and Transgenerational Transmission with Jill Salberg, PhD, ABPP ~ May 15, 2021

At this time of historical, cultural, social and political upheaval, many of us are processing and incorporating the impact of external events on our clients and their families into our work. Historical as well as personal trauma often adversely impact our clients’ families and cast shadows on their internal and interpersonal development. As psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, we are broadening our lens beyond the intrapsychic and interpersonal to include the historical and transgenerational. In considering the appearance and impact of intergenerational transmissions of trauma, Dr. Salberg examines the dissociative states of mind that cross from parents to their children.

A Conversation with Joe Lichtenberg, MD ~ January 13, 2021

Joe Lichtenberg would like to share his new psychoanalytic perspectives with the ICP+P community. As a co-founder of ICP+P, he has powerfully contributed to psychoanalysis in multiple ways. First and foremost, he is a leader in applying findings from infant and attachment research to psychoanalytic thinking and practice in a systematic way. His scholarship in these areas led to his ground-breaking development of Motivation Systems Theory with its vast developmental and clinical implications. Joe continues to develop his ideas and has a new book, An Experienced Base Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory & Practice which will be published in the coming months.

Wounded Healers and Suffering Strangers: Navigating Ethical Dilemmas Together ~ Dec 5, 2020

Socio-cultural-political and environmental forces in the 21st century have converged to generate complex ethical dilemmas for the practice of psychotherapy. In 2020 the traumatic stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, cascading economic vulnerabilities, systemic inequities impacting marginalized communities, racial injustice, and polarization in American politics is expressed in our consulting spaces through dissociated silence, cautious whispers, aching grief, and rageful torment. Neither therapist nor client is immune from these stressors causing injury—moral, psychic, relational, and physical.

Somatic and Experiential Techniques in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with Amy Gladstone, LCSW, PhD ~ Sep 26, 2020

Many current models of clinical practice emphasize the role of direct experience in therapeutic action. Through the work of Alan Schore and others, clinicians understand the importance of evoking right brain, present moment processes in long term psychotherapy. But easier said than done when our patients compartmentalize and dissociate! What’s a clinician to do? Well, the body contains the roots of past experience in present time and it can provide both an access route to dissociated material as well as a means of regulating affect.

Clinical Demands in the Presence of Pandemic and Teletherapy with Adrienne Harris, PhD ~ May 2, 2020

The terrifying and life-altering presence of this pandemic changed plans both personal and professional. We work and live differently and now we must begin to think and speak together differently. This online conference replaces a talk intended as an exploration of gender, sexuality and subjectivity from a relational and socio-political perspective. In her work, Dr. Harris is particularly drawn to investigating these aspects of subjectivity as sites for misogyny, for envy and hatred. The assault of COVID-19 on the world, however, requires that we instead turn our attention to the current demands and tasks of clinical practice in the context of the pandemic. In this conference, Dr. Harris will present an integration of thinking about our subjectivity, about our histories of trauma and early experience and about the clinical dilemmas and strengths of our current practices.

Clinical Reflections Conference ~ February 22, 2020

Please join your friends and fellow ICP+P members to hear them share their scholarly, creative and clinical work with the community. This year we’re proud to present speakers with cutting edge work. Shoshana Ringel will share her work with a patient suffering with relational trauma using telehealth as the main modality. Dana Harron will share her experience of writing and publishing a book about eating disorders. Martha Gibbons will present a moving portrayal of her internal process in the face of a loved one’s journey into end of life. Each session will have a Q & A period allowing for a collaborative process and community engagement.

Engaging Diversity through the Therapist’s Being Moved: Radical Openness and the Patient Who is ‘Other’ ~ 3 Diversity CEs ~ Dec 7, 2019

Every psychotherapist has had the experience of being seen, by the people whom we are trying to help, in ways that are different from how we see ourselves. Therapeutic dialogues across the borders of diversity can intensify this dynamic. It can be extremely difficult, for example, to have the subjective experience of feeling dedicated and engaged but, in contrast, be experienced by the person we are working with as detached. Or, similarly, ...

The Evolving Landscape of Gender and Sexuality: Clinical Implications Conference ~ 3 LGBTQ/Diversity CEs ~ Sept 28, 2019

Dr. Blechner will discuss gender and sexual fluidity, and how attitudes and social norms about sexuality and gender identification have changed over the last 50 years. In his clinically focused presentation, Dr. Blechner will address how this has led to changes in psychotherapeutic aims and practices, and he will outline countertransference dilemmas and ways that clinicians can use them productively.

Pre-Conference-Understanding Homophobia in our Forefathers: Rethinking How Kohut Actually Worked ~ 2 LGBTQ/Diversity CEs ~ Sept 27, 2019

In this pre-conference, Dr. Sandmeyer will present her Ralph Roughton award winning paper, “Understanding Homophobia in our Forefathers: Rethinking How Kohut Actually Worked.” In this presentation, we will consider Kohut’s perspective on homosexuality, as well as grapple with ethical considerations in addressing the history of homophobia in psychoanalysis.

25th Annual Conference: Needed Relationships, The Forward Edge, and the Transformation of Traumatized States ~ May 4, 2019

Dr. Stern will present his richly integrative clinical approach organized around the principle of co-creating needed relationships uniquely with each of our patients. He will begin with an overview of the major elements of his model, interspersing theory with illustrative clinical material. He will then present an extended clinical example — a challenging case in which the nature of what was needed only emerged over a long period of time.

Attackments: Subjugation, Shame, and the Attachment to Painful Affects & Objects ~ January 26, 2019

Sometimes a patient vacillates between angry attacks on the therapeutic relationship and tenacious attachment to it. As a participant in the relationship, the therapist will inevitably also experience difficult feelings. The clinical atmosphere can be so poisoned by such extremes of push and pull between the participants that it can cause emotional exhaustion, shame and fear of humiliation, intolerable loss, intense dislike, disgust, and contempt.

Annual Conference~First Meetings in Therapy: Poetics and Pragmatics on May 5, 2018

Eric Mendelsohn will illuminate the power of first meetings by describing the emerging themes, experiential elements, and pragmatics of beginning treatment. He will examine how patients and psychoanalytic therapists think and feel about beginning therapy, focusing on the hopes and dreads of each, and will explore how these are reflected in the exchanges that mark the start of psychoanalytic therapy. Dr. Mendelsohn will articulate the relational practices that hold and shape the ensuing work -- such as how to structure first meetings to facilitate the start of a collaborative process.

Relational Ethics in Contemporary Psychoanalytic Practice: Doing the ‘Right’ Thing on Feb. 3, 2018

In psychoanalytically informed practice, we tend to avoid ethical and moral judgments except when rules of professional conduct are threatened or breached This insures a neutral zone within the consulting room best for deep and non-judgmental exploration. In the meantime, there has been a post-modem philosophical shift in relation to thinking about ethics. This shift, referred to as relational ethics, broadens and deepens the definition of ethics.

The Love That Dare Not Speak its Name – On the Therapeutic Action and the Limitations of Romance and Desire in Psychotherapy + Psychoanalysis on Dec. 9, 2017

This presentation will address an historical and current-day taboo; the loving, romantic, and erotic feelings that often arise on both sides of the couch, but seldom get discussed in the literature. Particular attention will be paid to the impact of absent, violent, or otherwise unavailable fathers on their heterosexual sons and the resulting longing for male attention, admiration, and love, which often includes a need to be admired physically and romantically in ways their fathers could not provide.

And more…


Institutes

Embodying the Unspoken Self: Attachment, Trauma, Neurobiology and the Body
September 2016- May 2017
Self Psychology Institute
September 2011 – April 2012
Relational Perspectives Institute
October 2009 – May 2010

Conferences, short courses, and seminars

  • 2017 Scientific Day
    Elizabeth M. Carr, APRN, MSN, BC, Thomas Hoffman, MD, and Jeffrey Jay, PhD
    January 28, 2017
  • Developmental Psychotherapy Across the Lifespan: Integrating Child-Centered Therapy Principles to Treating Adults with Dysregulation
    Georgia DeGangi, PhD and Marc Nemiroff, PhD
    November 5, 2016
  • Connectedness: Intimate Moments of Therapeutic Growth
    Richard Geist, EdD
    April 16, 2016
  • ICP+P Experiential Couples Conference ~ Beyond Betrayal: Couples Therapy After The Affair
    ICP+P Couples Therapy Staff & Graduates
    February 27, 2016
  • Authenticity, Openness, and Spontaneity: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic View of Adolescent Development and Treatment
    Shelley Doctors, PhD and Jackie Gotthold, PsyD
    December 5, 2015
  • The Big Tent of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Thinking: Playing with Intersubjective, Self and Relational Constructs
    Shelley Doctors, PhD, Jackie Gotthold, PsyD, Janna Sandmeyer, PhD
    December 4, 2015
  • Cultural Issues and Relational Practice: Racial and Sexual Minorities
    Jonathan Lebolt, PhD, DCSW, CGP and Yan Ni, PsyM
    October 4, 2015
  • ICP+P Conference to Celebrate Joe Lichtenberg’s 90th Birthday
    September 12, 2015
  • 2015 Annual Conference: The Many Faces of Eros: Countertransference Revelations with Andrea Celenza, PhD
    May 2, 2015
  • Expanding Self and Relational Capacities: Psychoanalysis as a Developmental Process
    Saturday, February 28, 2015
  • The 3rd Bruce Wine Memorial Conference: A Dramatic Reading and Discussion of the Great God Pan
    Saturday, December 6, 2014
  • Risk Assessment and Management
    October 11, 2014
  • 20th Annual Conference
    A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy with Philip Ringstrom, PhD
    May 17, 2014
  • Pre-conference workshop for the Annual Conference
    Empathy Actualized: Attunement to Two Vulnerable Individuals in Couples Therapy
    May 16, 2014
  • Scientific Day 2014
    Saturday, February 1, 2014
  • How We Make a Difference in Patients’ Lives
    with Sandra Buechler, PhD
    Saturday, December 7, 2013
  • A Developmentalist Perspective on the First Year of Life and Applications to Therapy
    with Joseph Lichtenberg, MD
    September 28, 2013
  • 19th Annual Conference
    Psychotherapy Contextualized: Culture, Reality, Self & Other
    with Kimberlyn Leary, PhD and Usha Tummala-Narra, PhD
    May 4, 2013
  • Psychopharmacological Treatment of Mood and Anxiety Disorders
    Short Course with Allan Melmed, MD
    Friday, April 19, 2013
  • Transcendence: A Contemporary View of Therapeutic Change
    Frank Summers, PhD
    Saturday, February 9, 2013
  • Psychoanalysis of a War Torn Soldier
    with Russell B. Carr, MD and Doris Brothers, PhD
    Saturday, December 8, 2012
  •  The Role of Play in All Things Human:  The Bruce Wine Conference
    October 14, 2012
  • 18th Annual Conference: The Clinical Challenge and How We Meet It: Conceptual Guidelines for What We Say and What We Do
    April 28, 2012
  • The Legacy of Early Development
    March 16 and March 17, 2012
  • Scientific Day 2012
    March 3, 2012
  • Engagement and Development Enactment
    with Donna Orange, PhD
    February 4, 2012
  • Clinical Applications of the Integrated Model: Maladaptive Self-Soothing Behaviors
    December 16, 2011
  • After the Affair: From Trauma to Reconnection
    December 10, 2011
  • Clinical Applications of the Integrated Model: Trauma
    December 2, 2011
  • The Integrated Model and How to Use it to Promote Healing
    November 18, 2011
  • Mindfulness and Psychotherapy
    November 4, 2011
  • Mind-Body Principles and Techniques
    October 28, 2011
  • The Central Concepts of Neuroscience that Relate to Psychotherapy
    October 21, 2011
  • Short Course: A Dialogue on Couples Therapy from the Perspective of Two Complementary Contemporary Theories with Mary O’Farrell, PhD and John Gualtieri, PhD
    Friday, October 14, 2011
  • An Introduction to Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, with Margo Silberstein, Ed.D
    Friday, June 10, 2011
  • The 17th Annual Conference
    The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Approach to Addictions, with Brian Johnson, MD
    Saturday, May 7, 2011
  • How the Attachment Profile of the Clinician Impacts Therapeutic Outcome: Research Findings with Diana Diamond, PhD
    Saturday, March 5,2011
  • Bruce Wine Memorial Conference: Psychoanalytic Complexity Theory: Innovations in Clinical Practice and Therapeutic Attitude
    with William Coburn, PhD
    Saturday, December 4, 2010
  • A Phenomenological-Contextualist Psychoanalytic Perspective: From Mind to World, From Drive to Affectivity, and Blues and Emotional Trauma
    with Robert D. Stolorow, PhD & Benjamin A. Stolorow
    Saturday, November 6, 2010
  • The Struggle to Develop a Viable Sexual Orientation: Clinical Stories of Working with Gay and Bi-Sexual Men
    with R. Dennis Shelby, PhD
    Saturday, October 2, 2010
  • 16th Annual Conference – Countertransference Dilemmas: On Knowing and Being Known
    Steven Cooper, PhD and Karen Maroda, PhD
    May 8, 2010
  • Kohut & Bowlby: The Men, Their Ideas and the Clinical Exchange with Elizabeth Carr, APRN, MSN, BC and Mauricio Cortina, MD
    Saturday, March 27, 2010
  • Short Course – Business and Organizational Consulting Using Psychoanalytic Principles with a Self Psychology Emphasis
    with Thomas Hoffman
    February 16, 2010 to March 16
  • Scientific Day 2010
    January 23, 2010
  • Short Course – An Introduction to Clinical Practice through the Lens of Relational Psychotherapy and Mind-Body Principles
    Stephen Stein, PhD and Gretchen Fair, MSW
    4 weeks beginning Sept. 16, 2009
  • Treating Chronic Illness with Self Psychology
    Adina Shapiro, LCSW
    May 15, 2009
  • 15th Annual Conference
    Capturing the Image of Mother-Infant Interaction: Links to the Clinical Encounter
    Beatrice Beebe, Ph.D.
    May 2, 2009
  • An Introduction to Psychopharmacology and an Update on Current Practice
    Allan Melmed, MD
    April 3, 2009
  • Facing the Inevitable: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Mortality
    Gary Rodin, M.D., FRCPC
    March 7, 2009
  • Sexuality and Sensuality Across the Divide of Shame
    Joseph D. Lichtenberg, MD
    December 6, 2008
  • Collaboration and Integration: Principles and Practices for Working with Groups
    Faculty from the National Group Psychotherapy Institute of the Washington School of Psychiatry
    October 4, 2008
Go to Top