CPPNJ Newsletter
Fall 2022
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DIRECTOR'S COLUMN:
Meryl Dorf, PhD
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Though I don’t know where the summer went, autumn is here! Cool air, and colorful foliage have brought “cool” courses to the Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Programs. Feedback so far, is good! Classes are up and running, and registration for Spring is just around the corner
For those of you who attended the Welcome Back Brunch, back in our “HOME” at the Maplewood Community Center, it felt like a Kumbaya moment. While some were unable to attend in person for various reasons (out of town, COVID concerns, conflicts in schedule, etc.) we had a good hybrid turnout. This was accomplished using our recent donations to the “CPPNJ Moves Forward” fund. We hired a tech support company to set up speakers, microphones, a projector, and screen which allowed us to have a more state of the art, interactive, hybrid format which allowed those of you who attended to collaborate with others who participated on ZOOM. We will continue to work on more improvements to achieve an even more seamless and professional experience.
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Thank you to all who have generously contributed to our technology initiative. Keep those donations coming as “it takes a village“…and $$$ to accomplish this! Donate here to CPPNJ Moves Forward or at the bottom of the Home Page of the CPPNJ website www.cppnj.org. No donation is too big or too small.
Several proposed changes to the Curriculum were presented by Dr. Janet Hoffer, our Director of Training. The Curriculum Committee is focused on maintaining the highest caliber of training to stay current and competitive within the psychoanalytic community of NJ, and nationally. Periodic reviews allow us to address new issues and challenges that arise. More discussions on the proposed changes will follow, and we welcome input from the greater Faculty and Candidates Organization.
Karyn Reader reports that the Psychotherapy Center is in good shape. We get calls for referrals and need Faculty and Candidates to consider taking on the treatment. Candidates in need of control cases should be in touch for opportunities to fulfill this requirement through the P.C. referrals.
Our new Treasurer, Ozzie Haller has been hard at work evaluating the financial status of our organization. Among other things, she is conducting a much-needed review of the adequacy of our insurance risk and adjusting the coverages that we purchase so it is comprehensive, but not excessive. Much appreciation goes to Dr. Haller for all her work!
Alexandra Granville, Chair of the Programming Committee shared the upcoming lineup.
- Dec. 11, 2022, we are excited to host Dr. Jack Drescher who will be presenting, “Ethical Issues in Treating LGBTQ Patients”, and “Controversies in Treating Transgender Children and Adolescents.” This will be our first in-person/live streaming event from Lenfell Hall at FDU since before the Covid Pandemic.
- April 16 ,2023, Wendy Miller, PhD will be joining us for her presentation, “Working With Out of Control Sexual Behavior: Theory and Technique with Individuals and Couples.”
As part of our interest in lifelong professional learning, our Dean of Faculty, Debbie Liner has planned an exciting presentation through our Faculty Enhancement Program. On Feb.5, 2023 Jeri Isaacson, PhD will present a case with Dhwani Shah, MD as discussant, moderated by our own Debbie Liner, PhD entitled, “Where Culture Meets the Visceral: The Intersection of the Female Body, Sexuality and Cultural Difference in a Long-term Analysis.”
Last, but hopefully not least… I shared that my own experience of “SAYING YES” when opportunities arose to participate in CPPNJ activities led me to the honor of becoming the Director of this wonderful organization. I was pleased by the number of people who “SAID YES” and signed up to join Committees! By involving people, we can market, expand our outreach, and make our “Home” more diverse, more comprehensive and a nourishing environment to meet our needs for growth, stimulation, support, and collegiality. By signing up, you help to open the doors to new experiences, opportunities and fulfilling relationships.
You are always welcome to contact me to offer your knowledge, expertise or plain ol’ “elbow grease” to keep the CPPNJ engine moving forward! Thank you to all those who are already doing so!
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CPPNJ Welcome Back Brunch |
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Our Psychoanalytic Heritage |
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The Primacy of Human Presence
By Eugene Gendlin, PhD
(from the Small Steps of the Therapy Process…)
“I want to start with the most important thing I have to say: the essence of meeting with another person is to be present as a living being. And that is lucky. Because if we had to be smart, or good, or mature or wise, then we
would probably be in trouble. But what matters is not that. What matters is to be a human being with another human being, to recognize the other person as a being in there…
So when I sit down with someone, I take my troubles and feelings and I put them over here on one side, close, because I might need them, I might want to go there and see something. And I take all the things that I have learned --client-centered, reflection, Focusing, Geststalt, psychoanalytic concepts and everything else ( I wish I had even more)—and I put them over here on my other side, close. Then I am just here, with my eyes, and there is this other being. If they happen to look into my eyes, they will see that I am just a shaky being. I have to tolerate that. They may not look. But if they do they will see the slightly shy, slightly withdrawing, insecure existence that I am. There I learned that that is ok. I do not need to be emotionally secure and firmly present. There are no qualifications for the kind of person I must be. What is wanted for the big therapy process, the big development process is a
person who will be present . And I have gradually become convinced that even I can be that.”
Reposted by Janice M. Peters, PhD
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CPPNJ Diversity Media/Book Club |
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Rose Oosting, PhD, Coordinator
CPPNJ has begun an informal diversity book/other media club to read/watch and discuss material of interest to CPPNJ clinicians.
The CPPNJ media/book club is not a structured peer group or interest group, per se, but a loose gathering for conversation on topics of interest to clinicians. In order to be as flexible as possible, it could be attended by Zoom, or in person, or it could be asynchronous via an App like Signal, which is well encrypted and offers chat as well as text messages. For now, we’re just meeting via Zoom, which is convenient.
This club is not for professional reading, but rather reading fiction, non-fiction, articles, movies, photography, art, anything, which is clinically pertinent (eg, racism as it is experienced in the United States, issues regarding the LGBTQI+ community, trauma, world events as they affect mental health, climate change as it is affecting mental health, and more). We can look at the material on our own and then gather to discuss. Monthly? Bi-monthly? Quarterly?
In our first meeting, we read Ben Raines, The Last Slave Ship.
For our second meeting, scheduled for Sunday, October 16 at 7PM, we agreed that we would watch a docuseries: Exterminate All the Brutes, by Raoul Peck. It is available, or was, on HBO Max, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. It can also be purchased on Amazon Prime.
Here is the description:
Exterminate All the Brutes, from acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro, HBO’s Sometimes in April), is a four-part hybrid docuseries that provides a visually arresting journey through time, into the darkest hours of humanity. Through his personal voyage, Peck deconstructs the making and masking of history, digging deep into the exploitative and genocidal aspects of European colonialism — from America to Africa and its impact on society today.
No one need actually watch or read to join the group; all are welcome to join in the meeting and discussion regardless. Suggestions for further experiences are welcome.
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Jack Drescher, MD Presents
Ethical Issues in Treating LGBTQ Patients and Controversies in Treating Transgender Children and Adolescents
Lenfell Hall, FDU Florham Park Campus
Madison, NJ
and via Zoom
December 11, 2022
9:00am-12:30pm
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Mirel and I are pleased to announce that this is the first Newsletter that contains two Book Reviews from our CPPNJ Community: A Faculty Member and a Candidate.
They are very diverse. We hope you will consider making your own contribution. Marion
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Feminine Law: Freud, Free Speech and the Voice of Desire
By Jill Gentile, PhD
Book Review by Harlene Goldschmidt, PhD
Feminine Law, by psychoanalyst Jill Gentile (2016) contemplates “how psychoanalysis illuminates democratic empowerment.” Published just prior to the Trump administration and it’s ongoing, disruptive aftermath, Feminine Law has become increasingly relevant to the transformative power of spoken words, truth telling and the health (and lack of health) of our democratic society. There is a balance of optimism and realism inherent in the writing. The focus is on free speech and personal agency, and how these required practices cultivate and sustain our participation in both the American experiment and psychoanalytic exploration. The aim of limiting oppression to freedom rites is akin to lifting repression from individuals’ psychological life. Ultimately, we become more open to invigorating intersubjective realms that embody multiple desires.
Gentile invites the reader to journey through her “odyssey”, reminding us that revealing the truth, in this case the truth of Feminine Law, takes time and thought. “What begins almost inaudibly will grow in intensity”. We learn how the embodied expression of Feminine Law releases vital energies to fuel psychoanalytic and democratic pursuits. These endeavors both rely upon and help generate freer speech, and greater access to personal desire. The book shows the power, challenges, limitations of free speech. Challenges that include the dynamics of transference. By readdressing a fundamental, theoretical problem, Gentile disrupts Freud’s view of gender as binary and Phallic centered. Feminine Law moves us away from the polarized “to have or have not.. where the vagina is interpreted as the missing penis.” Instead, Gentile strives to recalibrate this hierarchical binary by giving equal expression to the Vaginal. Rather than stifling desire by closing this symbolic “gap”, we allow psychic, interpersonal and intersubjective expansion for a fuller flow of enlivened associations.
Psychoanalysts and America’s political legacy strive to allow more room, more open space, to honor all voices and desires. Sustaining these open spaces requires relative safety and a tolerance for the unknown and even the strange and unfamiliar. These fundamental spaces are governed by Feminine Law, a phenomenon that Gentile’s writing gives access to. Leaning into the work of Benjamin and Winnicott, we are asked to find more resonance with our own and others essential states of being while softening into expansion and greater containment. Surrendering to an intersubjective space, a third, from which to emerge more whole, and expansively dynamically connected. Feminine Law provides more ways to appreciate, navigate, symbolize and name these in-between spaces. An important and central example of this engagement is naming female genitalia and thereby generating and yielding to significant psychic space. These spaces, full of metaphoric and experiential vibrancy, allow for more meaningful psychoanalytic reflection. We become immersed in the creative nature of human desire, Eros. The basis of American democracy, it is eloquently argued, flows from these organic and at times over-powering desires.
Gentile discusses the history of privileging the phallus particularly the “symbolic role in our imaginative and sexual development.” Suppression, avoidance and lack may be at least partially overcome with intimate and vitalized dialogues emerging from the potentiality of restricted spaces. Here we discover more open terrain for enlivening, unusual, and influential encounters. That humans are symbol makers, there is greater capacity having more of the female experience represented and symbolized. Therefore, “she gains status in the symbolic realm of shared discourse.” By bravely including the female body, Feminine Law illuminates the potential for greater integration of mind and body consciousness. To illustrate, Gentile includes Winnicott’s (1970) writing, “ pure, distilled uncontaminated female elements leads us into Being, and this forms the only basis for self-discovery and a sense of existing. ..” (1)
Gentile’s writing engages the reader on multiple levels. Sensorium and intuition, as well as core conceptual perspectives alert the reader, and generate a deeper and fuller understanding of subjective freedom. Gentile’s knowledge and nuanced writing embraces Lacan’s reimagining of unconscious life. Like Bollas’ “unthought known” Gentile wants to generate a shared understanding of Feminine Law as guiding us deeper into our personal truths. These pure experiences emerge initially unsymbolized. Paradoxically surrendering to this space allows for the possibility and creation of new symbols and emergent meaning, perhaps strange and uncanny. We play, even as adults, within the realm of Winnicott’s transitional phenomena. Invaluable spaces for healing, growth and creativity to occur. Likely the stuff that dreams are made of. Gentile keeps us company floating and mingling between hard to discern psychic places and spaces where we meet, miss and hopefully re-discover our patients as they re-discover and recreate themselves.
The evolution of psychoanalysis is astutely presented moving from a one- person psychology into interpersonal, relational and intersubjective realms. Gentile retells the story of Freud working with women labeled with hysterical symptoms. Her telling is even- handed showing us the innovations and limitations of Freud identifying the role of unconscious processes and looking into mind/body connections. While Freud established the “fundamental rule” to see the mind most completely, Gentile highlights the healing power of free association and free speech. The utility of free association is placed within the context of attachment theory. Through the “magic” of language we may connect to others and to our most basic truths and power. At the same time, we release fantasied control over the desired others as our personal agency and self-knowledge increase. This conceptual development is shown in the democratizing of the therapeutic alliance. Relative mutuality and mutual recognition become part and parcel of the healing exchanges.
Feminine Law gives expression and clarity to pain that has been generated through the embodiment of lack of agency. Though the book was published before a recent supreme court decision that fails to protect reproductive healthcare rights, Gentile’s writing provides needed articulation and empowerment. While the court’s devastating ruling attempts to further suppress women’s desire, voice and agency; women’s collective political voice, along with male allies, works towards mitigating the internalization of learned helplessness on the path to reclaim political power. Free speech and free association are “the pathway by which we question and deconstruct the tyranny of imposed meaning in favor of expressive freedom.” Gentile writes thoughtfully of how women want to have their desires, and have their desires known, erotically, creatively and the freedom to communicate openly and influentially within society. This realization gives all people greater capacity to become more fully conscious human beings, and participate more creatively within our collective.
Free speech and freedom of assembly as political developments are covered abundantly in the text. Gentile provides powerful narratives following from the American Revolution and Declaration of Independence to writing the United States Constitution with our Bill of Rights. She illustrates this monumental process over two centuries though our courts, media and society with important parallels and comparisons to psychoanalysis. Much has transpired in our political environment since the publication of Feminine Law. One recent event encapsulates the ongoing, seemingly intractable, extreme divisive tensions in our country. Current President Biden gave a speech in Philadelphia outside Independence Hall where these historical documents were debated, crafted, and signed into law at the birth of our nation. Biden was asking that the guard rails of our “We the People” democratic process be honored, and not allow for political violence to circumvent this time -honored form of government. In the background, MAGA protesters could be heard as part of the ongoing dissent claiming alleged election fraud. Here Gentile’s chapters on “Hate speech, survival, love” and “Enshrined ambiguity: drawing lines between speech and action,” give us good pause for thought, collective discussions, and re-imaginings for our societal engagement.
Also included are valuable and intriguing historical contexts on the origins and development of American representational government. From early Greek history we see democratic aspirations where personal expression is considered vital to “help preserve the political discourse and to create space for dissent.” For example, the Greek word parrhesia, translates to “speak everything.” This virtue embodied boldness, daring, speaking truth to power in the public domain. Speech of this type was encouraged and characterized good citizenship. Truth telling was a responsibility of the individual and the collective. Feminine Law discusses the danger of the spatial collapse that prevents public dialectical engagement, and spatial collapse that may pervade psychoanalytic sessions. Ideally, the ability to surrender, yield to the mind of another is counter- balanced with the trust that our minds will be taken- in and better known to others.
There is much to be gained reading Feminine Law. As psychoanalysts, Gentile challenges us to go further into various, other worldly, paradoxical, expansive realms of the unconscious. A space that I found absorbing is feminine jouissance, mystical ecstasy. Gentile explains that while we may sacrifice this form of satisfaction entering into the symbolic realm of speech, we rediscover “that jouissance in speech.” Many of Gentile’s discussions include the study of language, words and symbols to increase our understanding of important and complex concepts. It’s hard to do justice to all that is offered in this limited book review. It’s easier to imagine Feminine Law being used to teach a semester course with all the wisdom, knowledge, history and experience that is synthesized throughout.
In the end, there is certainly value in thoroughly considering how psychoanalytic thinking and psychoanalysts are uniquely qualified in discussing and shedding light onto the difficult issues and politically treacherous situations of our times. The work of psychoanalysis goes a long way in supporting the great promise of freedom and inclusive equality. Feminine Law breathes new life into hidden spaces that may better hold the turbulent creative ferment that characterizes our unconscious lives as well as our fractured society. This highly engaging book signals ways of keeping faith for unknown and unnamed openings to a future we may wish to embody.
(1) Winnicott, D.W. (1970) Creativity and its origins. In Playing and Reality.
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“What My Bones Know”
By Stephanie Foo
Book Review By Li Faustino, PhD
“What My Bones Know” was recommended to me by a colleague in a supervision group in response to my request for summer reading. It is a memoir of healing from Complex Trauma, not written by a psychologist or social worker, but by a journalist. Lighter reading than Winnicott and Kohut, but still sharp enough to keep me engaged, this might be one of the few memoirs that, as a psychologist, was not a frustration to read. Further, and this is not a complete spoiler alert, we might want to consider hiring the author as our marketing director (I’m only half kidding) because in the end, she makes a case for contemporary relational psychoanalytic approaches that just might appeal to the masses and perhaps, more importantly, to clinicians in the field who struggle to work with patients with Complex-PTSD (C-PTSD), but have not yet learned the value of contemporary analytic work.
Stephanie Foo writes in a beautifully honest and informed manner. Her story is intense, her writing is authentic, and she forewarns the reader that she will take us along on her journey of trauma and healing, though not without purpose. She manages to do this in a magnificent, very genuine, and humorous way. As a journalist, she is impressively competent at research and says very little without citation and background regarding everything from Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction techniques to CBT, DBT and EMDR . In fact, she shows in the book how she literally tries every treatment possible for her trauma until she finally experiences a clinician who makes the valuable connection for her between the “complex” in C-PTSD and “relational trauma”. I won’t give away too much, but this might be the first time I have seen a lay person capture the essence of change and healing occurring in the therapy process, rather than conveying a prescribed and superficial technique or treatment. She shows that she understands treatment of relationship trauma as a unique construction between therapist and patient, both with their own histories. Stephanie Foo is able to attend to the moments as they unfold in the therapy (or after they happen) and trusts that this will lead to her own transformation. Notably, she does not oversell this type of work. She describes very clearly that it is a slow and incomplete change she experiences during the time of the writing of the book.
My only complaints are that the way this author comes upon her treatment and the way it is carried out are both unusual, if not unorthodox. However, the writer’s take home point is clear. After she has tried everything, it is and was the relational analytic approach that started her true healing. I think the book has the potential to do more good than harm for our field. In a fashion that functions much like a peer support group, speaking as a sufferer and not as a doctor, the author identifies and describes her trauma, and this book could have the positive effect of sending more people with C-PTSD looking for relational analysts. I would hope so.
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Wendy Miller, PhD Presents
Working with Out of Control Sexual Behavior: Theory and Technique with Individuals and Couples
Lenfell Hall, FDU Florham Park Campus
Madison, NJ
and via Zoom
April 16, 2023
9:00am-12:30pm
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Faculty Adancement Program
Jeri Isaacson, PhD, Dhwani Shah, MD and Deborah Liner, PhD present
Where the Culture Meets the Visceral:
The Intersection of the Female Body, Sexuality and Cultural Differences in a Long-term Analysis
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Hartman Lounge, FDU Florham Park Campus
Madison, NJ
and via Zoom
February 5, 2023
9:00am-11:00am
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Graduation and End of Year Celebration
Sunday, June 11, 2023
12:00pm-4:00pm
Venue TBD
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Member Presentations and Publications |
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Harlene Goldschmidt, PhD
April 1, 2022 she gave a virtual talk to the Chinese American Psychoanalytic Alliance addressing American and Chinese therapists and psychoanalysts. She also wrote a paper for the talk titled, The Heart of the Analyst: Comparing Healing Methods from Traditional Chinese Medicine. Subtitled Qi Gong and Psychoanalysis through the Lens of Neuroscience.
Cheryl Nifoussi, LCSW
The Colorado Independent Publishers Association and the CIPA Education and Literacy Foundation honored Cheryl Nifoussi’s book, Feelings Are Friends; Teaching Kids Compassion, Problem Solving & Decision Making with a Silver Award in the category of Parenting and Family Life.
The book was written for the the late Dr. Kenneth Issacs, a psychoanalyst and founding member of Division 39 of the APA. The book is a distillation of Dr. Isaacs’ work on affect theory and illustrates in a family friendly way the use of emotion in every day decision-making and problem-solving.
Stanley Teitelbaum, PhD
In connection with his book, Smart Money: A Psychologist's Guide to Overcoming Self-Defeating Patterns in Stock Market Investing, Stanley has recently been interviewed by Barron's, has had multiple podcast interviews, and has made presentations at the East Hampton, N.Y. and Amagansett, N.Y. libraries.
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Newsletter Editorial Staff
Co-Editor Marion Houghton, EdS, LMFT
Co-Editor Mirel Goldstein, MS, MA, LPC
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Request for Contributions to our CPPNJ Newsletter
To our CPPNJ Newsletter readers: Marion and Mirel invite you to share your current interests and recommendations for worthwhile topics in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and related subject areas by submitting book reviews to be published in future newsletters. To participate, send your recommendation to Mirel Goldstein mirelgoldstein@gmail.com or Marion Houghton marion427@verizon.net. Thank you.
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CPPNJ is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational institute
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