Houston Psychoanalytic Society
Meet the Author Presentation
Potential Space and Organizational Trauma
M. Gerard Fromm, PhD
Author of
Traveling Through Time: How Trauma Plays Itself Out
in Families, Organizations and Society (2022, Phoenix)
Thursday, November 30, 2023
7:30PM – 9:00PM Central Time

Live via Zoom
*Pre-Registration required for Zoom invitation
This event will not be recorded

1.5 CME/CEU/CE Credits

Registration Fees
HPS Full Members: $25
HPS Student Members: $15
Non-Members: $30

Instructional Level: Intermediate
In January, 2002, an annual Group Relations Conference was held as it had been for many years, and one of its large-group events began ordinarily enough. But, four months after 9/11, members could not stay in the room to do the work of that session. Even though the recent disaster was never mentioned, the group acted as though the public space had become “Ground Zero”, and they fled to their small groups. The “potential space”, the space for play, for a vitalizing sense that something could happen instantly became an unconscious certainty that disaster would happen. The seven or so people left in what felt like the debris spontaneously decided to study the effects of 9/11 on the conference - clearly taking up a piece of work on behalf of everyone: the work of studying how trauma had collapsed potential space. This presentation will examine this question through three case examples.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After attending the program in its entirety, attendees will be able to:
  1. Describe the value of potential space to organizational functioning.
  2. Describe the effects of trauma on organizational functioning.
  3. Describe methods of accessing traumatic experience within organizations.
Presenter
M. Gerard (Jerry) Fromm, PhD, is a Fellow of the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis and a Distinguished Faculty member and former Director of the Erikson Institute of the Austen Riggs Center. He has taught at and consulted to various educational and health organizations across the US, including several psychoanalytic institutes. He is a past president of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations and the Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems, and the current President of the International Dialogue Initiative, an interdisciplinary group that studies the psychology of societal conflict. His books include Lost in Transmission: Studies of Trauma across Generations; A Spirit That Impels: Play, Creativity and Psychoanalysis; Taking the Transference, Reaching toward Dreams: Clinical Studies in the Intermediate Area; and most recently Traveling through Time: How Trauma Plays Itself out in Families, Organizations and Society. With Vamik Volkan and Regine Scholz, his edited volume, We Don’t Speak of Fear: Large Group Identity, Societal Conflict and Collective Trauma will be published by Phoenix Publishing House in March, 2023.

REFERENCES
1) Burka, J., Sowa, A., Baer, B., Brandes, C., Gallop, J., Karp-Lewis, S.,Leavitt, J., and Rosbrow, P. (2019). From the talking cure to the disease of silence: Effects of ethical violations in a psychoanalytic institute. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 100(2): 247-271.
2) Fromm, M.G. (2022). Traveling through time: How trauma plays itself out in families, organizations and society. Bicester: Phoenix Publishing House.
3) Shapiro, E. (2020). Finding a place to stand: Developing self-reflective institutions, leaders and citizens. Bicester: Phoenix Publishing House.

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This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and Houston Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.

-Updated July 2021-
Houston Psychoanalytic Society is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Houston Psychoanalytic Society maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

HPS, through co-sponsorship with the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, also offers approved CEUs for Texas state-approved social workers, licensed professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists.
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