Good Stuff: Courage, Gratitude, Generosity, Forgiveness

Online - April 3 - May 1, 2015

This course will be offered as a month-long online series of four one-hour video recorded lectures and corresponding readings available to the student 24/7. In additions, the course includes faculty facilitated email threaded discussions and a final one-hour webinar. This training model will allow students to participate from any location for enriching and stimulating study with senior faculty. The first session will focus on courage, second on generosity, the third on gratitude, and the fourth on forgiveness. In each of these sessions, developmental origins of the respective capacities as well as their psychopathologic variants will be discussed. Illustrative vignettes from daily life, culture at large, and clinical work will be presented in all four sessions. While developmental and psychopathological concerns will be raised, the emphasis will remain upon the application of these insights to conducting psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

Learning objectives:

1) Differentiate between fearlessness, courage, and counterphobia

2) Enumerate the pathological syndromes of generosity

3) List the pathological syndromes of gratitude

4) Demonstrate how to empathize better with patients having difficulty with forgiveness

5) Employ the forgoing insights to improve clinical skills

PPP15-2 | 18 CE Credits | $450

Salman Akhtar, M.D., is a Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College, and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and Psychoanalytic Quarterly. He is currently the Book Review Editor of the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. His nearly 300 scientific publications include 16 solo-authored books, Broken Structures (1992), Quest for Answers (1995), Inner Torment (1999), Immigration and Identity (1999), New Clinical Realms (2003), Objects of Our Desire (2005), The Damaged Core (2009), Turning Points in Dynamic Psychotherapy (2009), The Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2009), Immigration and Acculturation (2011), Matters of Life and Death (2011), The Book of Emotions (2012), Psychoanalytic Listening (2013), Good Stuff (2013), and Sources of Suffering (2014). Dr. Akhtar is, most recently, the recipient of the prestigious Sigourney Award (2013).