Master Series in Clinical Practice

Co-sponsors: The Continuing Education Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Major Teaching Hospital of Harvard Medical School; Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; and William James College.

The Master Series affords the chance to spend a complete day with leaders in our field to consider the unique perspective each speaker brings to the challenging dilemmas in both theory and practice. We hope that you will consider joining us for the entire series at a reduced tuition or choose the programs most relevant to your own practice.

Martha Stark, MD, instructor

Those who have never fully confronted and grieved the pain of their early-on disappointments and losses will continue to hope (repetition compulsion, dysfunctional relational dynamics, and relentless hope).  But those whose hearts were actually shattered will give up on relationships altogether (schizoid withdrawal, the private self, and relentless despair).  In truth, we all have parts of ourselves that are inaccessible and that nobody knows.  But there are some people who were so devastated as children that they have never recovered.  They may bring themselves into treatment but remain inaccessible – it will be only “as if” they are authentically engaged.  Clinical vignettes will be offered that speak to how the therapist can access the “true self” of these profoundly despairing patients who have a desperate need to be known and understood even as they are terrified of being found.

Specific learning objectives:

• Elaborate upon the reason for the patient’s psychic retreat
• Describe what the schizoid patient may do in the treatment in order to avoid being found
• Explain the kinds of interventions that the therapist can offer in order to create a safe, reliable space for the patient to begin to dare to reveal her authentic self

Program Code: MS93

6 CE/CME Credits

Location: William James College, Newton

Martha Stark, MD, Faculty, Harvard Medical School; Adjunct Faculty, William James College and Smith College School for Social Work; and Former Faculty, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis.  Author: Working with Resistance; A Primer on Working with Resistance; Modes of Therapeutic Action; The Transformative Power of Optimal Stress; and Psychotherapeutic Moments.  She is Co-Director (with Andrea Celenza, PhD) of The Center for Psychoanalytic Studies.