308: Writing Descriptions of Psychoanalytic Process III
Instructor
Jennifer Stuart, Ph.D.
November 11 – December 2, 2024
Mondays, 8:35 – 10:00 pm
Co-requisites
Candidates must have or have had at least two cases in supervised psychoanalysis to be eligible for upper level courses.
Course Description
This course builds on skills developed and practiced through two prior courses: Writing Descriptions of Psychoanalytic Process I and II. In courses I and II, candidates learned how well-chosen and richly described clinical moments can capture important features of a patient’s personality and conflicts, and of their interaction with the analyst. In this course, candidates learn to link clinical vignettes together and embed them in a context that conveys the nature of the analyst’s work with a patient over time. The class will discuss: 1) How some inevitable self-exposure on the part of the analyst-author may raise anxiety about clinical writing; 2) How this same feature of clinical writing – the irreducible, personal stamp of the author — proves useful when writing is shared with trusted readers; 3) The importance of an iterative writing process (draft; reflect and revise; share with colleagues; revise some more . . .); 4) Methods of protecting patient confidentiality. Third year students only.
Educational Objectives
1. Describe psychoanalytic clinical process in a way that brings it to life for both the author and the reader.
2. Write a complete clinical report in a format adaptable to multiple uses (e.g., annual summary; professional presentation; application for certification).
3. Discuss their own and others’ clinical writing in a way that deepens understanding of clinical process for both authors and readers.
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and his or her demonstration of understanding of the course objectives and reading material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).
These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.
READINGS ARE CONFIRMED.
CLASS 1: November 11, 2024
CLASS 2: November 18, 2024
CLASS 3: November 25, 2024
CLASS 4: December 2, 2024
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Exemplary Clinical Writing
McLaughlin, J.T. (1991). Clinical and theoretical aspects of enactment. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 39:595-614.
Ogden, T. (2005). On psychoanalytic writing. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 86(1):15-30.
Why write about clinical work with patients?
Altstein, R. (2016). Finding words: How the process and products of Psychoanalytic writing can channel the therapeutic action of the very treatment it sets out to describe. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 13 (1):51-70
Coen, S. J. (2000a). Why we need to write openly about our clinical cases. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 48:449-470.
Levin, C.B. (2020). How did it happen? Writing—A royal road to becoming/being an analyst (through the lens of complexity theory). Psychoanalytic Inquiry 40 (2):147-154.
How-to
Bernstein, S. B. (2008). Writing about the psychoanalytic process. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 28(4): 433-449.
Bernstein, S. B. (2008). Writing, re-writing and working through. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 28(4): 450-464.
The Psychoanalytic Writer’s Inner Experience of the Process
Britton, R. (1994). Publication anxiety: Conflict between communication, affiliation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 75:1213-1224.
Furman, S. G. (2006). The write of passage from candidate to analyst: The experience of writing analytic process. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 26: 682-697.
Scharff, J.S. (2000). On writing from clinical experience. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 48:421-447
Effective Clinical Writing: General Considerations
Bernstein, S.B. (1992). Guidelines: Comments on treatment report writing and describing analytic process. Journal of Clinical Psychoanalysis, 1: 469-478.
_________(1998). Writing about the psychoanalytic process. Unpublished paper presented at the December, 1998 Meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
_________(2000). Discussion of R. Michels’s “The case history.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 48: 381-391.
_________; Bornstein, M.; Palmer, J.; Rosenbaum, A.L.; & Westin, S. (Eds), (2008), The writing cure: the effects of clinical writing on the analyst and analysis. [The entire volume of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 28(4)].
Michels, R. (2000). The case history. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 48:355-375 (and the commentaries on this paper by six analysts that appear in the same volume from pages 376-416 to which Michels responds on pages 417-420).
Reiser, L. W. (2000). “The write stuff.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 48:351-354.
Preserving Confidentiality
Aron, L. (2016). Ethical considerations in psychoanalytic writing revisited. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 13 (3):267-290.
Gabbard, G., (2000). Disguise or consent: Problems and recommendations concerning the publication and presentation of clinical material. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 81:1071-1087.
Kantrowitz, J. (2004a). Writing about patients: I. Ways of protecting confidentiality and analysts’ conflicts over choice of method. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 52:69-99.
_________(2004b). Writing about patients: II. Patients’ reading about themselves and their analysts’ perceptions of its effect. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 52:101-123.
_________(2004c). Writing about patients: III. Comparisons of attitudes and practices of analysts residing outside of and within the United States. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85:3-22.
_________(2005a). Writing about patients: IV. Patients’ reactions to reading about themselves. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 53:103-129.
_________(2005b). Writing about patients: V. Analysts reading about themselves as patients. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 53:131-153.