Scientific Meeting: Property, Materiality, Proximity

1. Buy your ticket at nypsi.org. PLEASE NOTE: Ticket Registration is NOT the same as ZOOM registration.
2. At least one day prior: Complete ZOOM registration for meeting which you will receive by email from Sharon Weller. This step involves entering your name and email address. If you do not complete this, you will NOT receive link to meeting. PLEASE CHECK ALL EMAIL FOLDERS IN CASE IT GOES INTO SPAM OR OTHER FOLDER. YOU MUST COMPLETE BOTH NYPSI WEBSITE REGISTRATION AND ZOOM REGISTRATION.
3. Click on auto-generated email from Adrian Thomas (host) which contains ZOOM link  to “enter” the meeting.
4. Evaluation survey and CME/CE documentation will be emailed the day after the event.

The 1070th Scientific Program Meeting:

“Property, Materiality, Proximity – The Analytic Frame and In-Person Work”

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

8:00 – 10:00 pm (EST)

**Please note the Brenner Teaching Award will be presented to Sherwood Waldron, MD prior to the start of this meeting.**

(Note: Registration closes 12/12 at 4 PM)

Presenter: Mitchell Wilson, M.D.

Discussant: David Goldenberg, M.D.

This presentation addresses the issue of differences between in-person and remote ways of doing clinical psychotherapeutic work. In-person meeting offers psychologically usable material––signifiers which serve as day’s residue––that cannot be duplicated or substituted for in remote ways of working. Questions of materiality, the history and specificity of location, and bodily proximity all are key aspects of the psychoanalytic frame, as Bleger’s classic formulations attest. The COVID pandemic has changed the choreography of engagement between analyst and patient: the ghostly dust in the frame enters the room. As Bleger says, with ghosts so rustled, non-process has a chance to become process. Two clinical examples highlight these points about materiality and in-person working.

2 Contact Hours. 2 CME/CE credits offered. See details below.

References of Interest (optional reading):

1. Butler, D.G. (2019). Racialized bodies and the violence of the setting. Studies in Gender and Sexuality 20:3, 146-158.
2. Ehrlich, L.T. (2019). Teleanalysis: Slippery slope or rich opportunity? Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 67:249–279.
3. Wilson, M. (2013). Desire and Responsibility: The Ethics of Countertransference Experience. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 82: 435-476.

BIOGRAPHIES

Mitchell Wilson, M.D. is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Wilson has published widely on a variety of topics that cohere around a theory of ethics, desire, and the psychoanalytic process. His recent book, The Analyst’s Desire: The Ethical Foundation of Clinical Practice, is from Bloomsbury Press. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. He is in private practice and leads study groups in Berkeley, CA.

David Goldenberg, M.D. is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Manhattan. He is on the faculty at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute (NYPSI) and at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. A graduate of NYPSI’s adult program in psychoanalysis, he is an ongoing candidate in adolescent psychoanalysis. Among other publications, he is the author of several book reviews for JAPA and has given talks on technology, intimacy and digitally-assisted dating, and on the psychological effects of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis.

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:

1. Describe three elements of Bleger’s theory of the psychoanalytic frame.
2. Explain how materiality and proximity influence specific conflicts regarding bodily safety that emerge in in-person clinical work.