Thursday, November 16th, 2020

Jacqueline Gotthold, PsyD

Peter Kaufmann, Ph.D. – Discussant

Mission Impossible: Transformation and Imagination;

An Eyes open and shut case

Transformation and ‘change’ are essential properties of any psychoanalytic endeavor. From psychoanalysts to physicists – priests to rabbis- all point to imagination as a requisite component of change and transformation. Imagination is essential for the individual and contextually by definition, for the ‘system’ as a whole to create a new ‘vision’ of experience and possibility. Is that not a requirement for us, as clinicians, the moment a patient enters our domain. Is entering a treatment process not an implicit request to’ imagine’ separately, integrated- ly, and co-figure-atively? I would argue that an integration of imagining with eyes wide open/eyes wide shut is a requirement for the therapeutic process. How do we embrace and expand our grasp and application of these ideas?
 
How do we understand the integration of imagination, a seemingly one-person field phenomena, with the co-configured treatment process? An exquisite inter- weaving of eyes wide open/eyes wide shut imagination of transformation through the application of all dimension of relational apprehension in a self and self with other regulatory system will enable an expansion of the relational processes such that with the treatment dyad change is embraced. The clinical applications of the integration of the’ imaginings’ and resultant expansion will be elucidated.          

Location:

The Theater at 244 Rehearsal Studios
244 West 54th Street
10th Floor
   

Jackie Gotthold, PsyD is a faculty member, supervisor and training analyst at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity. Additionally, she is a faculty member and supervisor for the Minnesota Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.As a member of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology (IAPSP), she serves on the International Council. Jackie is a board participant a for child and adolescent psychotherapy interests for IAPSP, IARPP and APA, Division 39, Section II. With writing interests centering on clinical theory and child/adolescent treatment, Jackie has published and given numerous presentations in the US and abroad. Jackie practices in New York City, treating children, adolescents and adults

Peter Kaufmann, PhD is faculty and supervisor at IPSS and NIP. He currently is co-director of the overall IPSS program and co-coordinator of the IPSS four -year program. Teaching such courses as “Kohut and his Critics” and “The Evolution of Psychoanalysis”, he has a particular interest in comparative psychoanalysis and in efforts to integrate the clinical approaches and sensibilities represented by different theoretical perspectives.  He also has published several papers including “The Guilt of Tragic Man”, “Working with Men Who Please Too Much”, and “On Transforming the Reparative Quest” that reflect his additional interest in the topics of mourning and pathological accommodation. Along with Jenny Kaufmann, he has written two recent papers Emerging from the Shadows of Parental Narcissism and We have Met the Enemy and It Is Us, that explore the clinical issues and process involved in working with deflated narcissistic patients.