Stuart Pizer
Christina Emanuel
Ruth Lijtmaer

Presentation Announcements by Stuart Pizer (USA)

•   Presentation to Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society

I gave an all-day workshop on three of my published papers for the Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society on February 7, 2015. I examined the centrality of negotiation at the heart of any clinical process.  I then explored my conception of the analyst’s generous involvement: what it is and what it is not.

•   Object Relational Strands in Relational DNA

I gave a plenary paper, Object Relational Strands in Relational DNA, at the annual conference of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP) in Toronto, Canada, on June 25, 2015. By sharing an extended narrative of clinical process, I indicated how ideas from object relations theory, among others, infuse my way of working relationally.

•   The Analyst’s Generous Involvement:
Recognition and “The Tension of Tenderness”

I will give a three-hour workshop on August 14, 2015, via Skype, on my paper, The Analyst’s Generous Involvement: Recognition and “The Tension of Tenderness” (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 24:1-13, 2014), for the Sydney, Australia local chapter of the IARPP. I define the analyst’s generous involvement as inherent to human encounter and a necessary element of therapeutic process. When the analyst’s generous involvement goes missing, it can be read as a sign of disengagement and disconnection. Using as metaphor H.S. Sullivan’s concept of the “tension of tenderness,” I argue that the analyst’s recognition of a need or affect state in the patient evokes an internal tug constituting the analyst’s need to provide for what has been recognized. I elaborate on what the analyst’s generous involvement is, and what it is not, including countertransference pitfalls and corruptions that may masquerade as generosity. I engage a relational conversation with the radical ethical ideas of Emmanuel Levinas. And an extended clinical vignette illustrates the challenges and conflicts entailed in the analyst’s finding an analytically useful form of expressing the tug of generous involvement in the immediate moment.

Stuart A. Pizer, PhD, ABPP
152 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
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Moments of Meaning: How Ryan and Some Legos Got Me To Think Differently About Autism

Presentation by Christina Emanuel (USA)

Christina Emanuel participated in a clinical storytelling event, Moments of Meaning, in Pasadena, California this past February. A group of colleagues created this event as part of a movement to demystify and destigmatize the psychotherapeutic process by sharing engaging, meaningful clinical tales. Christina was one of six therapists who presented their work. Videos of these presentations were subsequently produced and have generated thousands of views on YouTube. In her presentation, Christina describes her work with an autistic child and his remarkable gifts to her.

Link to Christina’s presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2jvmi4uaaY

Link to the Moments of Meaning website: http://www.momentsofmeaning.org

Christina Emanuel, MFT, PsyD
16 S. Oakland Ave., Suite 201
Pasadena, CA 91101
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Presentation Announcements by Ruth Lijtmaer (USA).

•  Untold Stories and the Power of Silence in the Intergenerational Transmission of Social Trauma

International Ferenczi Conference May 7-10, 2015. Toronto, Canada.

This paper, by using a multi-generational approach, with two vignettes, explores the effects of the parent’s silence concerning gaps in family biographies on the following generations.

 •  The Analyst’s Self-regulation Challenges with
Severely Regressed Patients

American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry (AAPDP) May 14-16, 2015. Toronto. Canada

With a clinical example and deepening the concepts of non-verbal responses, this paper addresses the analyst’s ability/inability, to detect, recognize and self-regulate countertransferencial alterations in his/her bodily state that are evoked by the patient’s transferential communication.

•  Perpetrators of Human Rights Violations: An Exploration.

International Psychohistorical Association 38th  Annual IPA Convention New York University, New York, June 3-5, 2015

This paper examines the social, ideological, political motivations and child-rearing practices that influences men to act with unimaginable brutality, dehumanizing the chosen enemy, as part of a battle between good and evil, while still leading rather pedestrian lives.

Ruth M. Lijtmaer, PhD, is a senior supervisor, training analyst, and faculty member at the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey and is in private practice in Ridgewood, NJ. She frequently presents lectures and papers at both national and international levels. She is the author of several scholarly publications and book chapters concerning multicultural and religious issues, trauma, social trauma, transference-countertransference and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Ruth M. Lijtmaer, PhD
88 West Ridgewood Ave.
Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450
201-445-5552
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