South Bay Community for Psychoanalytic Study

3rd Friday of the month: January 20, 2017
The December meeting has been postponed

Organized by Julie Gerhardt, Ph.D. and Alison Cabell, MFT
Participants are welcome to register ahead or on-site; CE credits are available.

Time: 7:00 - 9:00 for discussion. 6:45-7:00 social time.

SBCPS is hosting a monthly reading group for interested clinicians at all levels of involvement. Meetings will be held in a private home in Palo Alto. Our intent is to gather for a close reading of key papers in the contemporary psychoanalytic literature which focus on both theory and technique as illustrated through the case material in the readings.

Reading:

• Frommer, Martin (2016). Death is Nothing at All: On Contemplating Non-Existence. A Relational Psychoanalytic Engagement of the Fear of Death. Psychoanal. Dial., 26:373-390.
• Shabad, Peter (2016). Will You Miss Me When I Am Gone? Death and Our Significance to Others: A Discussion of Frommer’s “Death Is Nothing at All”. Psychoanal. Dial., 26:391-399.
• Gerson, Sam (2016). Psychoanalytic Engagements With Death: Discussion of Martin Frommer’s “Death Is Nothing at All: On Contemplating Non-Existence” Psychoanal. Dial., 26: 400-403.
• Frommer, Martin (2016). How Shall We Talk With Our Patients About Mortality? Response to Gerson and Shabad Discussions. Psychoanal. Dial., 26:404-409.

In the lead paper in this extremely interesting/thoughtful/relevant psychoanalytic dialogue, Frommer takes up the issue of mortality from a relational perspective. According to Frommer, awareness of our mortality/death anxiety is a “defining psychic issue” which hasn’t been given its due following Freud’s refusal to acknowledge its psychic significance. According to Frommer, minds need other minds - an intersubjective engagement - to truly contemplate the loss of self through death. Note Frommer’s two clinical cases in which he initially works in a contemporary, though straightforward manner, but then has either second thoughts about his technical restraint (1st pt.) or decides to share his own subjectivity regarding death (2nd pt.). Very thoughtful reflection on his own work by Frommer and then in the commentaries by Shabad and Gerson.

Articles will be sent to registered participants

Change of Date for February: 2/24/17: Anne Alvarez Reading