In his new book, Psychoanalytic Disagreements in Context, Dr. Dale Boesky focuses on how analysts
listen to their patients. Psychoanalytic listening is not simply a passive, auditory experience. The
analyst, often unconsciously, makes rapid choices, inevitably emphasizing certain associations
and minimizing others, thereby developing inferences and assumptions from the patient’s words
to create meaning. This privileging or ignoring of associations reflects a frame of reference,
a context, that the analyst uses to build bridges between what the patient says and theory.
When the criteria by which we understand a case and make an intervention are made explicit,
the analyst is better able to evaluate the raw data. Disagreements in psychoanalysis are often
debated deductively, from the perspective of theory downward rather than inductively, from the
concrete evidence of the patient’s words upward. Identifying and articulating context can help
analysts in the critical assessment of their work and the work of their colleagues.
Dr. Boesky begins the day by presenting ideas from his book about the importance of using
explicit contextualizing criteria to improve our methods of comparative psychoanalysis and to
enable us to listen more intelligently to our patients.
After lunch (see Registration form for meal choices), Dr. Dolores Welber presents a critical moment
in an ongoing case and examines the contexts she used to understand the moment in the session
and its aftermath. Dr. Boesky has found that the most illuminating debates about clinical material
occur among analysts who adhere to the same theoretical assumptions, rather than among
analysts from different schools of thought. We have therefore invited two modern analysts, Dr.
June Bernstein and Ms Faye Newsome, to respond to Dr. Welber’s case, focusing on the contexts
they each used to understand the material.
Both morning and afternoon conference sessions conclude with an hour devoted to audience
discussion. In this way we hope participants will have the opportunity to deepen their awareness
of what constitutes intelligent listening.
 Dr. Dale Boesky is past Editor-in-Chief of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly and
has served at various times on the editorial boards of the Journal of the
American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Journal of
Psychoanalysis. He is a training and supervising analyst at The Michigan
Psychoanalytic Institute, and the author of the recently published
book, Psychoanalytic Disagreements in Context. He has published over
thirty papers in various psychoanalytic journals, and has been a frequent
panelist and lecturer at psychoanalytic conferences both nationally and
internationally. In 1995, the New York Psychoanalytic Institute awarded
him the Heinz Hartman Award for his contributions to the field.
How Do We Really Listen to Our Patients?
The unreliability of our methods for evaluating our truth claims is directly
linked to our confusion about how the analyst arrives at inferences about
unconscious meaning. Since there is no meaning without context, it is
disquieting that we have paid so little attention to our methods of
contextualizing, as though these methods could be assumed. Careful
attention to the methodology of contextualization is essential in order to
understand how the analyst arrives at inferences about the unconscious
feelings of the patient; to acknowledge how unrecognized differences in
contextualizing by various analysts are masked by “theoretical” disputes;
and to better appraise whether a clinical disagreement can or cannot be
pursued on the basis of available clinical evidence. The best way to illustrate
these issues is to use detailed clinical examples. Such examples will be the
basis for our discussion.
Lycée Français, 505 East 75th Street, NYC
Saturday. December 5th
Afternoon Case Presentation
 Dolores Welber, PhD, LP, is in private practice in New York and in
Vermont. She sits on the Board of Trustees for CMPS where she is Director
of Educational Advisement and an instructor, supervisor, and training analyst.
In 1971, with her husband Robert Welber, she founded the Studio Elementary
School, a private non-profit school for children 2-13 years
of age, in Greenwich Village, which has since relocated to New York’s
Upper West Side. It was there in 1974 that Dr. Welber created the first modern
psychoanalytic mothers’ group.
An Unexpected Turning Point in a Long Term Case. Dr. Welber addresses
specific themes as they emerged in the treatment of one analysand over a
long period of time. Questions to be answered in sequence are: What
preceded and what followed the turning point? What may evolve over
time? Within what context do we understand these developments? |
June Bernstein, PhD,
LP, is on the faculty
of CMPS, the New
York Graduate
School of
Psychoanalysis, and
the Boston Graduate
School of
Psychoanalysis,
At CMPS and BGSP,
she is a supervisor,
training analyst, and
control analyst. She
is also co-editor of
the journal Modern
Psychoanalysis to which
she has contributed eighteen articles, her most recent
being “Consciousness and Interpretation in Modern
Psychoanalysis,” “On Criticism and Being Criticized: Some
Considerations,” “There’s No Such Thing As a Mother,”
and “A Resistance to Getting Better.” Dr. Bernstein is in
private practice in New York City and Boston, MA.
Faye Newsome, MA,
LP, sits on the faculty
of CMPS, the New
York Graduate School
of Psychoanalysis,
and the Boston
Graduate School of
Psychoanalysis. She
also serves as the
NYGSP Liaison
between CMPS and
BGSP, where she is a
training and
supervising analyst. In
addition, she runs the One-Year Program at both CMPS
and BGSP and is Chairperson of the Board of Trustees at
CMPS. Ms. Newsome is in private practice in New York
and Brookline, MA.