203b – Intersubjectivity and Relational Psychoanalysis

Description: Relational approaches emphasize the ways in which early relationships shape the human mind and how the personalities of therapist and patient influence each other.  Relational approaches shift our understanding and the ways we work with resistance, transference, countertransference, and therapeutic impasses. The relational literature is vast—we will use Steven Kuchuck’s recent book, The Relational Revolution in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, as a text supplemented with seminal articles by major contributors on attachment, intersubjectivity, and self-states. Phenomena including the analytic third, enactment, dissociation, attachment style, analytic love, and the role of self-disclosure will be considered. Students will be asked to hold in mind a “difficult to reach” client as we apply relational concepts to working with developmental trauma.

Target Audience: This course is for mental health professionals at the beginning or intermediate level.