Western Branch Canadian Psychoanalytic Society
Vancouver Pre-Canadian Psychoanalytic Congress Course
The Vancouver chapter Western Branch Course Committee is pleased to offer a 6 session series of seminars in preparation of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society Congress to be held in Vancouver May 29- June 1, 2019. The Congress, entitled “Emotional Turbulence: Working Clinically with unformed experience”, features Avner Bergstein, supervising and training analyst of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society.
“How are we to see, observe…. these things which are not visible?” (Bion, 2005).
What is the imagined process through which sense impressions become felt and might lead to an experience, however fleeting it might be. Can it eventually give rise to a thought? Alternatively, if it does not, does it still have a presence and an impact. Can we eventually develop a sense about it? Questions to dream about in this course.
Avner Bergstein is a faculty member, and a training and supervising psychoanalyst with the Israel Psychoanalytic Society. He works in private practice with adults, adolescents and children and has worked for some years at a kindergarten for children with autism. He is the author of numerous papers and book chapters elaborating on the clinical implications of the writings of Bion and Meltzer, which make an original contribution to the problem of how psychoanalytic knowledge can be known. His papers are translated into several languages including German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. His forthcoming book, Bion and Meltzer’s Expeditions into Unmapped Mental Life (Routledge, 2019) is the first book to compare Bion’s and Meltzer’s work. Writing in a clear and lucid manner, Avner Bergstein integrates Bion’s sometimes highly theoretical thinking with everyday clinical practice, to facilitate his dense and condensed formulations and make them clinically accessible and useful.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will:
1. Acquire further understanding of some of WR Bion’s crucial concepts
2. Be able to reflect on the relationship between unmentalized, indigestible emotional experience and psycho-somatic complaints
3. Expand their capacity to get in touch with unrepresentable states of mind in themselves and in their patients
Course Outline
- Seminar 1: January 18, 2019 | Facilitator: Judith Setton-Markus | Readings:
- Bergstein, A. (2009). On Boredom: A Close Encounter with Encapsulated Parts of the Psyche. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 90(3):613-631
- Ogden, T.H. (1995). Analysing Forms of Aliveness And Deadness Of The Transference-Countertransference. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 76:695-709
- Seminar 2: February 8, 2019 | Facilitator: Darren Thompson | Readings:
- Bergstein, A. (2011). The Painful Vicissitudes of the Patient’s Love: Transference-Love and the Aesthetic Conflict1. Contemp. Psychoanal., 47(2):224-244
- Meltzer, D. (1988) Chap. 2. The Aesthetic Conflict: Its place in development. From The Apprehension of Beauty, Karnac Books, pp. 7-33
- Seminar 3: February 22, 2019 | Facilitator: Endre Koritar | Readings:
- Bergstein, A. (2013). Transcending the Caesura: Reverie, Dreaming and Counter-Dreaming*. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 94(4):621-644
- Ogden, T.H. (2004). This art of psychoanalysis. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 85(4):857-877
- Seminar 4: March 8, 2019 | Facilitator: Elie Debbane | Readings:
- Bergstein, A. (2014). Beyond the Spectrum: Fear of Breakdown, Catastrophic Change and the Unrepressed Unconscious. Rivista Psicoanal., 60(4):847-868
- Mitrani, J.L. (1995). Toward an Understanding Of Unmentalized Experience. Psychoanal. Q., 64:68-112
- Seminar 5: April 5, 2019 | Facilitator: Elie Debbane | Readings:
- Bergstein, A. (2015) Attacks on Linking or Drive to communicate: Tolerating the Paradox. Psychoanaly. Quarterly. 84(4) pp. 921-942
- Bion, W.R. (1959). Attacks on Linking1. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 40:308-315
- Seminar 6: May 3, 2019 | Facilitator: Coleen Gold | Readings:
- Bergstein, A. (2019). Bion’s and Meltzer’s Expeditions into Unmapped Mental Life. New York: Routledge. Chapter 8: The Ineffable, pp.159-184
- Bion. WR. (1965) Transformations. London: Karnac books. Pp. 137-160
- Background reading: Bion, WR. (1977) Caesura: In two papers. London: Karnac, pp. 35-56
