Ethics as the Duty to Care: Protective Care for our Psychic Spaces | April 5, 2025

Ethics as the Duty to Care:
Protective Care for our Psychic Spaces

Presenter: Maxine Anderson, M.D. FIPA
Chair: Elizabeth Wallace, MD, FRCPC FIPA

_{Art Credits:  Richard Markus  | Maesltrom Moments | June 2023  |  Digital Multiple exposures image} 

Ethics as the Duty to Care for psychic integration: considering sources of trauma which arise from within (hatred of difference, overwhelming guilt, raw affect); considerations that once the mind is defensively cleaved (good vs bad) mental integration is feared and avoided; review of qualities of care that foster mental integration (exemplars, hope, transcendent values, mourning). Clinical vignettes for illustration.

Overview: Chair’s introduction of speaker | Speaker’s presentation

• Care re protection from internal psychic trauma (doubt, harsh superego, despair) (25 min)
• Reviewing the ubiquitous forces against mental integration (20-25 min)
• Rescuing functions fostering mental integration, including (published) clinical vignettes (25 min)

Maxine K. Anderson, M.D. FIPA, is a Founding Member and currently a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in Seattle. She has authored several articles, the most current one (2024) being “Entrenched Grievance as a Harbour for the Unmourned”, International Journal of Psychoanalysis,105:153-168. And two books, The Wisdom of Lived Experience (2016, Karnac) and From Tribal Division to Welcoming Inclusion (2019, Routledge).

Learning Objectives:
After this presentation, participants can expect to:

• have a deepened appreciation for the ethical function of care.
• have a deepened understanding of how the early protective defenses (splitting and projection) may impede mental and emotional integration
• gain appreciation for the role that some specific rescuing functions play in fostering mental and emotional integration.

Recommended Readings (Optional)

• Anderson, M. (2014) Sources of Internal Psychic Trauma, in Trauma and the Destructive-Transformative Struggle: Clinical Perspectives (ed. )McBride, T. and Murphy, M. (to be distributed)
• Anderson, M (2019) Lessons Derived from CARE, Courage and Self-Respect, in From Tribal Division to Welcoming Inclusion pp 52-61. (to be distributed)
• Anderson, M (2019) Appreciating the Pain of Mental Integration (and) Summary Reflections in From Tribal Division to Welcoming Inclusion pp 68-77. (to be distributed)
• Anderson, M (2024) Entrenched Grievance as a Harbour for the Unmourned. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 105: 153-168 .

Register

Registration closes March 31 @ 5pm PST.

Register

Registration closes March 31 @ 5pm PST.