Unrepresented States: On Presence and Absence
VICTORIA | September 2019 – June 2020
The Victoria chapter of the Western Branch Course Committee is pleased to offer a series of nine seminars designed to investigate the topic of “Unrepresented States: On Presence and Absence”. This course will highlight the work of various authors on this topic but, in particular, will include writings by Howard Levine, MD, Dominique Scarfone, MD and Judith Eekhoff, PhD, all of whom will be featured speakers at the March 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Western Branch of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society in Vancouver. These three important new voices in psychoanalytic theory and practice will be discussing their research on the presentation and representation of the experience of primitive mental states and how they are linked to trauma. Patients presenting with primitive mental states often do not respond well to classical technique, and may be even further traumatized by the rigid application of standard technique. Consequently, a new direction and an expanding scope of theory and practice to address patients with significant psychopathology is needed by clinicians who treat people with borderline personality, complex PTSD, psychosomatic conditions, depression, bipolar, and even some cases of psychosis.
The course will primarily focus on the difficulty these patients have in constructing meaning from their experiences.
“. . . an important aspect of psychopathology, especially more severe types, becomes the incapacity to create representations and link them with drive, leaving the mind to function somehow with voids and absences. The crux of clinical work in these cases, and in those parts of less severe cases in which absences and voids nevertheless figure, becomes the creation of representations that were literally ‘not there’ before. This kind of analytic work cannot be understood as the accessing or revelation of pre-existing content, and therefore free association is not necessarily the basis of practice. If absence is to appear at all in the clinical situation, it must be brought to attention by some other activity. Green suggested that this other activity is the analyst’s observation and employment of the countertransference within which resides the only access to the patient’s unrepresented states.” ~ IJPA Review of Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning
Photo credits: Janet Oakes, “There is a Crack in Everything” 2018 Acrylic on Canvas
Course Outline
Seminar 1: September 26, 2019
Faculty: TBD
Readings: Reed, G., Levine, H., and Scarfone, D. (Chapter 1) “Introduction: from a universe of presences to a universe of absences” in Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning: Clinical and Theoretical Contributions. Edited by Howard B. Levine, Gail S. Reed, and Dominique Scarfone. London: Karnac Books, 2013, p. 3 – 17.
Seminar 2: October 24, 2019
Faculty: Janet Oakes, MA, BC-ATP, FIPA
Readings: Reed, G. (Chapter 2) “An empty mirror: reflections on non representation” in Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning: Clinical and Theoretical Contributions. Edited by Howard B. Levine, Gail S. Reed, and Dominique Scarfone. London: Karnac Books, 2013, p. 18 – 41.
Seminar 3: November 28, 2019
Faculty: Catherine Young, PhD, FIPA
Readings: Levine, H. “The fundamental epistemological situation: Psychic reality and the limitations of classical theory.”
Seminar 4: January 30, 2020
Faculty: TBD
Readings: Scarfone, D.(2017) “Ten short essays on how trauma is inextricably woven into psychic life” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Volume LXXXVI, Number 1, p. 21 – 43.
Seminar 5: February 27, 2020
Faculty: Janet Oakes, MA, BC-ATP, FIPA
Readings: Eekhoff, J. (Chapter 1) “Finding a center of gravity via proximity with the analyst” in Engaging Primitive Anxieties of the Emerging Self, the legacy of Frances Tustin. London: Karnac Books, 2017, p. 1 – 19.
Seminar 6: *postponed
Faculty: Janet Oakes, MA, BC-ATP, FIPA
Readings: Lombardi, R. (Chapter 5) “Sensual experience, defensive second skin, and the eclipse of the body: some thoughts on Tustin and Ferrari” in Engaging Primitive Anxieties of the Emerging Self, the legacy of Frances Tustin. London: Karnac Books, 2017, p. 95 – 111.
Seminar 7:*postponed
Faculty: Catherine Young, PhD, FIPA
Readings: Eshel, O. (Chapter 3) “‘Black holes’ and ‘fear of breakdown’ in the analysis of a fetishistic-masochistic patient” in Engaging Primitive Anxieties of the Emerging Self, the legacy of Frances Tustin. London: Karnac Books, 2017, p. 43 – 72
Seminar 8: *postponed
Faculty: Catherine Young, PhD, FIPA
Readings: Cassorla, R. (Chapter 10) “In search of symbolization: the analyst’s task of dreaming” in Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning: Clinical and Theoretical Contributions. Edited by Howard B. Levine, Gail S. Reed, and Dominique Scarfone. London: Karnac Books, 2013, p. 202 – 219.
Seminar 9: *postponed
Faculty: Janet Oakes, MA, BC-ATP, FIPA
Readings: Andre, J. (Chapter 9). “Discovering an umbrella” in Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning: Clinical and Theoretical Contributions. Edited by Howard B. Levine, Gail S. Reed, and Dominique Scarfone. London: Karnac Books, 2013, p. 189 – 201.
