WORKSHOP PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS

 

 

Shirley Gooch and Jim Gooch

 

Transformations: The Birth of Emotionality in a Child with Tourette's and Asperger's Syndromes

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 11.00 am - 1.00 pm

 

Transformations from emotional deadness, acting-out, and somatization to psychic aliveness will be illustrated from clinical material in the analysis of a child presenting with Tourette's and Asperger's syndromes.

 

 

Jeffrey Eaton

 

The Self and its Circumstances: Aspects of Emergence from Autistic States

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 2.30 pm - 4.30 pm

 

This paper will explore what Tustin called "the development of I-ness" in the context of the analytic process. Attention will be given to the earliest self experiences and their foreclosure by autistic defenses as well as to how establishing a psychoanalytic situation makes possible the emergence from autistic states and the growth of aliveness and self expression. Particular attention will be given to Bion's work and his theory of thinking which informs the analyst's sensibility. Extensive material from the treatment of autistic children will be presented as part of this program.

 

 

Annie Reiner

 

Autosensual Movements and Bion's Thoughts without a Thinker

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 11.00 am - 1.00 pm

 

“Thinking is a function forced upon the psyche by the pressure of thoughts, not the other way around.” (Bion, 1970)

 

In adhesive states there is no sense of separateness and so of course little capacity for thought. What prevails instead are states of panic and dissolution, fears of falling and collapsing. I will examine the ways in which auto sensual movements mask these primal anxieties by becoming a sort of dance of kinesthetic thinking for thoughts which cannot find a mind to think them. Like Bion’s concept of thoughts without a thinker, these sensations represent unthinkable thoughts of a thinker without access to thinking. Ideas will be presented about language, and the view of ritualised movements as attempts to find a form for the raw energy of emotion pressuring the mind of the individual in these primal states. The patient becomes a kind of ideogram for the raw energy of  proto-mental thoughts which, like Tustin’s innate forms, cannot be symbolised or thought.

 

 

Kathleen Fargione

 

Climbing a Waterfall: The Recovery of an Adolescent Boy from Autistic Retreat.

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 2.30 pm - 4.30 pm

 

This paper is the story of a ten year treatment of a very bright and very impaired adolescent male encapsulated in autistic retreat.  It is also the story of the author’s discovery of Frances Tustin’s work and the light that work shed on the author’s understanding of this patient. The author uses Tustin’s ideas about autistic processes to explain her patient’s sensory distress and his serious and debilitating withdrawal from all human contact and her efforts to maintain contact with him and to gradually draw him back into relationship with his family and other members of his community.  His willingness to forge a relationship with the author and his own desire to understand himself were great aids in his healing.

 

 

Jeanne Magagna

 

Working with an Adopted Young Child with Autistic Features and his Parents

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 11.00 am - 1.00 pm

 

The placement of a severely deprived not-speaking, not eating child with autistic features in an adoptive family requires a sophisticated way of attuning to the child in order to build a trusting relationship with him. Providing individual psychotherapy on its own may not be the best way of fostering faltering attachments between mother and child. This presentation will explore ways of facilitating the mother-child relationship while simultaneously providing psychoanalytic psychotherapy for the child  in the context of regular meetings with the parents.

 

 

Jacqueline Adler

 

The Lady of Shalott, the Minotaur, the Medusa and Others

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 2.30 pm - 4.30 pm

 

My patient was an isolated and friendless young woman from a very abusive background.  She had fears of physical illness destroying her mind. Her material was full of hate, cruelty and perverse functioning and the transference contained very primitive and concrete elements. My countertransference experiences in working with her were of a particularly anxiety-provoking nature and I found myself struggling in very alien territory. Reading Frances Tustin’s ideas and concepts opened up a unique perspective on understanding this patient and her encapsulated states of autistic functioning, enabling us to move forward beyond impasses. The patient has returned for further work at critical times over the years.

 

 

Mark Howard

 

Requiem for a Dream: A Step Towards Life in a Young Woman with Schizophrenia

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 11.00 am - 1.00 pm

 

In this paper I discuss a young woman’s drawing and sculpture, and a clip from Darren Aronofsky’s film, ‘Requiem for a Dream,’ to help consider sessional material from a week in her analysis. The film forms the backdrop to the last session of the week, which contained a moment of liveliness and ‘breakthrough’ from her psychosis. This moment of ‘breakthrough’ is linked with the film, and some of the art she created during and after her analysis.

 

 

Ruth Safier

 

Raids on the Inarticulate – Working with Silent Patients

Friday, 20th July, 2012 - 2.30 pm - 4.30 pm

 

Thoughts about an autistic toddler and a child with a chronic physical illness are used to throw some light on the problems of adult patients who need to protect themselves in extreme ways. How the analyst needs to BE with, and think about the processes at play with such patients, is the subject of this paper.

 

When patients are unable to think about, speak about and be aware of their experience, then the analyst's attention needs to be focused on her own experiences of being with the patient. Such patients make extensive use of the analyst's mind and personality, and they require of the analyst her imagination and dreaming and liveliness to bring them out of a paralyzed, encapsulated or stalled existence.
Decoding the silence is challenging and lonely work which involves a constant questioning of one's own self, ones theories and techniques as well as the goals of analysis itself.

 

Consultation and support for the analyst is vital – but also difficult. Such experience is difficult to share – often eliciting strong reactions and premature knowing which has to be resisted.

 

 

 

IMPORTANT DATES

 

 

Registration Opens

1 September 2011

 

Early Bird Registration Closes

18 May 2012

 

Registration Closes

16 July 2012

 

Conference Begins

19 July 2012