Saturday 10th - Sunday 11th September 2022

The APAS is excited to invite you to a thought provoking, challenging and interesting conference to discuss what is difficult to talk about – boundaries and ethics

Confidentiality is fundamental to the practice of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. However, many challenges lie in maintaining the boundaries essential to providing that confidentiality. The Conference speakers explore the challenging issue of navigating boundaries in various therapeutic contexts.

To be held online via Zoom.

Scroll to:   Guest Speakers   Saturday Programme   Sunday Workshops   Registration

Professor Glen Gabbard - USA

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Glen O. Gabbard, MD is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, Texas. He is the author or editor of 29 books and 365 scientific papers. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to psychiatry and psychoanalysis. In 2000 he won the prestigious Sigourney Award for his contributions to psychoanalysis and he was the youngest awardee to ever receive that award. In 2021 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of Sapienza University in Rome. He was formerly the Director of the Menninger Clinic when it was in Topeka. He also served in the role of Joint Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis from 2001-2007. For his teaching at Baylor College of Medicine, he received the Teaching Award on 7 different occasions. His book, Psychodynamic Psychiatry, is a best seller now in its fifth edition.

Louise Gyler

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Louise Gyler, Ph.D. is a Child and Adult Training Analyst and President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society, a guest member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a visiting professor at the Chinese - American Continual Training Program at Wuhan Hospital for Psychotherapy. She chairs the Programme Committee for IPA Asia-Pacific Conference 2023 (India). She authored The Gendered Unconscious: Can gender discourses subvert psychoanalysis? (Routledge, 2010). In 2007, she was runner up for Ticho Charitable Foundation Lectureship at the 45th IPA Congress, Berlin and in 2019, won the 22nd International Frances Tustin Memorial Prize and Lectureship. She has a private practice in Sydney.

Ken Israelstam

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Ken Israestam is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada (In Psychiatry), and a senior training and supervising analyst with the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. He is a Member of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and a Member of the European Psychoanalytical Federation. He has a special interest in analytical couples therapy, candidate education and the theories of transformation, with publications on these subjects in international journals.

Tim Keogh

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Timothy Keogh PhD is a training and supervising analyst with the Sydney Branch of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society (APAS) and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. His other current roles include President of the newly formed Australian Forensic Psychotherapy Association, President of Penthos (penthos.org.au - a psychoanalytic charity providing a brief intervention for parents experiencing prolonged grief), Chair of the Ethics Committee of the Australasian Confederation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies (ACPP), Co-Chair (Asia-Pacific) of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) Committee on Couple and Family Psychoanalysis (COFAP) and a member of the IPA Violence Committee. His forensic publications include Through a Glass Darkly: The Internal World of the Juvenile Sex Offender (Karnac).

Matthew McArdle

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Matthew is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Melbourne. He is a member and training analyst of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society(APAS). He is past Chair of the Melbourne branch of APAS and of the Melbourne Institute for Psychoanalysis. He has participated in the European Visiting Program, an initiative exploring the training models for psychoanalysis in various Psychoanalytic Institutes. He was a member of the research group for the Specificity of Psychoanalytic Treatment Today through Interanalytic Group Work. Previously a Working Party of the European Psychoanalytical Federation.

Kathryn Bays

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Kathryn Bays is a Psychoanalyst and Clinical Psychologist, a member of the Melbourne branch of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society and of the International Psychoanalytic Association.

9:10—9:30

Welcome address by the President Louise Gyler

9:30—11:30

Digital Professionalism

Speaker: Glen Gabbard / Chair: Louise Gyler

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Abstract
We now live and work in an environment where the anonymity of the analyst or therapist is a relic of the past. Patients and others have considerable access to details of their therapist's place of residence, the therapist's family members, and even the therapist's private activities. Correspondence with colleagues may be read or gossiped about. If a therapist expresses outrage about the "breach of privacy", a patient has only to point out that messages sent into cyberspace are not considered private in the current zeitgeist. This shift in longstanding confidentiality practices are changing the practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Biography
Glen O. Gabbard, MD is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, Texas. He is the author or editor of 29 books and 365 scientific papers. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to psychiatry and psychoanalysis. In 2000 he won the prestigious Sigourney Award for his contributions to psychoanalysis and he was the youngest awardee to ever receive that award. In 2021 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award of Sapienza University in Rome. He was formerly the Director of the Menninger Clinic when it was in Topeka. He also served in the role of Joint Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis from 2001-2007. For his teaching at Baylor College of Medicine, he received the Teaching Award on 7 different occasions. His book, Psychodynamic Psychiatry, is a best seller now in its fifth edition.

11:30—11:45

Morning Tea

11:45—13:15

Talk about troubles in the family! - In conversation with Glen Gabbard

Speakers: Liz Kerr, Kaye Nelson and Glen Gabbard / Chair: Louise Gyler

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Abstract
This paper is a reflection and discussion of the impact of sexual and non-sexual boundary violations by members of professional organisations established with the core principle of the therapeutic care and protection of patients. Consideration will be given to the likely impact of these experiences on those most immediately and directly involved as patients who may also be candidates or trainees, as well as what can be pervasive and collateral damage to the collegial family of the professional organisation involved. How do we manage to even talk about troubles in the family, let alone manage to deal with it?

Biography
Elizabeth Kerr is a Training and Supervising Analyst of APAS. She is a Founding Director of the Australian Psychoanalytical Foundation. She has Chaired the Committee for Ethics and Professional Standards of APAS during the last five years.

13:15—14:00

Lunch

14:00—15:30

The Infantile and its vicissitudes in the therapeutic relationship

Speaker: Matthew McArdle / Discussant: Kathryn Bays / Chair: Rise Becker

15:30—15:45

Afternoon Tea

15:45—17:15

Panel: Walking the tightrope - the balancing act

Speakers: Tim Keogh, Teresa Russo, Cathy Ludbrook / Chair: Shanthi Saha

Avoiding partnership in crime: Frame and boundary considerations in forensic psychotherapy

Speaker: Tim Keogh

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Abstract
This brief panel paper will examine some of the challenges and necessary adaptations to the frame when working as a forensic psychotherapist / psychoanalyst and explore how such adaptations link to often unique challenges to the therapeutic relationship and related boundary issues.

Biography
Timothy Keogh PhD is a training and supervising analyst with the Sydney Branch of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society (APAS) and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. His other current roles include President of the newly formed Australian Forensic Psychotherapy Association, President of Penthos (penthos.org.au - a psychoanalytic charity providing a brief intervention for parents experiencing prolonged grief), Chair of the Ethics Committee of the Australasian Confederation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies (ACPP), Co-Chair (Asia-Pacific) of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) Committee on Couple and Family Psychoanalysis (COFAP) and a member of the IPA Violence Committee. His forensic publications include Through a Glass Darkly: The Internal World of the Juvenile Sex Offender (Karnac).

“In the Best Interest of the Child” Working with Young Children, Parental Conflict and External Agencies

Speaker: Teresa Russo

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Abstract
Working with young children and their parents presents a range of challenges in maintaining boundaries. When parents are struggling with their own difficulties, external agencies and courts may be involved adding extra layers of complexities and challenges to the analytic frame.

Biography
Dr Teresa Russo MBBS, M-MHSc, is a child and adult psychoanalyst with the Melbourne Branch of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society (APAS). She is an Infant-Parent Psychotherapist and an Infant Mental Health Clinician and a faculty member of the Infant Mental Health Advanced Training (IMHAT) program.

"Staying in your lane”: the maintenance of boundaries within a complex mental health system

Speaker: Cathy Ludbrook

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Abstract
Maintaining boundaries within a complex public mental health system is challenging. The use of Karpman’s drama triangle will be explored as a way of understanding these challenges and mentalization based theory as a way of promoting the best possible outcome for clients.

Biography
Dr Cathy Ludbrook has qualifications in general adult psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry. She is the Clinical Lead with Borderline Personality Disorder Collaborative and the psychotherapy tutor for the South Australian Branch Training Committee. Prior to her current positions she worked in private practice for over 25 years, with a particular interest in young people with BPD and other trauma related disorders. In recent years she has trained in Mentalization Based Therapy, an evidenced based therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder.

17:15—17:30

Closing Remarks by Louise Gyler

9:00—10:30

What can an analytic couples therapist learn from Tronic’s infant-mother research and interpersonal neurobiology?

Speaker: Ken Israelstam / Chair: Tim Keogh

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Abstract
A paper will be presented describing how infant -mother researchers, neurobiologists and psychoanalysts, initially working in parallel with one another, were eventually drawn together to collaborate in a shared interest involving the dynamics of dyadic interaction. Clinical material will be presented and the participants will be invited to provide their feedback relating to the couple’s dynamics. In particular the group will be asked to provide their thoughts on whether they believe that these areas of research, might or might not enhance the work of an analytic couples therapist.

Biography
Ken Israelstam is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada (In Psychiatry), and a senior training and supervising analyst with the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. He is a Member of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and a Member of the European Psychoanalytical Federation. He has a special interest in analytical couples therapy, candidate education and the theories of transformation, with publications on these subjects in international journals.

10:30—11:00

Morning Tea

11:00—12:30

Thinking about child work: the interplay of frame and process in symbolisation and transformation

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Abstract
Psychoanalytic therapy comprises two aspects: the process and the frame or setting. The process involves the patient’s and the therapist’s participation which is informed by ideas about containment, transference, countertransference and interpretation. In this paper, the focus is the frame / setting. In the 1950s, a more nuanced understanding of the value of setting evolves with writers such as Bion and Winnicott suggesting that the setting is analogous to the mother – child relationship. The frame is now conceived as more than a mere practical background to stage the therapeutic work. Bleger further extends the thinking about the frame proposing that all aspects of the engagement between patient and therapist need to be considered. He argues that the process and the frame dialectically relate in order enable symbolisation and transformation. In child work, it is common for the therapist to feel pressured to modify her psychoanalytic frame. Two child clinical vignettes, one relating to the external setting and the other to the internal setting are described to encourage discussion about challenges and complications fundamental to thinking about the function of the frame.

Biography
Louise Gyler, Ph.D. is a Child and Adult Training Analyst and President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society, a guest member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a visiting professor at the Chinese - American Continual Training Program at Wuhan Hospital for Psychotherapy. She chairs the Programme Committee for IPA Asia-Pacific Conference 2023 (India). She authored The Gendered Unconscious: Can gender discourses subvert psychoanalysis? (Routledge, 2010). In 2007, she was runner up for Ticho Charitable Foundation Lectureship at the 45th IPA Congress, Berlin and in 2019, won the 22nd International Frances Tustin Memorial Prize and Lectureship. She has a private practice in Sydney.

12:30

Closing remarks – Scientific Chair: Shanthi Saha