Past Events
Avner Bergstein
'Truth shall spring out of the Earth’: Clinical implications of the notion of psychoanalytic intuition
Online Monday 20th May, 2024 8 - 9.30pm AEST
In this paper the author reflects on the analyst's attempt to approach the unknowable, ultimate reality of the psychoanalytic experience. Drawing on both Freud's conception of 'attention' and Bion's emphasis on the power of observation, the paper explores the clinical implications of the notion of intuition as a primary tool in this endeavour. With the aid of detailed clinical material, the author highlights the perpetual 'to and fro' movement between cohesion and dispersion, between conception and intuition, between the finite and the infinite in pursuit of the ineffable, suggesting that intuition entails the capacity to apprehend reality in transience—a state of mind continuously oscillating between the sensuous and psychic aspects of reality. Moreover, in following the path of Bion's evolving thinking on the analyst's intuition, this paper offers an integrated view of the dialectic interplay between Bion's earlier writings and his later ones, reflecting the very perpetual movement that Bion is trying to depict between different modes of apprehending reality.
Professor Rachel Blass
Encountering Freud:
An introduction to Freud’s thinking through the study of some central texts
5 week series Mondays 8 - 9.30pm AEST
starting 24th April, 2023
This course will provide an introduction to the essential issues that concerned Freud and shaped his analytic view of the person and of cure. The readings for each meeting will ground the ideas presented, allow the participants to question them, and will open the participants to a deeper dialogue with Freud himself.
A recording will be available for a two week period following each event.
Biography
Avner Bergstein is a training and supervising psychoanalyst and faculty member of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society. He works in private practice with adults, adolescents and children and has worked for several years at a kindergarten for children with autism. He has authored numerous papers elaborating on the clinical implications of the writings of Bion and Meltzer and his papers are translated into many languages. He is author of the book Bion and Meltzer's Expeditions into Unmapped Mental Life: Beyond the Spectrum in Psychoanalysis. He is a visiting lecturer at several psychoanalytic institutes, and conducts reading seminars focusing on the writings of WR Bion. He is also the recipient of the IPA 2021 Elizabeth Young-Bruehl Prejudice Award.
Bibliography: Freud, S. (1917). A Difficulty in the Path of Psychoanalysis. SE: 17: 135-144.
1st May | Chaired by Ms. Julie Meadows — The birth of psychoanalysis proper: The move from traumatic seduction to a conflictual inner world.
Bibliography: Blass, R. B. (1992) Did Dora have an Oedipus Complex—A Reexamination of the Theoretical Context of Freud's "Fragment of an Analysis". Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 47:159-187. And several pages from a number of Freud’s texts relevant to the move in question.
8th May | Chaired by Dr. Louise Gyler — Unconscious meanings: Their pervasiveness in dreams, pathology and everyday life.
Bibliography: A selection of Freud’s texts including parts of his The Interpretation of Dreams.
15th May | Chaired by Dr. Karyn Todes — The Oedipus Complex as a model of Freud’s thinking on the complexity of our love relationships and their ethical grounds.
Bibliography: Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id, Chapter 3. SE. 19: 28-39.
22nd May | Chaired by Ms. Sonia Wechsler — The analytic process: How and why established equilibrium is changed through it.
Bibliography: Selections from Freud’s Papers on Technique, SE 12.
Biography
Professor Rachel Blass
Rachel Blass is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and on the Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis where she is the editor of the Controversies section. She was formerly a professor of psychoanalysis at universities both in Israel and England. She has published a book and numerous papers that elucidate the foundations of analytic thinking and practice, with a special focus on Kleinian psychoanalysis and its Freudian roots. Her writings have been translated into 15 languages. While she lives and practices in Jerusalem, via the internet she also teaches and supervises in the US, Australia and several countries in Europe and Asia.
Monday 24th April | Chaired by Ms. Rise Becker — Freud’s essential contribution: His revolutionary understanding of the person, illness and cure and why we prefer to deny this understanding.
Professor Alessandra Lemma presents
The seductions of identity: psychoanalytic reflections on transgender identities
Thursday 2 March 2023 from 8 - 9.30pm AEDT
Online via Zoom
Chair: Sonia Wechsler
Price: $88 inc. GST
A recording will be available for a two week period following the event.
Zoom link will be sent in the confirmation email via Trybooking and a few days prior to the event.
Biographies
Professor Alessandra Lemma
Professor Alessandra Lemma is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. She is Visiting Professor, Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London. For many years she worked at the Tavistock Clinic where she was, at different points, Head of Psychology and Professor of Psychological Therapies. She was the Editor of the New Library of Psychoanalysis book series (Routledge) for ten years until 2020 and was one of the Regional Editors for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis until 2018. She has published on psychoanalysis, the body, the impact of new technologies and trauma. Her most recent book is Transgender Identities (2022, Routledge) and her forthcoming book in 2023 is: First Principles: Applied Ethics for Psychoanalytic Practice (OUP). Recipient of the Sigourney Award in 2022.
Sonia Wechsler
Sonia Wechsler is a child and adult psychoanalyst with the Sydney Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is a clinical psychologist who works with children, adolescents and adults in private practice in Paddington.
Denis Flynn presents
Melanie Klein's Depressive Position: an overview of psychic change
Monday 21st August 2023 from 8 - 9.30pm AEDT
Online via Zoom
Chair: Pam Shein
Price: $88 inc. GST
A recording will be available for a two week period following the event.
Zoom link will be sent in the confirmation email via Trybooking and a few days prior to the event.
Biographies
Denis Flynn is a Training and Supervising Analyst and a Child Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society / IPA working in private practice. Trained also as a Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic he worked for many years in the NHS with children and families and was for ten years Head of the Inpatient Adolescent Unit at the Cassel Hospital. He has taught widely here and abroad and held academic positions at University College London (Hon. Senior Lecturer) and at the University of Essex (Visiting Professor). He is currently Chair of Education at the Institute of Psychoanalysis. He has published Severe Emotional Disturbance in Children and Adolescents: Psychotherapy in Applied Contexts, Brunner-Routledge (2004), The Internal and External Worlds of Children and Adolescents: Collaborative Therapeutic Care, Eds Day, L., and Flynn, D, Karnac (2003), other papers / chapters on adult psychoanalysis, and has two short books on the early and later work of W.R. Bion in preparation for publication.
Pam Shein
Pam Shein is an Adult and Child Analyst and a Training Analyst with the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. She works in private practise in Sydney.
How to Grow a Psychoanalytic Forest: A Challenge Going Forward
Based on what seemed like common sense and science at the time, it was thought that the best way to build a forest was to plant homogeneous saplings, where the underbrush was stripped away. Without competitors, it was thought, the newly planted trees would thrive. What happened instead was that, in comparison to old-growth forests, these new trees were more susceptible to disease and climatic distress.
It is my view that, for some time, psychoanalysts have been working like old-school foresters… cutting down older trees from which our psychoanalytic forest has grown and getting rid of the underbrush that sustained it. Each new set of ideas becomes the new theory of psychoanalysis, with its own Journals, and authors only quoting like-minded analysts. Eagle (2021) noted that one might charitably think new theories emerging are attempts to correct inadequate explanatory concepts, “Rather they emerge as self-sufficient theories that claim to account for all aspects of human behavior” (p. 273).
Presenting:
Fred Busch
Fred Busch, Ph.D.-- is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and has been invited to teach at many Institutes. He has published numerous articles on psychoanalytic technique in the psychoanalytic literature, and six books. His work has been translated into many languages, and he has been invited to present over 170 papers and clinical workshops nationally and internationally. His last four books are: Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind (2014); The Analyst’s Reveries: Explorations in Bion’s Enigmatic Concept (2019); Dear Candidate: Analyst from Around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession (2020); A Fresh Look at Psychoanalytic Technique (2021). The two books he published earlier are: The Ego at the Center of Psychoanalytic Technique (1995); and Rethinking Clinical technique (1999).
Chair:
Sonia Wechsler
Sonia Wechsler is a Child and Adult Psychoanalyst of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. She is the Scientific Chair of the Sydney Institute for Psychoanalysis and has presented papers both locally and internationally. She sees children, adolescents and adults in her private practice in Sydney.
When
Saturday 18th June
Time
9:00am - 10:30 AEST
Cost
$77 (GST Included)
A recording will be available for a limited time.
Where
Online via zoom
For queries please use the button below
Two Way Seminar Series
Black Knot - White Knot
Presenting:
Craig San Roque and Jade Kennedy
Craig will present intercultural and transferential relationship patterns based on 30 years of experience in Black/White cross-cultural interactions in Central Australia. This has given him a unique understanding of the people he has lived and worked with. He illustrates these significant relationships through art works.
Craig is joined by Jade Kennedy. Jade is a Yuin man from the Illawarra and South Coast of NSW and a lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at the University of Wollongong. His generous sharing of his life story is a privilege rarely encountered.
Jade’s comments enhances Craig’s rich presentation and their engagement is enthralling.
We are pleased to offer this opportunity to explore essential aspects of what it means to live in Australia.
Biographies:
Craig San Roque
Craig has worked in Central Australia since 1991. He has worked in alcohol abuse and glue sniffing prevention, Intjartnama Outstation and Mt Theo projects, NT Remote Mental Health, the Royal Flying Doctors, Aboriginal Medical Congress, CASSE, NPY Women’s Council, Central Australian Youth Link Up and other projects. Craig has experience in psychoanalytic work since the 1970’s at the Tavistock Clinic and Society of Analytical Psychology, London. He also has strong connections with Arrente, Warlpiri, Pintubi and western desert communities in Central Australia.
Jade Kennedy
Jade Kennedy is a Yuin man from the Illawarra and South Coast of NSW. He is an Academic Developer and lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges, University of Wollongong. He has worked in the Aboriginal Employment Development Program, the Koori-Murri Cross-Cultural Exchange, The UOW Faculty of Commerce Indigenous Strategy, The Koori Kids Fun day initiative, The Yuin Community Cultural Camps, The Digital Acknowledgement of Dharawal Country, The Koori STEM Camp and The K-STEM engagement days.
Jade is also highly involved in the cultural protection, heritage preservation and Aboriginal advancement of the Illawarra and South Coast region. His current roles include Chairperson of the Illawarra Local Aboriginal Lands Council, Director of Warra Binge Nunda Gurri, Spokesperson for the Sandon Point Aboriginal Tent Embassy (SPATE) and Custodian Illawarra Region.
When
2 April 2022
Time
9:00am - 12:00pm
Cost
$180 (GST Included)
In case of financial hardship please offer a small donation.
Where
Online via zoom
All profits will be donated to the CASSE (Creating A Safe Supportive Environment) Shields for Living Tools for Life project.
The Shields for Living Tools for Life An intensive program for high-risk young people in central Australia Creating Safer Communities: Back on Track – Cutting Youth Crime Plan.
When you register for this event you will receive reading material to help in your preparations for the seminar.
On the nature of transference interpretation and why only it can bring about analytic change.
Presenting:
Professor Rachel Blass
Rachel Blass is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and on the Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis where she is the editor of the Controversies section. She was formerly a professor of psychoanalysis at universities both in Israel and England. She has published a book and numerous papers that elucidate the foundations of analytic thinking and practice, with a special focus on Kleinian psychoanalysis and its Freudian roots. Her writings have been translated into 15 languages. While she lives and practices in Jerusalem, via the internet she also teaches and supervises in the US, Australia and several countries in Europe and Asia.
Chair
Dr Louise Gyler
Louise Gyler, Ph.D. is a Child and Adult Training Analyst of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. She is the President of APAS 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.
When
Saturday March 5th
Time
4.30-6.30pm
Cost
$77 (including GST)
Where
Online via zoom
A recording will be available of the event for a limited time if you are unable to attend at the time of the presentation
For queries please use the button below
Transforming unbearable states of non-being
The Sydney Institute is delighted to present three eminent clinicians and Tustin scholars who describe these earliest infantile anxieties in their patients. They will demonstrate how they observe, listen to, and understand their patient’s psychic suffering in order to transform it.
Mental health clinicians are faced with understanding and treating children and adults whose primitive anxieties and psychic distress, make meaningful emotional contact in the clinical encounter very difficult.
Presenting:
Suzanne Maiello, Rome:
Primary psycho-physical shapes in Infant Observation and clinical practice with autistic children
Joshua Durban, Tel Aviv:
Nowhereness: Autisto-Psychotic anxieties in infants, adolescents and adults
Jeffrey Eaton, Seattle:
From Screaming to Dreaming: Notes on Forms of Distress and Their Transformation
When:
Suzanne Maiello | Chaired by Pam Shein
Saturday 19th June 2021
3.00-4.30 pm AEST (Sydney time)
Joshua Durban | Chaired by Rise Becker
Saturday 24th July 2021
3.00-4.30 pm AEDT (Sydney time)
Jeffrey Eaton | Chaired by Julie Meadows
Saturday 9th October 2021
4.00-5.30pm AEST (Sydney time)
Suzanne Maiello, Joshua Durban and Jeffrey Eaton | Chaired by Julie Meadows
Saturday 30th October 2021
4.00-5.30pm AEST (Sydney time)
In conversation with webinar participants
Where:
Live via Zoom
Link will be sent to participants closer to the event.
Cost:
One webinar $77 inc. GST
Two webinars $154 inc. GST
Three webinars $220 inc. GST
The Conversation included free with registration for three webinars
Registration includes access to a recording of the series.
When Love Goes Awry
May, 2021
The Sydney Institute for Psychoanalysis presented a live webinar by Professor Karlen Lyons-Ruth.
Disorganized attachment processes have been theorized to contribute to a range of psychopathologies in adulthood. Dr. Lyons-Ruth will discuss recent longitudinal findings regarding controlling, role-confused, and disoriented forms of parent-child communication and how these varied facets of disorganized relationships may contribute differentially to young adult psychopathology, including dissociation, borderline psychopathology, and suicidality. She will also focus on distinguishing the effects of trauma and attachment in these trajectories.
Chaired by Sonia Wechsler
Two Way: Learning from each other
A webinar series
The Sydney Institute for Psychoanalysis invites you to join us as we bring together First Nations’ thinkers with psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in a series of six webinars in the spirit of Two Way – working together and learning from each other.
All proceeds will be donated to CASSE’s SHIELDS FOR LIVING, TOOLS FOR LIFE, a dual cultural and therapeutic program, based in the Alice Springs region for ‘at-risk’ youth, providing an alternative to detention and reducing the likelihood of offending or reoffending. https://www.casse.org.au/
Program
Chaired by Rise Becker
13 OCTOBER 2020
Acknowledgement of Country
Dr Mishel McMahon
Dispossession, trauma, and primitive states of mind: an exploration of Australia’s ever-present past
Dr Matthew McArdle
20 OCTOBER 2020
Sorry Polly, Woman’s Law Still Touches Me
Mr Allan Tegg
27 OCTOBER 2020
First Nation’s World View & Childrearing Principles
Dr Mishel McMahon
3 NOVEMBER 2020
No Interests of her Own: Aboriginal Woman, Subjectivity and Maternal Ambivalence
Ms Cate Osborne
Trauma, silence, and the work of linking: Reflections on a group with Aboriginal mothers and their babies.
Ms Donna Jacobs
10 NOVEMBER 2020
Two Way Therapy
Dr Craig San Roque, Mr Ken Lechleitner Pagnarte and Ms Pamela Nathan
17 NOVEMBER 2020
Open Discussion – all presenters and members of the online audience
Discussant Ms Eve Steel
