SCHOOL OF PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY at
INTERUNIVERSITY CENTRE DUBROVNIK****, JULY 22-26, 2013
“FROM MAKING SENSE OF A SESSION TO CONCEPTUALIZING CHANGE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY”
Our school resumes this summer with another week-long course. We will meet every day, Monday
through Friday, from 9:00 – 13:00. Rest of the day is free, (but we may decide together as a group to
have one or two optional afternoon meetings as well.) We will start each morning with a lecture on a
technical or theoretical topic, and then discuss at length one or more clinical case presentations,
showing ways of conceptualizing clinical data in terms of theoretical constructs.
The lecture topics are related to our general theme: how do we make sense of what happens in a
session, and how do we connect it to our ideas of change in psychotherapy? We will address issues at
both ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ levels. We’ll start off by reviewing the basic work of psychotherapy:
- how to analyze resistances to bring to the surface unconscious feelings and thoughts?
- how to use supportive techniques to solidify the surface defenses?
- how do we chose when to do each of the above? What, when and how to interpret?
Next we will look for ‘repetitions’ in the thicket of clinical data in a session to find ‘an unconscious
organizing fantasy’ (Arlow, 1969.) Dr. Dunn will show us how to use this construct; clinical illustrations of
it will be offered. Dr. Dunn will also demonstrate its presence in Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’ (1954) and in
this year’s Oscar nominee, ‘Silver Lining Playbook’.
Dr. Dunn will also conduct a ‘live’ demonstration of Dream Analysis (volunteers will be needed!)
In the final part of our work, we will consider issues such as effects of the psychotherapeutic situation
on the patient, and the ‘new experience’ it provides; how to simultaneously remain open to, and use,
own counter-transference and maintain ‘neutrality’? We hope this helps attendees increase awareness
of the explicit and implicit theoretical models they rely on. We agree that “there is nothing so practical
as a good theory”, and we aim to have the participants recognize their theory’s strengths and limitations
in organizing clinical phenomena. In our times of often “undisciplined theoretical pluralism”, we hope to
help each participant become more theoretically and technically proficient and ‘pure’.
Our principal lecturers will again be Dr. Peter Dunn (Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, NY; also, Director for
Clinical Services, New York Psychoanalytic Institute) and Dr. Dinko Podrug. Both will also present own
clinical material, as will other faculty (Dr. Vedran Bilic, and others). We also encourage and expect other
participants, including those who consider themselves relative beginners, to present a case of theirs**.
For our inspirational reading, we wil again choose couple of classic papers (Arlow; Dr. Podrug will offer
thoughts on how Winnicot’s concepts of transitional objects and of playing approach similar issues as
Arlow. We will also look at Alexander’s ‘Therapeutic Factors’ from 1950, and some present-day
appraisals of it in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, No.4, 2007 – see the readings list below; We also
recommend (re)reading Hans Loewald’s 1962 “Internalization, Separation, Mourning and the Superego”,
reprinted and commented on in the same issue of the Psychoan. Q., and his 1960 “On the Therapeutic
Action of Psychoanalysis”.) Each participant*** is encouraged to share what their favorite technical or
theoretical paper is. We will disseminate a list of all of them, and will try to comment on as many of
them as feasible in our presentations and discussions.
Dinko Podrug, M.D., D.Sc., School Director (dpodrug@hotmail.com)
READINGS:
Arlow, Jacob (1969) Fantasy, Memory, and Reality Testing. Psychoanal. Q., 38:28-51.
Winnicott, DW (1953) Transitional objects and transitional phenomena. In: Playing and Reality, 1971.
The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Vol LXXVI, No. 4 (2007), pp.1049-1193:
Smith, Henry F (Editor’s Introduction): Voices that changed psychoanalysis in unpredictable ways
Anniversary Classics and Controversies:
Alexander, Franz, Analysis of the Therapeutic Factors in Psychoanalytic Treatment (1950), p.1065-commentaries- Steven H. Cooper, pp 1085-1102; Robert Michaels, pp.1103-1112.
Loewald, Hans W, Internalization, Separation, Mourning and the Superego (1962), pp.1113-1134
-commentaries – Nancy Chodorow, p.1135; Martin Silverman, p.1053; Richard Simpson,p.1171
___ (1960), On the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. In Papers in Psychoanalysis. Yale Univ. Press,
1980, pp.221-256
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*if you have trouble obtaining the readings, please contact Dr. Bilic
** please e-mail Drs. Podrug or Bilic (vbili@yahoo.com) with any ideas/questions about the clinical case
you would like to present, or about the program.
*** As part of optimal preparation for our seminar, we suggest to each participant to (1) think about a
patient they treated, and try to identify what were patient’s and therapist’s initial treatment goals; what
was the main unconscious fantasy; and what was their ‘theory of cure’; (2) write down a remarkable
dream, by a patient or your own.
****School fee is 120 Euro (90 Euro for trainees/early career professionals), payable either beforehand
to IUC via money transfer, or in cash upon arrival. SCHOOL IS CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH.