Psychoanalytic practitioners in Northern California enjoy one of the most richly diverse clinical communities in the world, as our APPOINTMENT BOOK feature makes plain every month. In April alone, analytic clinicians and thinkers will come together to tackle subjects as wide-ranging as the interaction of Van Gogh and Gauguin, the gay sexual liberation movement of the 70s, and the personal evolution of the professional therapist. Whatever your interests, you're sure to find an enlivining event in our listings.

Also in this month's issue, NCSPP President Beth Steinberg invites your involvement in the community; Louis Roussel continues his thoughtful online journal; and Eric Essman of the San Francisco Society for Lacanian Studies describes their efforts to bring Lacan's enigmatic work to life in the Bay Area.

We hope that you enjoy this month's issue, and we hope you'll join NCSPP to assist us in fostering a vibrant psychoanalytic community in Northern California.

This month I'll step back from my musings on applying for analytic training to highlight two opportunities for you to connect more deeply with the analytic community through NCSPP.

Our vision at NCSPP is to support clinicians, students and scholars to find a community where they can become involved intellectually, professionally, socially and personally in furthering psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In this spirit, I want to invite you to be more involved by joining one of NCSPP's committees. Ten committees are now run entirely by volunteers: the Associate Member Committee, the Program Committee, the Continuing Education/Continuing Medical Education Credit Committee, our journal fort da, the Interdisciplinary Education Committee, the Membership Committee, the Intensive Study Group Committee, as well as the education committees of the Peninsula/South Bay, the Sacramento Valley, and the East Bay/San Francisco.

In joining a committee you may plan programs, participate in outreach, and work together with colleagues on meaningful projects. I invite you to become a more active part of the analytic community by participating as much as is possible. If you wish to learn more about joining our committees, please contact me at besteinberg@comcast.net.

Another way to show your dedication to psychoanalytic growth in our area is by contributing to the NCSPP Scholarship Fund. The Scholarship Fund makes funds available to those who want to attend NCSPP's educational psychoanalytic programs but cannot afford program fees. Establishing and supporting this fund expresses the NCSPP's goal of encouraging inclusiveness, participation, and involvement within the psychoanalytic community. The fund is entirely made up of donations, and this year 100% of our board has made contributions. We would like to encourage those who can to make a contribution today.

Beth Steinberg, Ph.D.
President, NCSPP

Who's afraid of Jacques Lacan? The San Francisco Society for Lacanian Studies (SFSLS) aims to lift the veil associated with Lacan's provocative, enigmatic and allusive texts to promote a more general interest in clinical and applied psychoanalysis in the Bay Area.

The links of SFSLS to the psychoanalytic community go as deep as our founders, whose names will likely be familiar to IMPULSE readers. The society began as a study group in 1979, organized by Martine Aniel, Jeanne Wolff Bernstein and Andrea Walt. Within a few years it had expanded, challenged by Lacan's teachings and the influence of Andre Patsalides, who, in 1988, offered an Introduction to Lacan class at SFPI. That outreach attracted many, and from the late 1990s until today the society has maintained a fairly stable nucleus of 30 members and a mailing list of about 100. Along the way, it has partnered with the Lacan School in the publication of the journal Anamorphosis; sponsored an annual symposium, now in its 16th year, open to all who wish to present clinical and applied papers; offered courses, seminars and study groups at New College and elsewhere; presented talks by speakers such as Slavoj Zizek; and organized an annual film and psychoanalysis program, a Second Look. Our web site, shared with the Lacan School, provides an online forum, the Other, for all who wish to submit articles.

Now in our third decade, we decry imaginary factionalism and look forward to contributing to an ongoing dialogue and collaboration with the psychoanalytic community while maintaining our dedication to the study of Lacan's rich and inspiring work.

Eric Essman, M.A.
President
The San Francisco Society for Lacanian Studies

This space is available for psychological organizations in Northern California who want to articulate their relationship to the local psychoanalytic community. Please see our submission guidelines to express interest in contributing.

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The term "blog" refers to a web-based journal wherein individuals offer up their personal experiences to anyone with a web browser. The editors at IMPULSE sought out a local analytic candidate willing to "blog" his experience in training. Our intrepid volunteer is Dr. Louis Roussel, Ph.D., a 4th year candidate at SFPI who maintains a private practice in Oakland. Following is his third entry, in which he turns to the intersection of training and teaching.

2006 Mar: As I mentioned in my first blog, the writing seminars offered for candidates at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute provides an excellent antidote to the defensive use of theory by beginning candidates. Another opportunity for candidates to infuse their theories with life is teaching. Teaching requires the psychoanalytic candidate to have the ability to maintain a silent awareness of the pressing needs, feelings, and struggles of students and to use theoretical knowledge to flexibly adapt to the vital experiential matrix of the class. We must listen carefully for points of urgency and tension in student reflections and allow ourselves to go back over previously known theoretical material in a fresh way. It is critical that we allow ourselves to re-experience theoretical concepts as unsolved in each new intersubjective teacher-student matrix. The timeless, ubiquitous, ever-sliding questions must not be answered prematurely, but, instead, we must struggle with them, be decentered by them, until new understandings are co-created dialectically. These understandings should bear the subjective stamp of our personal encounters with our students.

In the teaching of psychoanalysis, it is critical that instructors take the risk of allowing our educational experiences with students to cast doubt upon even our most cherished beliefs, to be decentered, to struggle earnestly in order to maintain the continuous potential to detect new psychological possibilities.

Louis Roussel, Ph.D.

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Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis North presents Trauma and Recovery: A Clinical Conversation with Paul H. Ornstein, M.D. and Anna Ornstein, M.D. The Ornsteins will discuss various forms of trauma, distinguishing between traumas of everyday life and extreme conditions; traumas experienced collectively or suffered individually and in secret; traumas of infancy and childhood and those experienced in adolescence and adulthood. The presentations will focus on recovery, taking into consideration such factors as: the pre-traumatic level of development (resilience), the nature of the traumatic experience, and the post-traumatic environmental circumstances.

Former close associates of Heinz Kohut, the Ornsteins are renowned exponents and interpreters of Kohut's Self Psychology.

Saturday, April 29, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM at UCSF Laurel Heights Conference Center, 3333 California Street, San Francisco. Cost is $75 before April 19 and $85 after that date. Student rate is $40. For registration contact Betsy Wootten, ICP North program administrator at (831) 335-5526 or email bwootten@ucsc.edu.

Want EVENT SPOTLIGHT to shine on your upcoming analytic happening? You'll find our submission guidelines illuminating.

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Appointment Book offers a sampling of the psychoanalytically oriented events taking place in Northern California over the coming month. Where available, simply click an event title to view details on the sponsoring organization's web site.

Dialogues on Psychoanalysis and Literature in FreudFest
Thu, Mar 30 (begins) / 7:30 - 9 PM / JCCSF 3200 California Street / San Francisco
SFPI&S / Joan Sarnat, Ph.D.; Brenda Webster / free

Child Colloquia: Roberto Oelsner, M.D.
Sat, Apr 1 / 10 AM - 12 PM / SFPI&S Library 2420 Sutter Street / San Francisco
SFPI&S / Roberto Oelsner, M.D. / free

Supervision in an Analytic Field
Sat, Apr 1 & Apr 8 / 1 - 4 PM / CPMC, Pacific Campus, Clay Conf. Rm. 121 / San Francisco
NCSPP / Vivian Dent, Ph.D. / $85 - $150

Why The Therapist Needs To Change
Sat, Apr 1 / 9:30 AM - 4 PM / Veterans' Memorial Center Theater, 203 E. Fourteenth St. / Davis
NCSPP / Malcolm Owen Slavin, Ph.D. / $45 - $130

Sexual Liberation Confronts Psychoanalysis: "Gay Sex in the 70s"
Saturday, April 8, 2006 / 3 - 6 PM / Mechanics Institute, 57 Post Street / San Francisco
PINC / V. Bonfilio, J.D., Ph.D.; M. Ireland, Ph.D.; M. Murphy, Ph.D.; R. Kaywin, DMH / $25

Scientific Meeting with Lewis Kirshner
Mon, Apr 9 / 7:30 - 9:30 PM / SFPI&S Library, 2420 Sutter Street / San Francisco
SFPI&S / Lewis Kirshner, M.D. / free

The Supervision Interaction: Contemporary Psychodynamic Supervision
Sunday, April 9, 2006 / 9 AM - 4 PM / PINC Library, 2252 Fillmore Street / San Francisco
PINC / Joan Sarnat, Ph.D.; Jane Burka, Ph.D. / $75

A Day at the Movies: "The Station Agent"
Sat, Apr 22 / 11 AM - 2 PM / Variety Room of the Hobart Building, 582 Market / San Francisco
Friends of SFPI&S / Jed Sekoff, Ph.D. / $10 - $15

Reel Psychology: "Unknotting the Hangman's Noose" (Film/Lecture)
Saturday, April 22, 2006 / 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. / Rafael Film Center, 1118 4th St. / San Rafael
FSA / Thomas Kirsch, M.D., Thomas Singer, M.D., Filmmaker Mark Whitney / $25 - $60

Democracy on the Couch: the Intersection of Politics & Psychology
Sun, Apr 23 / 9 AM - 1:15 PM / 145 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley / Berkeley
SFPRG / Michael Bader, DMH; Helene Goldberg, Ph.D.; Rabbi Michael Lerner, Ph.D. / $95 - $105

Grand Rounds: Impasse and Apparent Impasse with Unbeareable Affects
Wed, Apr 26 / 6 - 7:15 PM / 401 Quarry Road, Room 2209 / Stanford
SFPI&S / Steven Goldberg, M.D. / free

Special Program: Psychoanalytic Process, Goals and Therapeutic Action
Sat, Apr 29 / 9 AM - 4:15 PM / UCSF Laurel Heights, 3333 California St. / San Francisco
SFPI&S / Stuart Ablon, Ph.D.; Prof. David Tuckett; Doris Silverman, Ph.D. / $75 - $110

Afternoon Art Tea: Making Use of Another's Mind: Van Gogh and Gauguin at Arles
Sat, Apr 29 / 1 - 4 PM / Fort Mason Center, Building C, Room C370 / San Francisco
NCSPP / Suzanne R. Pallak, Ph.D. / $40 - $80

Ongoing Psychoanalytic Case Conference
Weds (ongoing) / 10:30 AM - 12 PM / Albany
Individual Sponsor (Maureen Franey, Ph.D. / (510) 527-6141 / $45 per meeting

Psychoanlytic/Psychodynamic Case Consultation Group in the South Bay
Fri (ongoing) / 10:30 AM - 12 PM / 20688 Fourth Street / Saratoga
Individual Sponsor (Alan Kessler, Ph.D.) / $45 per meeting

Building a Child Psychotherapy Practice: Case Consultation and Reading
Thu (ongoing) / 12 - 1 PM / 550 Hamilton Ave. #240 / Palo Alto
Individual Sponsor (Mary Jane Otte, Ph.D.) / (650) 326-6663 / $60 per meeting

Psychoanalytic Impasses: Case Consultation and Reading
Tue (ongoing) / 1:10 - 2:15 PM / 550 Hamilton Ave. #240 / Palo Alto
Individual Sponsor (Mary Jane Otte, Ph.D.) / (650) 326-6663 / $60 per meeting

Current Views on Psychoanalytic Core Concepts: Transference
Wed (ongoing) / 11:20 AM - 12:50 PM / 550 Hamilton Ave. #240 / Palo Alto
Individual Sponsor (Lynn Alexander, Psy.D.) / (650) 328-8505 / $45 per meeting

Collaborative Group Consultation — Independent Psychoanalytic Perspective
Wed (ongoing) / 11:40 AM - 1:05 PM / 301 B Saratoga Road / Los Gatos
Individual Sponsor (Hugh Grubb, M.A.) / $45 per meeting

To submit an event, please see our submission guidelines.

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ART TEA: A psychoanalytic perspective on the relationship between Van Gogh & Gauguin during the 6 weeks they spent together.  Suzanne Pallak, Ph.D., Sat., Apr. 29, 1 - 4 PM, Fort Mason, $40-80.  To enroll, contact Michele McGuinness, (415) 457-9949.

PSYCHOTHERAPISTS NEEDED: Boyer House Foundation seeks a part-time psychotherapist and a part-time family therapist to work intensively with seriously disturbed patients in a team treatment setting. Fax CVs to Beth Steinberg, Ph.D. (415) 456-9965. More info.

Old couches, new books, hot jobs, cool internships? Post classified ads on NCSPP's online bulletin board at no charge. We will also feature your listing in IMPULSE for a modest fee. Please see our submission guidelines for details.

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The Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP) is committed to the study of psychoanalytic psychology and the encouragement of its interest in the professional and general communities. We are a multi-disciplinary, non-profit membership organization open to mental health professionals and all others interested in the study of psychoanalytic psychology.

Our more than 650 members form a community that spans the greater Bay Area and Northern California. NCSPP is a local affiliate of Division 39 (psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association. Our vast array of lectures, intensive study groups, scientific meetings, courses, our journal fort da, and numerous special events and projects are all brought to you by scores of volunteers who work to support NCSPP's mission. Our educational programs include continuing education credit for psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and licensed clinical social workers. We welcome you into the psychoanalytic community in Northern California. Please join us.

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Beth Steinberg, Ph.D., NCSPP President
Cleopatra Victoria, M.A., MFT, Editor
Cate Corcoran, M.A., Features Editor
Brad Falconer, M.A., Managing Editor

Each month, IMPULSE reaches over 1,300 psychoanalytically oriented professionals and students in Northern California.

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Event listings in APPOINTMENT BOOK are available for your psychoanalytically oriented educational or professional event. To submit your event for consideration, please use our online form.

Contributions to PIECE OF MIND, our feature profiling Northern California psychoanalytic organizations, will be assigned on a monthly basis. If you'd like to suggest an organization to be featured in this space, please send an email via our online form with the subject PIECE OF MIND. Please do not send attachments or files.

EVENT SPOTLIGHT lets you promote your upcoming analytic event in more depth and detail than is possible in APPOINTMENT BOOK. The cost is $100 per month for up to 150 words describing your event. A maximum of one EVENT SPOTLIGHT will run each month. Please begin by expressing interest in EVENT SPOTLIGHT in an email via our online form. Once approved, send payment to NCSPP, c/o Michele McGuinness, 12 Hampton Ave., San Anselmo, CA 94960, and send your copy via our online form. Please do not send attachments or files.

POTENTIAL SPACE is a place within IMPULSE for play — a home for a creative, unconventional, or otherwise novel contributions. Submissions should be emailed via our online form. Due to length restrictions and thematic constraints, we cannot guarantee that your submission will be published. However, we encourage you to express yourself and help us open the space. Please note that you must be the copyright owner of anything you submit, and your submission constitutes permission for IMPULSE to publish your submission via email and on the web in perpetuity without any compensation.

You can list your psychoanalytically oriented jobs, internships, for sale items, announcements, etc. in CLASSIFIEDS. The cost is $20 per month for a 30-word ad. Please send payment to NCSPP, c/o Michele McGuinness, 12 Hampton Ave., San Anselmo, CA 94960. Email your ad copy via our online form with the subject CLASSIFIEDS.

DEADLINES: To be considered for publication, submissions must be received by the 15th of the month prior to publication. (For example, September 15 for the October issue.) NCSPP and IMPULSE staff reserve the right to decline any submission at our sole discretion.

IMPULSE's complete submission guidelines can be found on the NCSPP web site.

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IMPULSE is published electronically once a month by the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology. Comments are welcome and should be sent via our online form.

You are receiving this monthly newsletter from the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP) because of your interest in psychoanalysis. Any mental health professional or student interested in psychoanalytic thought may subscribe free to IMPULSE, regardless of organizational affiliation. To ensure that IMPULSE isn't misidentified as junk mail, we recommend adding impulse@ncspp.org to your email program's address book. If you haven't done so already, click to confirm your interest in subscribing. To unsubscribe, click the SafeUnsubscribe link at the bottom of this message.

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