Welcome to the April issue of IMPULSE. Enjoy perusing the musings of the NCSPP president on psychoanalytic pluralism, learn how the spring desert can inform your clinical practice, and explore the latest incarnation of ICP. Also, get a taste for this month's exciting event with Dr. Lewis Aron. Again, we warmly invite you to join NCSPP and take part in illuminating courses, member discounts, listing in our membership directory and finding a community of stimulating colleagues.

Pluralism...a buzz word these days, sometimes embraced and sometimes overtly rejected by clinicians. Psychoanalytic pluralism...as I write this, I wonder what our constituency thinks of this concept? I have been thinking a lot about pluralism lately and how the process of change actually occurs in our patients. In my fort da President's Report to be published this spring, I make a plea for the continuation of the already theoretically pluralistic psychoanalytic educational programming in the Bay Area.

My thinking has been substantially informed by my training at PINC, but I have lately been wondering and noticing just what it is about comparative approaches to our work that is so helpful and freeing to us as clinicians. So many theories: Drive, American Object Relations, British Object Relations, Self, British Middle School, Contemporary Kleinian, Bionian, Lacanian, Attachment, American Relational, Intersubjectivity, Post Modern, Gender, Feminist and Queer are just a few. As I list these, I am reminded of how much diversity we have in the Bay Area, both in our membership and in the populations we serve. With such an array of psychic experiences in our daily world here in the Bay Area, how could one theory encompass all the phenomena we face in our work? In looking for change in our patients, perhaps a broad perspective gives room for surprise and more freedom to choose a vantage point of listening in different ways at different moments of transferential and countertransferential experience.

NCSPP's educational offerings this year try to address the issues all of us work with daily, and I hope that when you check our website you find something that speaks to you and is applicable to your clinical practice. A number of our upcoming programs promise to inspire, teach, and transcend the tried and true.

Warm regards,
Drew Tillotson, Psy.D.
NCSPP President

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This time of year I like driving out to the Southern California desert. The desert constitutes a place we may think of as offering nothing. But it's this time of year, when we hover between torpid winter and the efflorescence of spring, that highlights the drama of the desert. If you travel to Anza Borrego or Joshua Tree, or even Death Valley, you may do so with the wish to witness the first blurs and blots of color punctuating the desert. But before that is the time of dormancy, of emptiness and space that this interim season and the desert epitomizes.

Here in these quiet, dead, empty moments when nothing seems to be happening, everything is, if we allow ourselves to observe. It's the space we bury with words, laughter, a slurp of java when patient or analyst become too anxious in the silence of the moment...the hour...or the analysis itself. It is the place where the patient and the analyst's unconsciouses intersect to compose Ogden's analytic third. This is Winnicott's transitional space or potential space translated into the creative space of the adult. It is the implied geography between need and satisfaction which Lacan calls the gap and where desire is born and borne.

Part of our task is to help ourselves and our patients become comfortable in the void, to allow feelings, memories and thoughts to germinate. Only when we revere the emptiness, can these verdant sprigs burst forth.

I will end with a fragment of a poem, written several springs ago when I journeyed south:

Another month and the days will grow longer
Spring will come again and we will drive out to the desert
past the dreaming stars and the sleepy blue sky
until we run out of road and there is only cactus and the flowers,
blooming again.

Cleopatra Victoria, MFT
IMPULSE Editor

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The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICP) would like to offer members of the Northern California psychoanalytic community a brief update, letting you know about new training opportunities and an upcoming clinically oriented event.

ICP now conducts a weekend psychoanalytic training program for those who live outside Los Angeles. It is identical to the Weekly Training Program except seminars are held once monthly on weekends for ten months. ICP-North continues its innovative psychoanalytic psychotherapy training program for the Bay Area. See www.icpla.edu for more information.

Saturday, April 5th ICP-North presents "The Therapist's Vulnerability: Managing Envy, Shame, and Humiliation" with Donna Orange, Ph.D., Psy.D. and Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D., Psy.D. Donna Orange will offer a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective on the vulnerability that we as therapists experience with our patients, focusing particularly on the therapist's feelings of shame, envy, and humiliation in the clinical setting. Lynne Jacobs will present a case in which she, as the therapist, had to contend with her shame and her dread of shame in the therapeutic process with a patient. UCSF Laurel Heights Conference Room. Tuition: $75/ 9 am - 1 pm. For brochure, email: bwootten@ucsc.edu.

Bob Carrere, Ph.D., ABPP

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In Relational Psychoanalysis: Fantasy, Feminism and Contemporary Clinical Practice, Dr. Aron will utilize feminist thinking to reexamine the ways in which psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have been defined and differentiated. Psychoanalysis has been traditionally defined in opposition to and distinct from psychotherapy. Dr. Aron will challenge this splitting, examining it in terms of gender and culture stereotyping and highlight the implications for the place of psychoanalysis in our culture.

In the afternoon, Dr. Aron will examine origination and birth fantasies. His emphasis will be on fantasies of one's own birth in the context of the family system within which one arrived. Following the themes of birth in an analysis by examining process notes taken on a patient's three consecutive birthdays will highlight these fantasies and illustrate how they interact with the analyst's concordant and complementary fantasies.

Read an interview with Dr. Aron.

Saturday, March 29. 9 am - 4:15 pm, UCSF Laurel Heights

Register and get more information.

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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.

Film The Butcher Boy: Program in Honor of Woodrow Donovan
Sat, Mar 1 / 1 PM - 5 PM / UCSF Laurel Heights, 3333 California St. / San Francisco
Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies / (415) 679-0997 / Diane Borden, Ph.D.; Mark Levy, M.D.; Abbot Bronstein, Ph.D.; Frank Lossy, M.D. / $15 - $35

SFCP Ethics: Psychoanalytic Perspectives; Continuing Education Seminar
Sat, Mar 1 / 9 AM - 4 PM / 2340 Jackson, 4th Fl. (enter on Webster) / SF
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Jeffrey Sandler, M.D. / $90

Friends of SFCP East Bay Clinical Forum (Case Presentation and Discussion)
Wed, Mar 5 / 7 PM - 9 PM / Herrick Hospital, Conf. Rm. CC, 2001 Dwight Way / Berkeley
Friends of SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Emily Taylor Johnson, L.C.S.W. (presenter);
Maureen Katz, M.D. (discussant) / free (CE $15)

SFCP SF Student Outreach: Countertransference: Mirror into Clinical Encounter
Wed, Mar 5 (begins) / 7:30 PM - 9:05 PM / 2340 Jackson, 4th Fl. (enter on Webster) / SF
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Catherine Mallouh, M.D. / free

SFCP Peninsula Student Outreach: Intrapsychic & Intersubject Contexts of Envy
Wed, Mar 5 (begins) / 7:30 PM - 9 PM / Psychiatry Building, 401 Quarry Rd., Rm. 1206 / Stanford
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Julie Gerhardt, Ph.D. / free

Gay and Lesbian Parents and their Children: Psychodynamic Considerations
Thu, Mar 6 (begins) / 7:30 PM - 9 PM / TBA / San Francisco
NCSPP / (415) 457-9949 / Gary Grossman, Ph.D.; Amy Gentile, Ph.D. / $55 - $160

Oedipus Complex I: Female Sexual Desire: The Black Man and the Mermaid
Sat, Mar 8 / 10 AM - 1 PM / Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin St. / San Francisco
PINC / (415) 922-4050 / D. Elise, Ph.D.; M. Aniel, Ph.D.; L. Buchberg, DMH / $40 - $60

Integrating Contemporary Initiatives with Nancy McWilliams
Sat, Mar 8 / 9 AM - 4 PM / Guzman Hall, Dominican College, 1425 Grand Ave. / San Rafael
Community Institute for Psychotherapy / (415) 459-5999 / Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D. / $90 - $140

History Repeating: A Dialogue on Trauma
Sat, Mar 8 / 9 AM - 12 PM / Christ Episcopal Church, Fireside Rm, 1040 Border Road / Los Altos
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Maureen Smith, M.D. / $75

SFCP Scientific Meeting: On Bion
Mon, Mar 10 / 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM / 2340 Jackson, 4th Fl. (enter on Webster) / SF
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Eileen Keller, Ph.D. / free

SFCP Seminar for Scholars: The Mass Psychology of Dissociation
Thu, Mar 13 / 7:30 PM - 9 PM / 306 Wheeler Hall, closest entrance is Sather Gate / Berkeley
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Peter Goldberg, Ph.D. / free (please RSVP)

Case Presentation: Aging out of Foster Care, Issues and Technique
Sat, Mar 15 / 9:45 AM - 1 PM / Flamingo Conference Resort & Spa, Oak Room / Santa Rosa
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Kristine Duffin, Psy.D.; Jim Dimon, M.D. / free

De-Cathecting Libidinal Energy: A Holocaust Survivor Bears Witness
Sat, Mar 15 / 9:25 AM - 12:30 PM / JFKU, 2956 San Pablo Ave., 2nd Floor / Berkeley
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Sunny Kuegle, Psy.D. / $75

SFCP Friends San Francisco Clinical Forum
Tue, Mar 18 / 7 PM - 8:30 PM / 2340 Jackson, 4th Fl. (enter on Webster) / SF
Friends of SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Alexander Zinchenko, Ph.D.; Mark Swoiskin, M.D. / free

SFCP Friends South Bay Clinical Forum
Tue, Mar 18 / 7 PM - 9 PM / Psychiatry Building, 401 Quarry Rd. / Stanford
Friends of SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Discussant: Neil Brast, M.D. / free

SFCP Stanford Grand Rounds: A Clincial Presentation from PAPPTP
Wed, Mar 26 / 6:15 PM - 7:30 PM / Psychiatry Building, 401 Quarry Rd. / Stanford
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Ellen Russin, L.C.S.W. / free

SFCP Public Lecture Series: What Every Mother Knows
Wed, Mar 27 / HHMM AM/PM - HHMM AM/PM / 2340 Jackson, 4th Fl. (enter on Webster) / SF
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Stephen Seligman. D.M.H. / free

SFCP Child Colloquia with Virginia Demos
Sat, Mar 29 / 10:05 AM - 12 PM / 2340 Jackson, 4th Fl. (enter on Webster) / SF
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / Virginia Demos, Ed.D. / free

SFCP Special Program: Comparing Notes from the Underworld
Sat, Mar 29 / 9 PM - 4 PM / Los Gatos Neighborhood Center, 209 Main Street / Los Gatos
SFCP / (415) 563-5815 / C. Fisher; B. Paine; B. Wittine; B. McSwain; A. Kessler / $55 - $140

ICP North Annual Conference: "A Therapist's Vulnerability"
Sat, Apr 5 / 9 AM - 1 PM / UCSF Laurel Heights Conference Center / San Francisco
ICP-North / bwootten@ucsc.edu / Donna Orange, Ph.D., Psy. D.; Lynne Jacobs, Ph.D., Psy.D.

To submit an event, please see our submission guidelines.

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CASE CONSULTATION GROUP: For psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists. Mondays 12:50-2:15 pm beginning April 1, 2008. Contact Beth Steinberg, Ph.D. at (415) 441-5302 or besteinberg@comcast.net.

SPACE FOR RENT: Beautiful office, available almost full time. Hardwood floors, high ceilings, tastefully furnished with antique carved wood and leather analytic couch. Clement St. near Arguello. Contact Joseph Bobrow, bobrow@deepstreams.org.

PALO ALTO PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY TRAINING PROGRAM: Two years, three Friday morning courses plus supervised cases. Applications being accepted for Fall 2008: www.sf-cp.org. Call Cheryl Goodrich (650) 321-0533 for more information.

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. Join us.

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Drew Tillotson, Psy.D., NCSPP President
Cleopatra Victoria, M.A., MFT, Editor
Cate Corcoran, Psy.D., Features Editor
Meg Earls, M.A., Copy Editor
Brad Falconer, M.A., Managing Editor

Each month, IMPULSE reaches over 1,830 psychoanalytically interested professionals and students in Northern California.

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IMPULSE is a monthly newsletter published by the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology for the purpose of connecting Northern California psychoanalytic practitioners, students, and scholars. IMPULSE aims to foster the development of psychoanalytic practice and thought in our region through collaboration and understanding.

For information on submitting event listings and other content to IMPULSE, please see our guidelines and policies page 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 contact 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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