Piece of Mind
by Sacramento Psychoanalytic Society
WHAT CAN PSYCHOSIS TEACH US ABOUT PSYCHOANALYSIS? A CONVERSATION WITH BRET FIMIANI, PSY.D.
Sacramento Psychoanalytic Society
Saturday, February 7th | 1:00 pm - 3:30 pm
422 Alhambra Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95816
In the U.S., we are seeing an increase in collective efforts within the post-Lacanian psychoanalytic field to better understand and more effectively treat psychosis. To reach this point, psychoanalysis has had to learn from the psychotic (what s/he “knows”) and allow this knowledge to guide us in reinventing the fundamentals of our practice. In this talk, Dr. Bret Fimiani will discuss the clinical relevance of the concept of psychotic structure, the necessity of “reversing” the transference with psychosis, and the role of ethics in the positions of the analysand and analyst. As a way of exploring these conceptual questions, Dr. Fimiani will discuss a clinical example in which a person experiencing psychosis faces a choice, under transference, either to remain or to exit his delusion. The subject of psychosis guides the treatment and it is his choice to develop a new ethic by way of listening to his voices and speech and to the failure of delusion. It is also his choice to follow the new opportunities (and freedoms) that the failure of his delusion offers. Ultimately, the aim of this talk is to offer a way to recognize desirable results when working psychoanalytically with psychosis.