The San Francisco/East Bay Intensive Study Group (ISG) offers a stimulating educational opportunity to clinicians interested in learning about psychoanalysis as a means of deepening and increasing their skills and knowledge. The creation of a rich collaboration between NCSPP and PINC, the ISG is a year long course (September - May) focused on a particular psychoanalytic topic and offered in both San Francisco and Berkeley. Each course is divided into four eight-week sections taught by a different instructor. The class size, limited to 15 participants, allows ample opportunity for exchange, discussion, and for the formation of a learning community. In fact, many ISG participants return as part of their ongoing professional development and for the camaraderie that these groups offer.

The 2007/08 ISG is entitled, "Hidden Figures in a Thicket: Encountering the Unconscious in Clinical Practice". In response to requests from the NCSPP membership, this year's course will have a strong clinical focus. The course will explore the many manifestations of the unconscious that occur in the encounter between patient and therapist, whether through language, somatic experience, enactments, humor, the involuntary or the uncanny. Seasoned faculty will address the topic of the unconscious from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives and will offer useful and thought-provoking approaches to understanding its myriad forms and functions within the context of the clinical process.

For more information about the faculty, titles of each eight-week section and registration please visit www.ncspp.org/learning/isg.html.