Traffic on the royal road has thinned in recent years; clinicians may complete training with little exposure to dream studies or methods of working with them. But clients still dream, and this program will enable clinicians to engage with them fruitfully.

Sample dreams will highlight diagnostic and transferential information in initial dreams. Common symbols of the self — house and car — will be discussed for their psychodynamic implications. Dream markers correlated with trauma, borderline, suicide risk, and breakdown will be noted. We will identify core conflicts and internal resources, translating dream images into metaphoric language usable in ongoing treatment. Emphasis is less on theory and intellectual interpretation and more on direct engagement with affect, imagery, and narrative provided by the “dream-maker”.

NCSPP’s Pre-licensed Clinicians Committee invites you to the 21st in a series of conversations with experienced clinicians in the field of depth psychology. Join your colleagues for a stimulating evening of food, wine, and conversation with Dr. Meredith Sabini, a licensed psychologist and director of The Dream Institute in Berkeley.

NCSPP and PCPG (Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group) are pleased to announce the 10th Anniversary of our Annual Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Lecture. This year, we are honored to host esteemed couple psychoanalyst from Tavistock Relationships, Mary Morgan, who will be focusing on technique in psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy. She will be addressing the complexities of what is meant by a “couple interpretation” and what can go wrong, including “incorrect” interpretations, problems with the timing of interpretations, and those involving unprocessed countertransference enactments.

This seminar will provide a close clinical examination of race and culture in contemporary psychoanalytic theory and treatment. Each week will focus on the themes of a pertinent theoretical paper, and case material will be discussed to illuminate technical considerations. Particular attention will be paid to the difficulty of speaking about race — working with the dissociation of racial states, the collapse of potential space, and the vulnerabilities and melancholia that emerge in treatment for both therapist and client when racial tensions are allowed to surface. While keeping the Eurocentric nature of psychoanalytic writing in mind, we will attempt to use our theories to ground us as we search for new ways of working with race and culture.