Spring 2010 Course List

To sign up for a course, visit the Registration Page.

Saturday, January 16, 2010
D. M. Meltzer's "Aesthetic Conflict"
Dawn Farber, Psy.D., MFT

The "Aesthetic Conflict" developmental theory is among Meltzer's most profound contributions to clinical practice. He deepens and widens our understanding of the separation-individuation process as the pivotal point in development, with consequences reverberating throughout our being—both organizing our manic, obsessional, and dissociative defenses and also preparing us to love the beauty and mystery of our existence.
  Dawn Farber, Psy.D., MFT, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Oakland and San Francisco. She is a Personal and Supervising Analyst and a faculty member at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) and she teaches psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy widely in the community. Dr. Farber is especially interested in clinically focused study groups and in consultation.

Saturday, January 16, 2010
Time: 9:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Location: The Psychotherapy Institute
CE: 3.5 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; submitted to MCEPAA for approval)

Saturday, January 30, 2010
4th Annual SSP Symposium
Teach/Treat Phenomena in Supervision: When Personal Issues Intrude on Learning
Gareth S. Hill, MSW, Ph.D.

Personal and developmental issues often surface in the process of using supervision and consultation. This day-long education event will study optimal ways of relating to and using these phenomena to enhance the learning, growth, and development of both parties to the supervisory relationship. Gareth Hill will give a keynote presentation followed by the presentation of a vignette from which will flow a panel discussion and small-group discussions. The small-group discussions will provide participants an opportunity to explore their own experiences with these phenomena in depth.
  Gareth S. Hill, MSW, Ph.D., is a clinical social worker and certified Jungian analyst in private practice in Berkeley. He is a long-time member of TPI, has supervised for many years in the TPI training program, and has long been a consultant in the Supervision Study Program, of which he is currently Co-Chair. He is on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, where he is currently Chair of the Admissions Committee. He obtained his MSW at U.C. Berkeley and his Ph.D. at The Sanville Institute. He is the author of Masculine and Feminine: The Natural Flow of Opposites in the Psyche (Shambhala Publications, 1992).

Saturday, January 30, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., lunch included
Registration and continental breakfast at 8:30 a.m.
Preservation Park, Nile Hall
668 13th Street, Oakland (enter on MLK at 13th)
CE: 6 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; MCEPAA #PSY005-0264-000)

Saturday, February 6, 2010
Working with Hysterical Dynamics and Symptoms in Contemporary Practice
Joan Sarnat, Ph.D., ABPP

What does it feel like to be in the room with a hysterical personality? What somatic complaints may profitably be understood as hysterical symptoms? How does object relations theory enrich our work with hysterical clients? The recent centenary of the publication of Freud and Breuer’s Studies on Hysteria (1895) has provoked a proliferation of fascinating new psychoanalytic work that addresses these questions and that participants will sample in this class. Participants will learn to identify hysterical defenses, transference/countertransference paradigms, and symptoms as they present in the contemporary consulting room—and to conceptualize hysteria’s developmental origins. We will apply these understandings to case material.
  Joan Sarnat, Ph.D., ABPP, is a TPI supervisor and a member of the Supervisors’ Committee. She is a personal and supervising analyst and is a member of the faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC). Dr. Sarnat has coauthored (with Mary Gail Frawley O’Dea) The Supervisory Relationship: A Contemporary Psychodynamic Approach (2000) and numerous papers and chapters. She has taught at the Wright Institute, CSPP, and U.C. Berkeley Extension. She has recently taught courses on hysteria for PINC and NCSPP, using the HBO series "In Treatment." Dr. Sarnat is in practice in Berkeley.

Saturday, February 6, 2010
Time: 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Location: The Psychotherapy Institute
CE: 3 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; MCEPAA #PSY005-0259-000)

Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Work of D. W. Winnicott: Playing with Paradox
Megan Rundel, Ph.D.

In this class, we will explore the work of D. W. Winnicott through an immersion in three paradoxes he posed: at-one-ment and separateness (the paradox of development), creation and discovery (the paradox of play), and destruction and survival (the paradox of aggression). Clinical material will be presented to anchor the theory in psychotherapeutic practice. This playful and interactive class is appropriate for clinicians at all levels. It will help participants in their work by both deepening an understanding of Winnicott’s theory and by exploring the ongoing paradoxes therapist and patient find themselves living in the clinical encounter.
  Megan Rundel, Ph.D., has taught and supervised at Access Institute, the Wright Institute, and CSPP. She is interested in the intersection of object relations psychoanalysis and spirituality. Dr. Rundel is a candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, and she has a private practice in Oakland.

Saturday, February 27, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Location: The Psychotherapy Institute
CE: 5 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; submitted to MCEPAA for approval)

MEETS THE LAW & ETHICS REQUIREMENT 
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Law and Ethics for Clinicians: Burdens, Dilemmas, Possibilities
Bram Fridhandler, Ph.D.

Clinicians are all too aware that they face potential penalties if they violate laws or ethical standards. This awareness and the shifting nature of these standards produce anxiety that can intrude on clinicians' functioning and wear away at their professional self-assurance. This course starts from the premise that clinicians need clarity of mind to do their jobs and promotes this clarity by de-mystifying the licensing board enforcement process and by helping clinicians make use of tools they already have to handle such areas as multiple relationships, informed consent, subpoenas, and record keeping.
  Bram Fridhandler, Ph.D., has been in private practice since 1987. He is a member of the Ethics Committee of the California Psychological Association and an Expert Reviewer for the Board of Psychology. He has been Ethics Chair of the San Francisco and Alameda County Psychological Associations and has taught ethics in psychology graduate programs. His previous workshops have been sponsored by The Psychotherapy Institute, the SF Psychoanalytic Institute Extension Division, PINC, NCSPP, Alliant, and others. His article on informed consent with CPA Expertise Series Task Force appeared in the Board of Psychology Update.

Saturday, March 6, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. (lunch on your own)
Location: The Psychotherapy Institute
CE: 6 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; MCEPAA #PSY005-0261-000)

MEETS THE AGING & LONG-TERM CARE REQUIREMENT FOR MFTs/LCSWs
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Aging with Our Clients in Psychotherapy
Arlene Bermann, LCSW; Saralie Pennington, MSW; Sandrah Henry, LMFT

As therapists and clients age together, we face myriad psychological, medical, social, and spiritual challenges, which can influence the therapy relationship and process in subtle or dramatic ways. There will be three related presentations: 1. Aging with My Clients in Long-Term Treatments; 2. Reflections on Aging, Psychotherapy, and Spiritual Practice; and 3. The Therapist’s Illness as Opportunity in the Clinical Hour.
  The presenters will consider the impact of aging on clinical relationships through discussion and sharing vignettes from their lives and psychotherapy practices. Particular attention will be paid to how clinicians can use countertransference to deepen the clinical relationship over time.
  Arlene Bermann, LCSW, has private practices in individual and couple psychotherapy in Marin County and San Francisco. She is also a member of the Psychiatry Department at Kaiser Permanente. Arlene practices with a contemporary psychoanalytic, relational perspective. She provides trainings on "The Vulnerability of the Therapist in the Clinical Hour" and consultation for clinicians. Arlene also has a long-standing practice of Buddhist meditation and study. Saralie Pennington, MSW, has had a private practice in San Francisco for 35 years, seeing early adolescents to older adults. She coordinated family, children, and queer youth services at New Leaf, where she developed couple and family therapies for gay/straight family issues. She is a certified elder care manager and teaches at the SF State Social Work School. She is a Board member at Sanville Institute and Openhouse. Sandrah Henry, LMFT, provides individual, couple, family, and group psychotherapy at The Laurel Center in San Francisco, a training and therapy clinic that she co-founded in 2003. She is a Certified CAMFT supervisor and leads supervision and consultation groups using an intersubjective perspective. She was formerly the disability coordinator and Co-Director of the Women's Mental Health Services at Operation Concern/New Leaf Services in San Francisco. She provides trainings and presentations on the therapist's use of self, often using clinical examples from her work.

Saturday, March 13, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Location: The Psychotherapy Institute
CE: 3 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; MCEPAA #PSY005-0262-000)

Saturday, March 20, 2010
The Necessity of Astonishment
Leslye Russell, M.A., MFT

The clinical method of close listening is similar to the art historian's method of close looking. In this workshop we will explore the application of the art historian’s methods to the clinical situation based on the work of T. J. Clark, art historian and poet. In his book, The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing (2006), he writes that his experiment in art writing yields astonishment.
  Using the methods of close looking and close listening, we will use paintings and poetry to explore those moments of astonishment that signal an encounter with the unconscious. Through readings and discussion, we will also consider clinically relevant theoretical concepts, such as repetition, truthfulness, the problem of interpretation, and the principle of economy.
  Leslye Russell, M.A., MFT, is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in Berkeley. She is a supervisor and faculty member at TPI where she has taught advanced trainees, supervisors, and the general membership for over 25 years. She has also taught at Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology and is a Fellow of the International Institute for Psychotherapy in Washington, D.C. Recent papers include: "The Verities of Astonishment: Close Looking and Close Listening"; "The Flâneur and the Analysand," which appeared in Fort D; and "Group Mindedness" (for the 2008 SSP Symposium).

Saturday, March 20, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Location: The Psychotherapy Institute
CE: 6 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; MCEPAA #PSY005-0263-000)

Saturday, March 27, 2010
Spring Speaker Series 2010
The Radical Potential of Psychotherapy: The Psychological Equivalent to Discovering Fire
Carol Gilligan, Ph.D.

The logic of the psyche is an associative logic—the logic of dreams, poetry, and memory. But the power of free association to undo dissociation is at once liberating and inflammatory. In this presentation, internationally acclaimed psychologist, feminist, ethicist and prolific writer Carol Gilligan will consider the tensions between an associative method, grounded in love and freedom, and theoretical frameworks that reinforce cultural prohibitions on knowing and speaking. As elucidated by Dr. Gilligan, these are tensions that have played out in the history of psychoanalysis and continue to beset the talking/listening cure. Her inquiry will raise the question as to whether Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor was right in claiming that, in the end, people will choose miracle, mystery, and authority over the challenges of love and freedom. Dr. Gilligan will discuss these and other probing ideas from her newest book, The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy’s Future.
  Psychologist, professor, and novelist, Carol Gilligan, Ph.D., was named by Time magazine as 1 of the 25 most influential Americans. Harvard University Press describes her 1982 book, In a Different Voice, as "the little book that started a revolution." Her first novel, Kyra, published in January 2008, was reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "a rare thing: an engrossing, deeply emotional, thinking person's love story." Her 1992 coauthored book, Meeting at the Crossroads, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In 2002, The Birth of Pleasure was praised by the Times Literary Supplement as a "thrilling new paradigm" and characterized by National Public Radio as the work of a psychologist who writes like a novelist.
  As a Harvard faculty member, she held the university's first chair in gender studies. She received a Senior Research Scholar Award from the Spencer Foundation, a Grawemeyer Award for her contributions to education, and a Heinz Award for her contributions to understanding the human condition. Her recent work includes a critically acclaimed play, coauthored with her son Jonathan and inspired by The Scarlet Letter. Her latest book, coauthored with NYU law professor David Richards, titled The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future, was published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press. She is currently a University Professor at New York University.

Saturday, March 27, 2010
Time: 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Location: Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Roda Theatre
2025 Addison Street, Berkeley
(between Shattuck and Martin Luther King Jr. Way)
Parking in pay lot down the block
CE: 3 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; MCEPAA #PSY005-265-000)

Saturday, March 27, 2010
In Our Own Voices
Carol Gilligan, Ph.D.

In this workshop, Carol Gilligan will draw on the findings of her developmental research with adolescent girls and young boys as well as current research in neurobiology to demonstrate, through a series of writing exercises, the ease with which we can recover what for many women and men has been a lost time in development and free a creative voice.
  See bio in previous course description.

Saturday, March 27, 2010
Time: 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Location: TBA
CE: 3 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; submitted to MCEPAA for approval)

Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Dynamics of Business and Psychotherapy: Some How-Tos

Are business and psychotherapy strange bedfellows . . . or long-lost lovers?

Most therapists have limited experience, education and training to manage the business aspects of private practice.  Addressing the financial dimensions of treatment, understanding unconscious forces regarding money matters, using the internet for marketing purposes, and identifying the pros and cons of managed care are all essential skills for a therapist who strives for financial viability in these economic times.  Come to this day long conference and let the experts help you learn how to  manage the business aspects of private practice.

Presenters and Topics:

David Wallin, Ph.D., Keynote
Attachment and Money in Psychotherapy: Reconciling Care-giving and Fee-taking

Julie Levin, MFT,

Renee Spencer, MFT, Discussant
Marketing Your Practice on the Internet

Barbara Griswold, MFT
Sustaining Your Practice in a Recession: Is Insurance Worth the Hassle?

Drew Hutchinson, MFT
How Doing Business Supports Your Practice: A Clinical Perspective

Peter Cole, LCSW, ChFC; Daisy Reese, LCSW
True Self/True Wealth

Saturday, May 1, 2010
Time: 8:15 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Location: Samuel Merritt College Health Education Center
400 Hawthorne Ave, Oakland, CA 94609
510-548-2250
CE: 7 Units (MFT, LCSW approved; submitted to MCEPAA for approval)

To sign up for a course, visit the Registration Page.