All registrants will receive their link to join via ZOOM. Attendees will also receive access to the recording on the Monday after the course, available to watch back for 1 month.
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This course will introduce the participants to psychoanalytic/psychodynamic work with psychosis.
Day One will briefly review some of the major contributions of psychoanalytic theorists: Freud, Jung, Sullivan, Fromm-Reichmann, Bollas, Winnicott, Lacan, Searles, and more. It will also address social contributions to psychosis and diagnosis: poverty, trauma, marijuana, loneliness.
The instructor will address the reasons psychoanalysts, once at the helm of treatment for psychosis, are hardly, if at all, trained to work with this population.
We will review what is unique when working with psychosis as well as what is a uniquely psychoanalytic approach. Which conditions –safety, isolation, loneliness—and settings-–inpatient, outpatient, family treatment, peer support groups—are important to consider when undertaking this work. Most important, we will learn how to create a therapeutic alliance with even the most difficult to reach patients, and the utmost significance of transference and countertransference reactions and how to use them in this work.
Day Two will address specific ways to work with positive symptoms (hallucinations,delusions, disorganized thinking) and negative symptoms (lack of motivation, will, pleasure, sociability) How do we engage with florid symptoms? And how do we reach patients who appear unreachable? What is the difference between going mad and being mad? Finally, we will address the creativity manifested in psychotic symptoms as well as the creativity needed to work with psychosis.
Case examples will be discussed to illustrate topics covered in class. Both days will include ample time for discussion.
This course is for all mental health practitioners who work with extreme states or wish to learn how. It may also be relevant for anyone interested in understanding the workings of psychodynamic understanding and treatment of psychosis.
Readings:
Knafo & Selzer. 2024. From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Psychoanalytic Treatment of Psychosis. Routledge.
Bollas, C. 2015. When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of Schizophrenia. Chapter 18. Change.
Leader, D. 2011. What is Madness? Penguin. Chapter 2: Quiet Madness & Chapter 12. Working with Psychosis.
Searles, H. 1961. Schizophrenic Communication. Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review, 48: 3-50. Also Chapter 13 in Searles’s Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects. 1965. IUP.
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Speaker:
Dr. Danielle Knafo is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with expertise in the treatment of psychosis. During her tenure as professor at L.I.U.’s Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program for 22 years, she trained doctoral students on how to work therapeutically and psychodynamically with serious mental illness. She received the prestigious Barbro Sandin award for this work. Currently, she is faculty and supervisor at Adelphi’s Postgraduate Programs and NYU’s Program for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She has written and lectured extensively on the topics of art and creativity, psychoanalysis, trauma and psychosis, sexuality and technology. From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Psychoanalytic Treatment of Psychosis (with Michael Selzer) is her tenth book. Dr. Knafo has worked psychodynamically with psychosis for 40 years in a variety of settings (inpatient, outpatient, clinics, and private practice), and she maintains a private practice in Manhattan and Great Neck, NY.
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Schedule:
This is a two-day course which will begin at 4pm and end at 8pm on both days, with an allotted hour break.
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Tickets £ 100
Members receive 20% off with their promocode.
A limited number of bursary places will be available for those unable to pay the full amount. Please email [email protected] for more information.
The purpose of this course is to raise funds for the Freud Museum London, which receives no regular public income.
