Area News
Chicago
News
Updated 4/2011
The Chicago-area chapter was well-represented at the 2011 AAPCSW conference in Marina del Rey. Members presented essays, papers, and as readers for choosing papers to be presented. We hope to share the conference’s energy and thought-provoking ideas with the Chicago community.
Our next Informed Conversation program is scheduled for Sunday May 15, 2011 from 1:00-3:00 at the Bergers’ party room at 1110 N. Lake Shore Drive Chicago. James Lampe, PhD, LCSW will present Suppressed Grief: The Traumatic Process in Midlife Gay Men. Continuing education hours will be provided by the Institute for Clinical Social Work. We invite our fellow Midwest members of AAPCSW to join us for this engaging afternoon.
In addition, we have begun to plan for our fall program. Sidney Miller, PhD, LCSW will help us consider the relationships between women, their grandmothers, and the importance of women having an actual or idealized female, within their own linage, to resolve their traumas and forward their achievements. The therapist’s comfort with gender and age in an emerging transference to an older figure will be addressed.
Our local listserv is available for Chicago area specific announcements, concerns and referrals.
Judith Aronson, PhD, LCSW
Massachusetts
On Sunday, July 10 at 2pm, Daniel Mackler, LCSW will present his film “Open Dialogue: A Documentary of a Finnish Alternative Approach to Healing Psychosis.” This film and discussion is free and open to the public. It will take place at The Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge and is co-sponsored by the Berkshire Chapter of ISPS (International Society for the Psychological Treatments of Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses) and WMAAPP (Western Massachusetts and Albany Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology.) For more information, contact Marilyn Charles at mcharles@msu.edu or 413-358-2801.
Michigan/Ohio
Reported by Marybeth Atwell, MSW Membership Liaison and Karen E. Baker, MSW Area Chair
Updated 2/1/11
I would like to begin the Michigan/Ohio chapter report by introducing myself. My name is Marybeth Atwell and I am in private practice in East Lansing, Michigan. I am also a candidate in psychoanalysis at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council and have recently taken on the role of the Membership Liaison for our chapter. I am very excited about becoming more involved with the organization. Three years ago I attended the conference in New York and had such a positive feeling about the presentations and the people there. I felt that I found a place where my strong social work values came together with my growing interest in psychoanalysis. I am now part of the local chapter’s steering committee, chaired by Karen Baker. We are in the process of working together to revitalize our chapter after a couple of inactive years.
Currently we have 21 members and we are actively working to encourage others to join. In our recent meetings, we have made important decisions pertaining to programming and outreach activities. The committee has decided to sponsor two presentations a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. CE credits will be offered for the programs. This endeavor to provide ceu’s will be in collaboration with the Michigan Psychoanalytic Council. We have gathered some very good ideas for topics and presenters.
In addition, we found ourselves discussing the absence of psychoanalytically oriented work in the various clinical settings in our communities. We agreed that there is a growing need for our voices in these most difficult times, as we deal with trauma, from returning veterans, to the many unemployed in our states here in the Midwest. One of our members introduced the idea of developing a curriculum/education training manual to be used by clinical social workers for the purpose of outreach and training within agencies or other clinical settings. We discussed other outreach possibilities such as presenting at NASW conferences and offering supervision groups at agencies. We perceive a great need and desire by clinicians in the community for more training and supervision. We are excited about this project and the possibility of providing an important link with community treatment settings.
Orange County, California Chapter
Reported by Barbara Manalis, Co Chair
Updated 11/10/10
The Orange County Chapter of AAPCSW hosted our annual Spring 2010 event at the Corona del Mar home of our Treasurer, Ann Stern. Our meeting was well attended with a mix of clinical disciplines well represented. We began with a light lunch and time for the participants to meet and mingle. Karen Redding, the O.C. Chair, invited those coming for the first time to introduce themselves and to say something about their practices.
Joan Rankin, Chair of the Los Angeles Chapter, presented her paper entitled: Brain Freeze In The Analyst As A Property Of The System Of Treatment. In her paper, Joan examined how a dissociative process of her own was triggered during her work with a patient who like herself, experienced early mother loss. Joan discussed how this shared early trauma both contributed to a mutuality of understand and, at times, inhibited it. Most specifically, Joan’s focus was on de-constructing the psychological structures that led to “Brain Freeze” or disorganized and/or dissociative states in the analyst as a product of that specific interpersonal system and the eventual working through of those treatment impasses.
I had the pleasure of being the discussant for Joan’s paper. Her paper makes an important contribution to our understanding of the bi-directionality of dissociative processes in the clinical relationship as she takes us with her into the darkness and into the experience of absence. Like the ring of a bell that resonates long after the bell has rung, so the echo of traumatic experience lingers on in the body/mind; embedded as it is on a cellular, visceral level of felt experience. And, herein lies the rub, felt but not necessarily symbolized, not necessarily available to cognition. Here our work begins, with our patients and within ourselves.
The presentation and discussion was followed by a lively group discussion that was both stimulating and thought provoking. All and all a good time was had by all.
Our Chapter usually has 2 events in the Spring and in the Fall, however, this fall we elected not to have an event as our Chair, Karen Redding, is also a Co Chair for the National AAPCSW Conference 2011 and the rest of our committee (Paula Clark, Ann Stern, Judy Friesen, Karen Smirl and myself) are all helping as well.