The Therapist’s Fragile Parents: Psychoanalytic perspectives on theory and technique
EVENT POSTPONED
Saturday 08 July 2023
A Live Webinar with Karen J. Maroda and Steven Kuchuck
CPD Credits: 3 hours
- Includes a subtitled recording of the event and a transcript, with access for a year (14 days post the event)
- This event will be recorded
- Bookings close at 9:00am BST Wednesday 05 July
It has long been recognized that therapists have a history of being caretakers in their families of origin. Yet as a profession we may not have pursued how that role impacted our own personal growth, values, ideas and limitations. In this workshop we will consider the vulnerabilities and strengths that result from being precociously assigned the responsibility for others’ happiness or even their psychic survival.
READ MORE...We will ask what role does the resulting guilt, shame, and desire to rescue and be rescued play in the creation of both our theories and preferred interventions. Do therapist’s tend to be excessively passive as a result of not having any real power as children when faced with the daunting responsibility of being soother, peacemaker, mediator and even entertainer?
In the spirit of expanding the conversation about the dynamics in the therapeutic dyad, this presentation focuses on three topics, including the therapist’s early experiences and how they impact both our theory and practice, the natural human limits of empathy, and how the analyst and patient’ may “collide” in their experiences related to parental fragility.
This program is designed for working clinicians, focusing heavily on clinical examples and opening up conversation about the ways we work and how we might creatively enhance our interventions with clients.
FULL PROGRAMME
14.00 BST
Introductions
14:10
Karen Maroda
The Gods Must Not Die: Sacrificing to avoid de-idealization.
To what extent have therapists sacrificed their own needs and preferences to preserve their suffering family members? And at what cost? Feiner and Levenson’s (1968) classic paper outlines the psychology of sacrifice, noting that it preserves the needed authority figure (or God), avoids separation, proves love, and provides redemption. If we closely examine the consequences of having been our parents’ therapists, the inevitable question arises: At what point, if ever, does the budding therapist child see the parents more realistically, which would include de-idealizing them as merely innocent and needy? Or does their status as all-important prevail throughout the therapist’s life? Most importantly, what are the implications for our theoretical and clinical choices?
Learning objectives
- Recognise patterns of parentification from the therapist’s childhood in their clinical work
- Consider the re-enactment of patient as parentified child in response to the therapist.
15.00
Discussant: Steve Kuchuck
15.20
Break
15:40
Steve Kuchuck
Say You, Say Me*— Confusing Our Objects, Naturally
Melanie had just landed and arrived for her session exhausted. Depleted and in distress; “I know I won’t get to see him or hear his voice again. I could barely say goodbye, knowing that”. Tears filled her eyes and I felt a similar press against my own lids as my mind began to wander… This paper will explore work with a patient traumatized by toxic, fragile objects, in treatment with an analyst similarly impacted by parental fragility. One moment in particular will be considered, a period of existential crisis for both parties in which events overlapped, finality hovered, and confusion enveloped the dyad.
(*Lionel Richie, 1986)
Learning objectives
- Identify examples from their clinical practice of a situation in which patient and therapist boundaries weakened and subject and object became confused.
- List ways in which the therapist’s own internalized fragile parents impacted a clinical moment.
16.30
Discussant: Karen Maroda
16:50
Q&A
17:30
End