Alliance Events

Can the psychoanalytic session be thought of as a shared dream? Starting from this evocative question, this event offers a reflection on clinical work through the lens of field theory, exploring the interplay between interpretation and conversation. All material brought into the session – nighttime dreams as well as everyday narratives – can be understood as an expression of an unconscious co-created by analyst and patient.

Scholarly Dialogues: Stephen Purcell "Un-Thinking Technique: The Analyst’s Presence in Treating Early Trauma"

Stephen Purcell will lead discussions of two of his papers that address the analyst’s way of being: “Psychic Song and Dance: Dissociation and Duets in the Analysis of Trauma (2019) and “Un-thinking Technique: On Being, Not Doing in the Psychoanalysis of the Sequelae of Trauma” (2026).

Scholarly Dialogues: Nicholas DiCarlo,

This course has filled.

Sex, Death and the Superego: Experiences in Psychoanalysis

In this recent book, Ron Britton, a British psychoanalyst in the object relations tradition, explores his experience working in psychoanalysis and what he has come to see as most important. We will read selected chapters from his book on these topics of sex, death and the superego. Britton especially explores the erotic transference-countertransference experience and the problem of the destructive superego. Please contact the instructor to enroll.

The Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Society welcomes you back into our yearly event!

This year we are holding the Potential Space at the Good Shepherd Center in their famed Chapel Performing Arts and Gallery venue featuring beautiful lighting, wood floors, arched ceilings, and original stained-glass windows. Please come and join us! There will be plenty of room to move about, linger with the art, socialize, and enjoy the performances. Lite dessert and beverages will be served. Family and friends are welcome!

The Alliance offers mentoring groups as a membership benefit to psychotherapists who are in their first 10 years of clinical practice in the field of psychotherapy. The primary objective of the Alliance Mentor Program is to support early-career therapists through the challenges of beginning practice.

Registration opens on May 15, 2026, and closes on July 15, 2026.

Learn more about the Alliance Mentoring Groups for 2026-27.

The Alliance Board is pleased to announce that the Annual Forum will happen on Saturday, May 2, 2026, at Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA. The Forum, one of our longest running events, is our annual conference that began the same year as our founding in 1989.

NWAPS Distinguished Speakers Committee is pleased to invite you to join us for another dynamic and lively In Conversation event in which we invite an esteemed psychoanalyst to present new work and dialog with another scholar doing groundbreaking work in a field outside of psychoanalysis.