This is a six-part course meeting on Wednesday evenings:  January 16, 23 and 30 and February 6, 20 and 27.

 

 

Psychoanalytic ideas can often feel intimidating, frustrating, and even intrusive, and often there's a pressure to engage them in a concrete way. The internal pressure to understand, comprehend, "know," categorize, and collect knowledge can be tremendous, and very easily can lead to a disruptive relationship with knowledge, as well as a misunderstanding of the various ways that human beings come to know and understand.

 

Harold Searles was a psychoanalyst who engaged with both psychoanalytic theory and practice, as well as honest human experience. He was a thoughtful man who in his day challenged established notions of psychoanalytic practice, opening the door for a more honest and emotionally engaged experience with his patients. In this class we will look closely at three of his articles, focusing on the role that countertransference plays (that is, the thoughts and feelings of the therapist toward the patient) in the treatment process. We will also explore our own experience of his ideas and of his mind, and the the space that can emerge if we see his work as an opening rather than as a closed system in itself. As it happens, Harold Searles does this very thing, especially in his articles on oedipal love, and mature hope in the patient-therapist relationship. 

 

 

Course Fee: $180