In this age of misinformation, the Thirteenth International Evolving British Object Relations conference occurring online this fall is devoted to the allied subjects of truth-telling and lying.
The May Pre-EBOR Scientific Meeting features Dana Blue's facilitation of a discussion of Thomas Ogden’s 2003 paper “What’s true and whose idea was it?”
Psychoanalysis mainly, though not exclusively, employs the medium of spoken language. Language can be used to further analytic exploration or it can be misshapen to serve other ends, at times with catastrophic consequences. Additionally, the pull to evade suffering, upon which learning and growth depend, is strong. Ogden’s paper represents an early attempt in the field of psychoanalysis to clarify the domain of unconscious intersubjectivity. Through consideration of a detailed clinical report, he offers navigational tools and helps us to appreciate the importance of emotional truth as the foundation of psychological growth.
Learning Objectives:
1. To distinguish empirical from psychoanalytic truth.
2. To consider the analyst’s conscious and unconscious contributions to shaping the patient’s understanding via verbal and non-verbal interpretation.
3. To define psychoanalytic reverie as an optimal state for doing psychoanalytic work.
4. To note the ephemeral nature of time and the provisional quality of emotional truth as it emerges in the here and now of analytic discourse.
About the Presenter:
Dana Blue, LICSW, FIPA, is a board-certified training and supervising psychoanalyst in clinical practice with adults and parent-infant dyads in Seattle, WA. She is a full faculty member and frequent teacher in the psychoanalytic training program of NPSI; former Dean of Students and Director of Training and current member of the Education Committee; former Director on the NPSI Board of Directors; co-editor with Caron Harrang of From Reverie to Interpretation: Transforming Thought into the Action of Psychoanalysis (2016). Her paper "The Environment Within: On the fetus’s capacity to differentiate self from other" is included in Body As Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical Applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (2021).
The following paper will be made available to participants who register for this event:
Ogden, T.H. (2003). “What's true and whose idea was it?” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 84(3):593-606.
