NPSI Scientific Meeting: Identification and Unconscious Phantasy

In the December scientific meeting, Jeff Eaton, who instigated this series on unconscious phantasy, reviewed understandings from works by David Bell and Heinz Weiss, and others as well as some of his own formulations. The February presentation by Maxine Anderson considered contributions by Rachel Blass and Catalina Bronstein on unconscious phantasy. In this forthcoming discussion Judy K Eekhoff will discuss the relationship between identification and unconscious phantasy using articles by Gabriella Giustino and Marie Rhodes. She will build on the previous community discussions, demonstrating how both unconscious phantasy and identification form a foundational structure that gives form and shape, therefore meaning, to all experience.

Both of the following papers will be sent to participants who preregister for this meeting:

Giustino, G. (2017). Further Developments of the Concept of Fantasy. International Journal of Psychoanalysis98 (3): 831-839.

Rhode, M. (2005). Mirroring, Imitation, Identification: the Sense of Self in Relation to the Mother's Internal World. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 31(1):52-71.

Learning objectives

1)  Participants will come to appreciate unconscious phantasy as the primitive origin of representation and symbol formation.

2)  Participants will be able to distinguish identifications that embody unconscious phantasy.

3)  Participants will recognize the relationship between unconscious phantasy and identification.

About the Presenter
Judy K Eekhoff, PhD, FIPA is a training and supervising analyst with Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She is a member and full faculty of Seattle Psychoanalytic Society & Institute and a member of COR Northwest Family Development Center. Her book, Trauma and Primitive Mental States: An Object Relations Perspective, is published by Rutledge. She has also published numerous book chapters and journal articles. Her interests evolve around the treatment of patients who are difficult to reach and who suffer life long pain.