Introduction by Jeffrey Eaton, MA, FIPA, BCPsa and moderated by Nancy Winters, MD, FIPA, ABPsa
In his foreword to Rikki Ricard and Adrian Jarreau’s chapter, “Dreaming into death,” in Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond (Routledge), Jeffrey Eaton asks, “How often have you been invited into a significant conversation, one that challenges you to think, feel, reflect, question, and imagine?”
In this presentation, participants are invited into the authors' intimate conversation to share in their process of ‘dreaming into death’ as Jarreau's end of life approaches. A death presaged by two dreams of his death before consciously knowing he was ill. This dreaming is not only the body’s nocturnal dream as the messenger of its somatic state but also conscious dreaming in the Bionian sense, opening both authors (also a married couple) to the reality of death and the emotional truth of the aliveness remaining. Colleagues are offered a rare opportunity to learn from Ricard and Jarreau's searching, painful, and ultimately enlivening journey.
Learning Objectives
1. Participants will learn to recognize the function of dreaming as a messenger from the body to the mind of its somatic state.
2. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the enlivening aspects of shared dreaming (reverie) within the context of physical illness and approaching death.
3. Ricard and Jarreau’s 'learning from experience' (Bion) offers an opportunity to deepen participants’ awareness of the emotional truth of death and life remaining.
About the Presenters and Co-Author
Rikki Ricard, LMHC, FIPA is a graduate of Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She maintains a private practice in Seattle, Washington working with adults, adolescents, mothers and infants, and couples. Rikki is a Washington State-approved supervisor and teaches frequently at NPSI and other local psychoanalytic organizations. Her first career was as a professional actress and she is on honorary withdrawal from AFTRA, Equity, and SAG. Although dying and grief have occupied a significant place in her life over the last few years, they are topics that have been meaningful in her work for a long time, particularly in relation to body and the unconscious. She is currently working on a memoir.
Adrian Jarreau, LMHC, FIPA is a graduate of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and served as Treasurer on the Board of Directors as well as teaching in the Institute. Previous publications include “Intuiting the Unknown” (2016). He maintained a private practice in Seattle, Washington until his death in 2018.
Jeffrey L. Eaton, MA, FIPA, BCPsa is a graduate and faculty member of Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is the author of A Fruitful Harvest: Essays after Bion (The Alliance Press) as well as several other book chapters. He lectures and teaches widely and provides consultation to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts internationally.
Nancy C Winters, MD, FIPA, ABPsa is an adult and child psychiatrist and board-certified psychoanalyst in full-time private practice in Portland, Oregon. She is a training and supervising psychoanalyst of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute (OPC) in Portland and of Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in Seattle. Nancy is a Clinical Professor at the Oregon Health & Science University where she was previously residency director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is on the editorial boards of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis and The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. Publications include the book Child and Adolescent Systems of Care and articles on depression, eating disorders, and evaluation strategies in children’s mental health. Most recently she is coeditor and chapter author for Routledge’s Body as Psychoanalytic Object: Clinical applications from Winnicott to Bion and Beyond.
