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CPD Credits
3
Event Type
Live Online Event
Location
Zoom & Recording for 365 days
Time
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Standard
£90.00
Trainee/NHS
£76.50
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Psychoanalytic Treatment of Psychosis
From breakdown to breakthrough
With Danielle Knafo & Michael Selzer (Discussant)
Psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis is rarely taught in trainings, and unfortunately a lack of preparedness results in avoidance of such work. Our speakers Dr. Knafo and Dr. Selzer will bring both theoretical understandings, clinical technique and case material in order that psychotherapists may feel more confident to engage with this challenging work.
Our speakers conceptualise psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, as a person’s attempt to cope under highly stressful, traumatic or isolating circumstances. They emphasise the importance of therapists reading and responding to unconscious messages embedded within the symptoms. In this work there is an emphasis on the importance of collaborating with and utilising non-psychotic self-parts to aid recovery and the importance of containing strong transference and counter transference experiences.
In the first session of the seminar Dr Knafo will introduce a psychoanalytic approach to working with psychosis. The theoretical talk will be followed by a case presentation. Dr Knafo will present the case to which Dr. Selzer will respond. The two speakers will engage in a dialogue regarding the benefits and disadvantages of allowing regression in an outpatient treatment, and more.
There will be time for discussion with attendees in both parts of the seminar. The aim of the seminar is to cultivate a deeper understanding of the roots of psychotic illness and the possibilities in working psychoanalytically with this patient group.
Programme
14.00 (UK) Introductions
14.05 Working with patients affected by psychosis
Knafo will delineate the major tenets of psychodynamic therapeutic work with psychosis: providing safety; forging a working alliance by meeting the patient where they are and allotting them maximum personal agency; understanding psychotic symptoms as attempts at adaptation and restoration of the self; coping with loneliness in patient and analyst as well as working with the transference and countertransference. We focus on strengths as well as weaknesses; view the patient as a whole person rather than a collection of symptoms; and prioritize subjective experience and affect. In sum, we focus on the patient as a true collaborator in their own treatment. A discussion with Selzer and attendees will follow.
15.00 Discussion with Michael Selzer with Q&A
15.30 Break
15.45 Case Presentation
Dr. Knafo will present a case to Dr. Selzer of a man who experienced three psychotic episodes and one major depression for discussion and supervision. This case will illustrate several points: outpatient treatment with psychosis is possible; regression in the treatment of psychosis can lead to breakthroughs; intense transference and countertransference analysis can hold the key to technical concerns. Discussion with attendees and both speakers will follow.
16.30 Group Discussion with both speakers
17.00 End
Danielle Knafo
Danielle Knafo, PhD., is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with expertise in the treatment of psychosis. During her 22-year tenure as professor at LIU's clinical psychology doctoral program, she chaired a specialty concentration that trained doctoral students on how to work therapeutically and psychodynamically with serious mental illness. She received the Barbara Sandin prize for this work. Currently she is faculty and supervisor at NYU's postdoctoral program in psychoanalysis and Adelphi's postgraduate programs. She has written and lectured extensively on the topics of art and creativity, psychoanalysis, trauma and psychosis, sexuality and technology. From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Psychoanalytic Treatment of Psychosis is her 10th book. Dr Knafo has worked psychodynamically with psychosis for 40 years, and she maintains a private practice in Manhattan and Great Neck NY.
Michael Selzer
Michael Selzer, M.D., is a psychiatrist whose major career focus has been the training and treatment of psychosis. He worked at Cornell University Medical School, Payne Whitney Clinic at New York Hospital, Westchester Division, where he directed the schizophrenia division, a long term facility for treatment of persons with refractory chronic schizophrenia and a major site for training post residency and postdoctoral fellows in the treatment of chronic schizophrenia. He has authored 4 books, including Working with the Person with Schizophrenia and has written many papers on schizophrenia (a number with Knafo). He has worked psychodynamically with psychotic patients for over 60 years and maintains a private practice in NYC.
- Psychotherapists
- Couple and Family Psychotherapists
- Psychoanalysts
- Psychologists
- Clinical Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Counsellors
- Social workers
- Teachers/Educators
1. Support more clinicians to work more confidently and compassionately with psychosis
2. Draw from a psychoanalytic/psychodynamic perspective to conceptualise psychotic symptoms as a person’s attempt to cope under highly stressful, traumatic or isolating circumstances
3. Share strategies for working with psychosis across the course of the therapeutic frame, from beginnings and establishing a pre-alliance, to working with symptoms, developing a narrative of Self and endings
4. Discuss case examples to help embed theoretical and technical ideas in practice.
Standard Registration: £90
Group Rates (for 4 or more): Contact makeritafaumui@trtogether.com for customised pricing.
Trainee discount: To qualify for this offer you need to be taking a course which provides core practitioner training in counselling or psychotherapy that is at least 1 year full time or two years part time and recognised by the BACP or UKCP. TR Together reserve the right to ask to see evidence of training being undertaken.
Alumni: If you are a TR Alumni (TRAPC member) please email anitabruz@tavistockrelationships.org for a discount code to add at checkout
Your CPD Certificate will be available to download from your TR Together account 48 hours after the event.