China American Psychoanalytic Alliance
Training the teachers and leaders of the next generation of Chinese psychodynamic psychotherapists
Previously Offered Continuing Education Seminars
2017-2018 Academic Year :
Title: An Introduction to Transference Focused Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder
Presenter: Tennyson Lee, MD
Description: This eight meeting course is designed to introduce participants to Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP). TFP is a state-of-the-art, evidence-based treatment for patients with personality disorders (PD). We will use the most recent version of the treatment manual. The focus will be on clinical relevance for your patients with Borderline Personality Disorder and other significant personality disturbance, and as such you will gain more from the course if you have actual experience of the challenges in working with a patient with Borderline PD. Each meeting will include a theoretical and applied component. In the applied component you will be invited to discuss clinical material relevant to the theoretical input.
Title: How to Treat Disturbed or Special Needs Preschoolers Right in Their Classrooms
Presenter: Gilbert Kliman, M.D.
Description: Three two hour seminars on Reflective Network Therapy, an intensive evidence based application of child analysis for treating special needs preschoolers in their classrooms. This method may be particularly suited for cultures such as may be found in parts of China which emphasize the interrelatedness of minds and generations, and are favorable toward harnessing the therapeutic potential of social networks. The technique will be illustrated by videotaped sessions from several preschools showing the four basic elements:1) in-classroom briefing by teacher and child to therapist, 2) psychoanalytic play session in the classroom in which the child may interact expressively with willing peers as he or she chooses, 3) debriefing by therapist and child to teacher, 4) parent guidance weekly. Treatment of children with post traumatic stress disorder, some with autism spectrum disorder, disturbances of conduct, and oppositional defiant behavior will be included. Participants will be invited to conduct and share with the seminar participants any such work they carry out in suitable clinical or preschool settings. Online supervision can occur during seminars or follow later for participants who have such opportunities.
Title: Emerging Ethical and Therapeutic Issues: Frame, Relationship, Importance of Code of Ethics and Fee Management from American and Chinese Sociocultural Contexts
Presenters: Elise Snyder, M.D., Richard Friedman, M.D., Kim-Kwong Chan, Ph.D., Alan Karbelnig, Ph.D.
Description: This course will have us look at the importance of adhering to a code of ethics, differentiating this from general morality. We will address how the frame, therapeutic relationships, virtual communication and fee management play out with and without this framework of ethics. Four seasoned panelists will share their professional experience and participants will have a chance to ask questions and discuss.
2016-2017 Academic Year:
Title: The Psychology of Addiction
Presenter: Lance Dodes, M.D.
Description: Addiction has been deeply misunderstood in both theory and clinical practice. Rather than being a reflection of impulsivity or self-destructiveness, or a result of genetic or pbysical factors, addiction can be shown to be a psychological mechanism that is a subset of psychological compulsions in general. This course will describe and illustrate a comprehensive new way to understand and treat addictions.
Title: An Introduction to Transference Focused Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder
Presenter: Ben McCommon, M.D.
Description: This eight meeting course is designed to introduce participants to Transference Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) for Borderline Personality Disorder. We will use the most recent version of the treatment manual that guides clinical research. The focus will be on clinical relevance for your patients with Borderline Personality Disorder and other significant personality rigidity. I look forward to reviewing this approach to difficult patients with you.
Title: Conceptualization / Formulation Writing Class
Presenter: Deborah L. Kirschbaum, Ph.D., Psy.D.
Description: This class will be opportunity to have in-depth training in writing up an early assessment of a patient, integrating observations and history with theory and clinical application and interventions. Each student in this course will write up a case based on class discussions and hand-outs. The members of the class will analyze these write-ups in class discussion. By the end of the course, students will submit a rewrite to me. It will be limited to 10 CAPA students and graduates.
Title: Psychoanalysis and the Elderly
Presenter: Mi Yu, M.D., Ph. D.
Description: Treatment of the elderly is one of the lesser developed areas of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. In this seminar we will consider both theoretical and clinical material related to the treatment of the elderly. The instructor will encourage students to share their views on this topic. Then, the instructor will offer a short didactic presentation outlining the history and practice of the treatment of the elderly. One participant will present a case and a short segment from a session.
Title: Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction
Presenter: Jeffrey D. Roth, MD, FAGPA, FASAM
Description: Addiction is a disease of isolation. Recovery occurs in groups. Group psychotherapy and mutual support groups are the ideal combination of group experiences to foster recovery from addiction. This course will demonstrate the use of the group-as-a-whole in supporting recovery from addiction. After a brief introduction by the presenter, participants will have the opportunity to discuss the readings provided, to present clinical material and to examine the process of the group as it develops in the here-and-now.
2015-2016 Academic Year
Title: A Brief Introduction to the Writings of Donald Winnicott with an Emphasis on the Capacity to Play
Presenter: Karen Melikian, Ph.D.
Description: This four meeting course is designed to introduce the works of Donald Winnicott as they relate to development, play and psychoanalytic treatments. We will read several important papers that outline some of Winnicott’s contributions to theory and practice. The beginning focus will be on play and creativity. These ideas are relevant to both child work and adult work. I look forward to exploring these papers with you all.
Title: Relational Psychoanalysis: Models of Mind, Multiplicity and Dissociation
Presenter: Lisa Lyons, Ph. D.
Description: Relational theory considers the mind and the self as multiply configured, and considers dissociation rather than repression as a principal mechanism thorough which mind is structured. In this clinical seminar we will consider clinical material through a lens turned to the Relational model of mind. An article outlining the relational model will be sent to all participants in advance of the seminar. The instructor will offer a short didactic presentation outlining the relational model of mind. One participant will present a case and a short segment from a session. Then, as each of us imagines how we would listen to, understand and respond to this material if this were our own patient, we will use Relational theory to explore clinical process.
Title: A Brief Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis with an Emphasis on Freudian Practice.
Presenter: Dwight McCan, PhD
Description: This five meeting course is designed to introduce the work of Jacques Lacan as it relates to the Freudian practice of psychoanalytic treatment. We will read Dany Nobus’ excellent book that outlines and contrasts Lacan’s contributions to theory and practice. The focus will be on the conceptualization of Transference and the Strategies of Interpretation developed by Lacan. These ideas are relevant to both child work and adult work. I look forward to exploring Lacan’s concepts of Psychoanalysis with you.
Title: Diagnosing and Treating ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) in Adults
Presenter: Lana Fishkin, MD
Description: This course will help you recognize the signs and symptoms of ADD in adults. This diagnosis has been accepted relatively recently, as we have come to understand that nobody “outgrows” ADD, and that frequently it is not recognized or treated in children. The consequences of missing the diagnosis in childhood can be chronic anxiety, depression, and poor self-esteem in adults with this diagnosis.
Several assessment screening questionnaires will be presented, but the clinical interview is the best indicator of this disorder. Clinical material will be presented by the instructor and, hopefully, by participants. More specifically, the session on 10/17 will be a lecture (with questions encouraged!), and at the session on 10/24 volunteers will be asked to present relevant clinical material.
Title: Psychic Isolation in Adolescence and its Relation to Bodily Symptoms
Presenter: Mary Brady, Ph.D.
Description: This workshop examines psychic isolation as an important element of adolescent development. I conceive of psychic isolation in adolescence as an affective state with important developmental underpinnings. The affective elements are estrangement and loneliness. The developmental underpinnings include shifting (conscious as well as unconscious, internal as well as external) object relations and senses of the self. Psychic isolation combined with the intensity of adolescent experience can leave adolescents unable to articulate their experience. This difficulty with articulation and symbolization can leave them vulnerable to breakdown into concrete bodily symptoms, such as eating disorders, cutting, substance abuse and suicide attempts. I use Bion’s conceptualization of containment and the balance of psychotic versus non-psychotic integrative parts of the personality to examine the emergence of concrete bodily symptoms in adolescence.
2014-2015 Academic Year:
Title: Pre-CAPA Training Program
Presenter: Jiang Qi Zhuang
Description: For several years, Jiang Qi Zhuang, a CAPA Advanced Training graduate in Chengdu, has been teaching a Pre-CAPA Training Program for mental health professionals in his area. In this seminar, Jiang Qi Zhuang will teach three classes on how to organize a Pre-CAPA Training Program.
Title: A Survey of DSM-5, ICD-10 and PDM/PDM-2 for Treatment Purposes
Presenter: Robert M. Gordon, Ph.D. ABPP
Description: We will review how a diagnostic formulation can help you do better therapeutic work. To do this you need to have a rough understanding of the main classifications. As you go along in your clinical work you can later fine-tune your diagnostic specificity. An accurate diagnosis should be a scientifically based form of empathy that is helpful to the patient.
Title: Working with Somatic Countertransference
Presenter: Adrienne Margarian, B.A. M.A (Psych.) M.A. (Art Ther.) M. Psych.S.(Hons) M.A.P.S
Description: The body of the therapist speaks in numerous ways in the psychotherapy session. Common experiences such as headaches, nausea, aches, pains, sleepiness, sexual arousal, dizziness and trembling can provide unique material relevant to the inner world of the client and the psychotherapy relationship evolving between therapist and client. These physical manifestations are known as somatic countertransference, a form of countertransference positioned as an embodied, physical manifestation in the therapist’s body. Theories referenced for discussion of somatic countertransference will span from dance movement psychotherapy to contemporary psychoanalytic to post Jungian thought. In addition, current empirical studies from the UK and US will be considered as well as possible Chinese cultural explanations for the role of the therapist’s body in the session. These cultural ideas have been developed from current cross-cultural research of Chinese psychotherapists and how they work with somatic countertransference. Finally and importantly, this lecture will highlight the potential negative effects of somatic countertransference if not acknowledged and processed in clinical supervision.
Title:Teaching and Learning Psychotherapy in China
Presenter: Nadine M. Tang, LCSW in conversation with CAPA instructor Daniel Yu, LCSW
Description: A brief history of psychology in China will be presented, including a discussion of cultural differences in worldview between China and the West. Issues to be discussed include aspects of child rearing and marriage and how these impact styles of communication, traditional Chinese views on mental illness and their relationship to western psychotherapy, and observations about teaching and learning in China.
Title: Developmental Considerations in Psychotherapy with Gay Men: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective
Presenter: Gary Grossman, Ph.D.
Description: This presentation describes early childhood experiences of boys that grow up to be gay, illustrating the potential for emotional disruption and trauma when parents assume their child will be heterosexual. Drawing on work with adult gay men and adolescents in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, the psychological consequences of empathic failures during early childhood, and especially the Oedipal stage, will be addressed. Links between these early disruptions and later internalized homophobia and romantic relationships will be highlighted. The unique challenges faced by gay adolescents in a society that does not fully recognize them will also be discussed. Clinical examples will be used to demonstrate the relevance of these developmental theories to psychotherapy.
Title: Working with Shame Dynamics in Routine Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Presenter: Elizabeth Haase, MD
Description: The delineation of shame from guilt and core psychodynamic and neurobiological conceptions of shame will be reviewed. The talk will then focus on common clinical presentations of shame and transference and countertransference pitfalls of addressing shame in the clinical setting.
Title: Dream Analysis
Presenter: Ira Moses, Ph.D.
Description: We will examine how dreams can be used to deepen the work in order to help the patient increase their introspection. We will study how the therapist can use dreams to help the patient focus on their inner experience rather than simply offer interpretations. There will be less emphasis on interpretation as we rely more on the techniques of Inquiry and Free Association to help expand the patient's awareness of unconscious process.
Title: Psychoanalysis and Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Clinical and Theoretical Integration
Presenter: Lisa Lyons, Ph.D.
Description: In this lecture students will be introduced to clinical work that integrates psychoanalysis with more active approaches drawn from Dialectical Behavior Therapy. This integrative way of thinking and working is especially relevant to clinical work with patients who have difficulty controlling impulses and tolerating intense affect. However, the attention it draws to behaviors in daily life, current interpersonal experience and affect, and mindfulness-based approaches to experiencing what is dissociated or out of awareness adds important new dimensions to psychoanalytic work with higher functioning patients.