Webinar: Constellations: Psychoanalysis, Psychosis, and the City

Constellations: Psychoanalysis, Psychosis, and the City

REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE

In the wake of several cities implementing policies to expand forced hospitalizations, this presentation will introduce several components of a psychoanalytic approach to the treatment of psychosis in community and urban environments.  Drawing on well-established traditions of psychoanalytic institutional models of care, particularly in the United States and France, participants will learn about the importance of collective interventions for recovery from psychosis.  Key concepts will include circulation of speech and transferences, disalienation, translation of psychotic experience and the need for treatment institutions to analyze their internal cultures of power.  After introducing conceptual foundations, the presenters will use examples from New York City clinical programs that utilize psychoanalytic therapy, psychopharmacology, network meetings, therapy groups, and collaborations with a clubhouse.  Participants will hear clinical examples of this type of multi-institutional work and invite questions and challenges to deepen thinking about the role of and limits to psychoanalytically-informed collective interventions in the treatment of psychosis and extreme states.

Bios:

Loren Dent is a psychologist who works in private practice with children, adolescents, and adults. He is on the volunteer faculty at Lenox Hill Hospital, where he provides trainees with psychotherapy and psychological evaluation supervision, as well as ongoing didactics about assessing and treating psychosis. Before his full-time private practice, he was a psychologist and team leader for Lenox Hill's first-episode psychosis program.  Dr. Dent completed his doctoral training at the New School for Social Research, including an internship at Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University. Dr. Dent is the senior editor of DIVISION/Review, a quarterly publication of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, and an instructor for the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, where he teaches courses on psychoanalytic theory.  He is an analyst in formation at the Apres-Coup Psychoanalytic Association.

Matthew Oyer is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is the Co-Director of the Externship program at the Greene Clinic, Assistant Clinical Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, and Adjunct Supervising Faculty in the clinical psychology doctoral program at City College. He completed his doctoral training at the City University of New York and his doctoral internship at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NYPSI) and Mount Sinai Medical Center. With a small group of others, Dr. Oyer created and implemented a program of independent psychoanalytic training through which he continues to pursue lifelong formation. He has experience working in a wide range of settings, from inpatient psychiatric units and intensive hospital-based outpatient programs to therapeutic communities, substance abuse treatment facilities, university counseling centers, and outpatient mental health clinics. Dr. Oyer is on the editorial board of the European Journal of Psychoanalysis and the board of directors for the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis.