Chicago Psychoanalytic Society

Tuesday, March 26, 2019 – 7:00-8:50 PM

Location: Robert Morris University, 401 S State St, 8th floor auditorium

Admission is free

In collaboration with the Institute for Clinical Social Work

Words and Music: Broadening Channels of Connectedness

through Implicit and Explicit Dialogue 

Presenter: Scott Davis, MD

Discussant: Charles Jaffe, MD

Scott M. Davis notes in his presentation that while psychoanalysis historically privileged the mutative power of spoken words and explicit interpretive understanding, we now know that all experience originates in, unfolds from, and is felt through our bodies. We often express our empathy in words so that our patients feel understood. Yet too often our traumatized patients tell us that they understand the words but do not feel the them.  In these instances, there seems to be a gap between the analyst’s expressed empathic responsiveness and what the patient experiences. This is primarily because regulation of the intersubjective field occurs predominantly implicitly. Hence we are more effective when we recognize this implicit domain and work within it. When we do, channels of communication open within and between our patients and ourselves. This presentation will demonstrate the use of both empathy expressed in words and an implicit connectedness sensibility, and it will show how the two approaches work together to enhance the therapeutic relationship between therapist and patient.

Scott M. Davis, MD, is a member of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society and a faculty member at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, where he teaches a course on Self Psychology. He is the coordinator of the Midwest Self Psychology Study Group. He presented a plenary paper on the “Origins of Connectedness” at the 2013 Self Psychology Conference, and he presented a plenary discussion on the implicit connection between empathic depths and relational leaps at the 2017 Self Psychology Conference.  In 2002, he published an article in Psychoanalytic Inquiry entitled “The Relevance of Gerald Edelman’s Theory of Neuronal Group Selection and Nonlinear Dynamic Systems for Psychoanalysis.”

Charles Jaffe, MD, is a member of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society and a faculty member and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. An Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center, he is a member of Wilma Bucci’s research team that studies the process of psychoanalytic treatments. Of more interest, he is the drummer in the trio, Second City Jazz.

Learning Objectives:  After the presentation the participant, will be able to

1. Describe why it is that patients often have trouble taking in and feeling theempathy and responsiveness of the therapist;
2. Use more effectively, in work with patients, both empathy expressed in words and an implicit connectedness sensibility.

Admission is free. There are no reservations required. Continuing Education Credits are offered exclusively to Society members in all membership categories.