Beyond Neurosis: Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning

Tuesday, May 18, 2021, 6:30 – 8:30pm CST

Location: Zoom: https://icsw.zoom.us/j/6410482572

Presenter: Howard B. Levine, MD

After the presentation we will have time for a discussion, during which you can send in questions or comments for the speakers to answer.

Beginning with Andre Green’s contemporary perspective on Freud’s Structural Theory, we will discuss the extension of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice beyond neurosis by considering Freud’s theory of representations and the implications of unrepresented and proto-mental, primordial states.

Howard B. Levine, is a member of APSA, PINE, the Contemporary Freudian Society, on the faculty of NYU Post-Doc’s Contemporary Freudian Track, on the Editorial Board of the IJP and Psychoanalytic Inquiry, editor-in-chief of the Routledge Wilfred Bion Studies Book Seriesand in private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is the author of Transformations de l’Irreprésentable (Ithaque 2019) and the forthcoming Affect, Representation and Language: Between the Silence and the Cry (Routledge). His co-edited books include Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning (Karnac 2013); On Freud’s Screen Memories (Karnac 2014); The Wilfred Bion Tradition (Karnac 2016); Bion in Brazil. (Karnac 2017); and Andre Green Revisited: Representation and the Work of the Negative (Karnac 2018)

After attending this session, participants should be able to:

• Apply the concepts of unrepresented states to the treatment of borderline, psychosomatic and other nonneurotic patients
• Explain the role of Winnicott’s Fear of Breakdown in the repetition compulsions of patients who suffer from early environmental failure of provision.
• Apply Bionian concepts to the diagnosis and treatment of non-neurotic patients.

References

Green, A. (1975). The Analyst, Symbolization and Absence in the Analytic Setting. IJP 56: 1-22.
Levine, H.B. (2010). Creating analysts, creating analytic patients. IJPA 91:1385-1404.
Levine, H.B. (2012). The colourless canvas: Representation, therapeutic action and the creation of mind. IJPA 93: 607-629.
Levine, H.B. (2020). Reflections on therapeutic action and the origins of psychic life. JAPA68: 9-26.