Making Sense of Abstinence

Presenter: Arnold Goldberg, M.D.

Discussant: Candace Vogler, Ph.D

Arnold Goldberg, M.D. is a training and supervising analyst at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, where he received psychoanalytic training from 1961-1966. He was Director of the Chicago Institute from 1989 to 1992. In 2006, Dr. Goldberg was the recipient of the Sigourney Award for distinguished contributions in the field of psychoanalysis. He received his MD from the University of Illinois, followed by residencies in psychiatry at the Illinois Neuropsychiatric Institute and the Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Institute for Research and Training at Michael Reese Medical Center.

Dr. Goldberg’s numerous articles and book reviews have appeared in The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, The Annual of Psychoanalysis, Progress in Self Psychology, and Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, as well as other journals and publications. He was editor of The Annual of Psychoanalysis from 1988-1991, and Progress in Self Psychology from 1985-2002.

Candace Vogler, Ph.D. is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Philosophy and Professor in the College at the University of Chicago. She has authored two books, John Stuart Mill’s Deliberative Landscape: An essay in moral psychology (Routledge, 2001) and Reasonably Vicious (Harvard University Press, 2002), and essays in ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy and literature, cinema, psychoanalysis, gender studies, sexuality studies, and other areas. Her research interests are in practical philosophy, practical reason, Kant’s ethics, Marx, and neo-Aristotelian naturalism. She was an organizer of the conference, “The Installation of Good and Bad,” two years ago at University of Chicago.

Educational Objectives: At the conclusion of the program, participants will be able to: 1) Recognize how the term “abstinence” applies to psychoanalysis in a very particular way; 2) Recognize how abstinence in psychoanalysis differs from that in psychodynamic psychotherapy; and 3) Distinguish psychoanalysis as belonging to the field of hermeneutics and dynamic psychotherapy as a hybrid of empirical science. Empirical science deals with facts while interpretive science deals with meanings.

Target Audience: Psychoanalysts, other interested mental health professionals, and members of the community.