Topic: Countertransference During a Pandemic

Presenter: Lucy Freund, PhD, the President of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute.  She earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago and received her psychoanalytic training at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis.  For several years, she was a faculty member at Loop College (now Harold Washington College), and for more than 25 years she was on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.  Lucy is a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Psychological Association, and the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology.

Talk Description: The concept of countertransference has changed dramatically over the years.  In earlier years, it was considered suspect if analysts had strong feelings about patients, and it was not unusual that analysts in training who admitted to such feelings were instructed to return to their own analyses.  Starting in the 1950s, psychoanalysts such as Lucia Tower, Margaret Little, Paula Heimann, Heinrich Racker, and Merton Gill introduced a new approach.   We have learned not to suppress our feelings about our patients but to understand, manage, and use them.  Often we can draw on our feelings in complex and positive ways to move forward an analysis or a psychotherapy.  The focus of the talk is on countertransference in the new situation caused by the pandemic. COVID-19 is unique in many ways.  Both patients and therapists found themselves dealing with similar feelings of terror, uncertainty, and helplessness.  We can learn from the examples of therapists who handled the situation creatively, often sharing of themselves generously with their patients.  Also, many patients who previously had paid little attention to their therapist’s needs and vulnerabilities, became sensitive to us in a new way and offered care and concern to us. 

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the presentation, attendees will be able to:

1. describe how the conceptualization of countertransference has changed over the years;
2. manage and use the feelings toward patients that are created by the novel situation of the pandemic.

Admission is free. Continuing Education Credits are offered exclusively to Society members in all membership categories and those intending to join.

Physicians: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 2.0 AMA PRA Category I Credit(s) ^TM . Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Psychologists: The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute is approved as a continuing education sponsor for Psychologists by the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The Institute designates this continuing education activity as earning 2.0 hours of Continuing Education Credit. CE Sponsor License #268.000091

Professional Counselors: The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute is approved as a continuing education sponsor for Professional Counselors by the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The Institute designates this continuing education activity as earning 2.0 hours of Continuing Education Credit. CE Sponsor License #197-000202.

Social Workers: The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute is approved as a continuing education sponsor for Social Workers by the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The Institute designates this continuing education activity as earning 2.0 hours of Continuing Education Credit. CE Sponsor License #159-000122.

Marriage and Family Therapists: The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute is approved as a continuing education sponsor for Marriage and Family Therapists by the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The Institute designates this continuing education activity as earning 2.0 hours of Continuing Education Credit. CE Sponsor License #168-000204.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. *Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.