Chicago Psychoanalytic Society upcoming events

Symbols as Catalysts for Transformation in Analysis (Patricia Llosa, MFA, LP) (April 21, 2026)

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

co-sponsored by: The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute

Symbols as Catalysts for Transformation in Analysis

Presenter: Patricia Llosa, MFA, LP

Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at 7:00 - 9:00 PM Central time

By Zoom Only

PATRICIA LLOSA,M.F.A., L.P. (USA/PERU) is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City. She trained with the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association (JPA) and is a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology. She earned her undergraduate degree in archaeology and art history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and did graduate work at The School of Visual Arts. For more than 20 years, she worked as an administrator and educator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A graduate of Marion Woodman’s BodySoul Rhythms® Somatics Leadership Training Program, a Woodman Foundation Faculty and Board Member, she has taught workshops in Ecuador, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Peru, and Spain.Presently, she serves on the boards of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis Gradiva Awards and The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism and is on the faculty of the Assisi Institute, BodyDreaming Somatic JungianTraining and the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association.

Description:

This presentation offers an approach to the clinical utility of symbols within the analytic encounter. Moving beyond a "sign-based" interpretation, we will examine the Jungian conceptualization of the symbol as the best possible expression for a yet-unknown psychic reality. We will explore two primary methodological pillars: amplification, the process of expanding a symbol’s meaning through mythic and cultural parallels, and circumambulation, the iterative process of orbiting a central psychic image to allow its inherent meaning to unfold. The presentation will introduce and demonstrate the usefulness of the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) in clinical practice.

Approximate breakdown of time:

First Hour: presentation

Second Hour: discussion with audience

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, participants should be able to:

Apply the techniques of amplification and circumambulation to clinical material to deepen the patient’s relationship with unconscious imagery.
Describe how Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) can be used as a resource in the amplification of symbols.
Analyze how symbolic material serves as a bridge between somatic experience and psychological insight.

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

The presenter, Patricia Llosa, MFA, LP, and the organizer, Lisa Karaitis, PsyD, have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to report.

Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program.

ACCME Accreditation Statement: 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 (APsA) and the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

AMA Credit Designation Statement: The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure Statement: The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME's identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.

Accreditation Information for Professionals Other Than Physicians. The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content, in relation to accreditation for CE credits for non-physicians. CPI is licensed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to sponsor continuing education credits for (license numbers in parentheses): Social Workers (159.000122), Professional Counselors (197.000202), Marriage and Family Therapy Therapists (168.00204), and Clinical Psychologists (268.000091).

Eligible professionals will receive 2.0 continuing education credits for attending the entire program. To receive these credits an evaluation form must be completed online. Learners must claim the amount of time spent in the educational activity and that will be the amount of credit they will earn.

Study Group: Ways of Seeing: Living the Symbolic Life Through Sustained Attention to Images (April 23, 2026)

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:30:00 GMT

Chicago Psychoanalytic Society Study Group

“Ways of Seeing: Living the Symbolic Life Through Sustained Attention to Images"

Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes

Three Sessions: April 23, 30 & May 7

Thursday 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm

Via Zoom

Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, Jungian Analyst, and former Editor-in-Chief of the Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche. He is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, is a member of the IAAP (International Association of Jungian Analysts), and sees private practice patients in San Francisco and Palm Desert, California. He is a board member of National ARAS in NYC and a general editor of A Guide to ARAS. He attended the University of California, Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University as an undergraduate and trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in graduate school at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) in Berkeley, CA where he received an MA and PhD. He also engaged in an intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy for nineteen years. He has been trained in child and family therapy and in group relations (Tavistock) for many years. Through a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) traineeship, he studied clinical services research at the Department of Psychiatry, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California, San Francisco. As a civilian, he was Director of Psychological Services in the HIV Evaluation and Treatment Unit for the United States Army at Letterman Army Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, served as a member of the scientific advisory committee of the Americal Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), and co-authored numerous papers and two books on early care for HIV disease. Later in his professional career he entered a Jungian analysis for many years and was inspired to become a Jungian Analyst. He now teaches and supervises the next generation of Jungian candidates in training.

Description:

This three-session study group, led by San Francisco Jungian analyst Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes, will deepen and further explicate material introduced in the April 23rd program, Symbols as Catalysts for Transformation.

Participants will be introduced to the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS; aras.org), and learn a method of working with symbolic images that emphasizes disciplined attention and “symbolic seeing” rather than interpretive mastery. Drawing on Carl Jung’s understanding of the importance of symbolic thinking, the group will explore amplification, circumambulation, and imaginal engagement with images. Experiential practices and reflection will invite participants to approach symbols as living phenomena that deepen analytic and creative work.

This group is open to all members of the Society, on a first-come, first-served basis, with a maximum of ten (10) members. Please register online here by clicking REGISTER. It is free to all members of the Society at all levels as a benefit of Society membership.

Participants are expected to attend all three meetings. If there is any assigned or recommended reading, it will be distributed to study group members via e-mail.

"Now, we have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of [it] …. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul … and because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill – this awful, grinding, banal life in which they are “nothing but”…. [A]nd that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of … that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war. They are all glad when there is a war: they say, “Thank heaven, now something is going to happen – something bigger than ourselves!” These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic [when] there is no symbolic existence into which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling … my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life."

Jung, C. G. (1976 ed). Collected Works, Vol. 18: “The Symbolic Life,” para. 627-628.

Study Group: Ways of Seeing: Living the Symbolic Life Through Sustained Attention to Images (April 30, 2026)

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:30:00 GMT

Chicago Psychoanalytic Society Study Group

“Ways of Seeing: Living the Symbolic Life Through Sustained Attention to Images"

Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes

Three Sessions: April 23, 30 & May 7

Thursday 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm

Via Zoom

Description:

Participants are expected to attend all three meetings. If there is any assigned or recommended reading, it will be distributed to study group members via e-mail.

Jung, C. G. (1976 ed). Collected Works, Vol. 18: “The Symbolic Life,” para. 627-628.

Study Group: Ways of Seeing: Living the Symbolic Life Through Sustained Attention to Images (May 07, 2026)

Fri, 08 May 2026 00:30:00 GMT

Chicago Psychoanalytic Society Study Group

“Ways of Seeing: Living the Symbolic Life Through Sustained Attention to Images"

Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes

Three Sessions: April 23, 30 & May 7

Thursday 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm

Via Zoom

Description:

Participants are expected to attend all three meetings. If there is any assigned or recommended reading, it will be distributed to study group members via e-mail.

Jung, C. G. (1976 ed). Collected Works, Vol. 18: “The Symbolic Life,” para. 627-628.

Multiple Code Theory: Bridging Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Research, and Neuroscience (Charles M. Jaffee, MD) (May 12, 2026)

Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

co-sponsored by: The Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute

Multiple Code Theory: Bridging Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Research, and Neuroscience

Presenter: Charles M. Jaffee, MD

Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 7:00 – 9:00 PM Central time

In person at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute,
8 S. Michigan Ave./7th Floor

or by Zoom

Speaker:

Charles M. Jaffe MD is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Institute. His areas of interest include couple therapy and adolescence in addition to psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. Dr. Jaffe ’s writings focus on psychoanalytic theory, adolescent development, the theory of therapeutic action and the integration of clinical work and research. He has lectured across the United States and in China. Most recently, he co-led a conference at the Institute on “School is Out: Moving Beyond the Psychoanalytic Baby,” focusing on an integrated approach to neuroscience, an epigenetic hierarchical frame for clinical process, and a rational approach to a spectrum of treatment interventions. Dr. Jaffe is a retired Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center. He received the 1984 James Saft Award for Outstanding Clinical Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michael Reese Medical Center and has been a four-time recipient of the Residents ’ Award for Outstanding Psychotherapy Teacher in the Psychiatric Residency at Rush University Medical Center. He received his medical education at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and completed his residency in Psychiatry and Clinical Research Fellowship in Adolescence at the Michael Reese Hospital.

Description:

A valuable way to start therapy is to consider: “What is the patient suffering from?” This talk describes a new method for answering that question: Multiple Code Theory. It is an approach that makes use of recent development in understanding basic emotion systems, drives, and instincts. In looking at the use of Multiple Code Theory, the presentation will focus on the video of a psychotherapy case.

Learning Objectives

After attending this session, participants should be able to:

To describe Multiple Code Theory and its derived measures of Arousal, Symbolization, and Reflection/Reorganization.
To apply the Multiple Code Theory to observe the activation and changes in emotion in the presented case video.

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

The presenter, Charles M. Jaffee, MD, and the organizer, Lisa Karaitis, PsyD, have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to report.

Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program.