Transference is ubiquitous. These inarticulable transferential processes enliven and/or deaden an analytic process. Further, they occur in all of our transactions with people, our communal relations, our history, our things (technological processes) and our ideological saturations that affect our way of being in the world. Post-Lacanian thinker Jean Laplanche extends the traditional ideas of transference into the cultural domain and considers what happens with transferential phenomena after analysis has ended.

This four-part seminar will focus on developing a working definition of the transference that we can apply to our clinical work and ourselves in our world. I will use Laplanche’s chapter titled “Transference: its Provocation by the Analyst” in Essays on Otherness (1998) as a primary source that we will carefully read together as point of departure for our discussions. Additionally, we will closely study at least one case to demonstrate the theoretical import of transference in practice. The cases focus on what Laplanche (and Jaques Lacan) referred to as après coup events that emerge in the analysis in the transferential field and the effects of trans-generational trauma in the analytic couple. Both psychical events are revealed through the distortions of time and an unknown history revealing itself in the trace elements of the transference that are deeply felt by both the therapist/analyst and patient. Your own clinical experiences will especially be used to augment our understanding of the theory and methods from our readings.

CEU credit available (for small fee).

Materials shared with registrants in the fall. Space is limited so register early. Contact me via email: robin.mccoy@comcast.net or cell: 503 407 6414.