In Beyond Doer and Done To, Benjamin expands her theory of mutual recognition and its breakdown into the complementarity of ‘doer and done to.’ Her innovative theory charts the growth of the Third in early development through the movement between recognition and breakdown, and shows how it parallels the enactments in the psychoanalytic relationship.

In this online seminar, Dr. Benjamin will offer teaching related to her book, Beyond Doer and Done To, that integrates theory and practice. A portion of the workshop will also include case consultation with Karen Weisbard, Psy.D., clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice for over 25 years.

Through this dynamic workshop, participants will learn to:

• Apply the concepts of the moral Third and the Winnicottian idea that the object must survive destruction.

• Understand the development of the idea of rupture and repair and to recognize how the intersubjective repair manifests in the treatment as well as developmentally. 

• Use the concept of the moral Third as a touchstone for the analyst caught in clinical impasses involving the “doer-done to” complementarity. In particular, to consider the  need to acknowledge the resulting errors and injury, to evaluate and discern when acknowledgment and disclosure by the analyst are helpful, and when not, especially when there are problems of dissociation and shame.