2017 VAPS Annual Scientific Meeting Proudly Presents A Day with Abbot A. Bronstein, PhD

(Please see conference brochure via the link at the bottom of the right hand column of this page.)


Saturday, October 28, 2017

9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

UVM Alumni House ~ Burlington, Vermont


Abbot A. Bronstein, Ph.D., is a Psychoanalyst in San Francisco, a graduate and faculty member of San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis (SFCP). He is an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Editor of the Analyst at Work Section of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP). Dr. Bronstein introduced the European Working Party Groups to North America and now is the chair of the IPA North America Comparative Clinical Methods Working Party Groups. He is a training and supervising psychoanalyst in the IPA. He teaches clinical seminars in various cities in North America. Recently, he was honored as the distinguished analyst in 2017 at the meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association, where he runs a discussion group on Kleinian clinical thinking and has for over 20 years.

He has published and written papers and presented nationally and internationally including at the IPA and EPF(European Psychoanalytic Federation) in Vienna, Mexico City, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Boston as well as run working party clinical groups (CCM) across the US and Europe.. His recent publications include”The Analyst’s Work” in the IJP and “Mrs. Klein, the Contemporary Kleinians and the Drives: Are they what drive the theory and clinical work?”, in the Journal of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Another paper co-authored with Marie Rudden titled “Transference, Relationship and the Analyst as Object: (Qualitative) Findings from the North American Comparative Clinical Methods Working Party” was published in the IJP in 2015. More recently, he has contributed to a Festschrift honoring Albert Mason to be published in 2017 with a paper titled: “It Takes Two: What makes a psychoanalytic treatment a psychoanalysis.”

ABOUT THE DAY: The program is in two parts. The morning presentation discusses the issue of grievance as a phenomenon in clinical psychoanalysis that thwarts change and attempts to prevent a process of mourning internal objects. The paper describes a series of clinical issues within a long psychoanalysis of a woman searching for perfection rather than change. Then the afternoon session will be somewhat more of a workshop/paper on the Comparative Clinical Methods research model for examining what analysts use as their clinical method and theory, both implicit and explicit. We will examine the model itself, which includes 2 ‘steps’ used by the project which attempt to develop a model of how an analyst works in the consulting room. Previous papers have explored how analysts think of transference and of themselves as objects within the analysis. This paper will look specifically at the interpretative process itself, how analysts think of the here and now, as well as unconscious phantasy and interaction to convey meaning to their patients. We will look at parts of analyses of children and adults to help us think through this complex issue.

OBJECTIVES: At the conclusion of this program, participants should be able to:

1. Identify grievances within the clinical setting; 2. Recognize the transference manifestations of grievance in a psychoanalytic treatment; 3. Understand the relationship between grievance and change in a psychoanalytic treatment; 4. Describe the CCM project and the categories of interventions analysts use in their clinical practice; 5. Describe the function of interpretations in both child and adult analysis.

Continuing Education Credits: 6 CEU credits have been granted to Vermont Psychologists. Application has been made for 6 CEU credit hours for Vermont Social Workers and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors.