Series: Connections and Conversation
Connections and Conversation is a free monthly Zoom meeting, cultivating creativity and freedom of thought and feeling. We invite you to engage with our presenters and community as they share their interests and passions in conversation on current topics in psychoanalysis.
This free event that alternates times. The meeting often begins with a 45 minute presentation followed by 45 minutes of conversation. When an event is recorded you can access the recording at the vault.
This series is open to all.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
“Obstinate” Attachments: Clinging to Bad Objects Understanding Attachment & Relational Trauma
September 22, 2024 @ 9:00 am - 10:30 am PDT
“The emptier the real exchange, the greater is his devotion to the promising, yet depriving features of his parents which he has internalized and seeks within.”
Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983
Using the works of Fairbairn, Guntrip, Bowlby, Mitchell, Benjamin, and others, Dr. Cohen examines the dynamics involved in toxic, destructive relationships. If you treat people who are enmeshed in abusive relationships, you may feel frightened and frustrated as they edge closer to self-destruction. Some may withstand physical and emotional abuse. Others may subvert their identities, emptying themselves of need and desire, accommodating completely and seamlessly to their objects.
Why can’t they leave? How do they endure so much to get so little? How does someone who is so decimated begin to feel their own feelings and experience their own needs? What kinds of enactments emerge in the analytic space?
As many of you who work with this population know, object-relational and contemporary relational theories provide valuable concepts for understanding these kinds of attachments, and for helping us to empathize with and help these traumatized individuals.
*Fairbairn (1944) spoke of the “obstinate attachment” to the exciting object.
Presenter
Dr. Robin S. Cohen
Dr. Robin S Cohen is a Clinical Psychologist and a Training and Supervising Analyst at ICP. She is clinical faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA. She is a clinician in private practice at the border of Santa Monica and West LA. Dr. Cohen is a specialist in trauma. While she works with individuals with many different types of traumas, much of her focus is on working with individuals experiencing early attachment and relational traumas. She also specializes in working with those who are facing health and medical traumas, such as chronic pain and cancer.
Series: Connections and Conversation
Connections and Conversation is a free monthly Zoom meeting, cultivating creativity and freedom of thought and feeling. We invite you to engage with our presenters and community as they share their interests and passions in conversation on current topics in psychoanalysis.
This free event that alternates times. The meeting often begins with a 45 minute presentation followed by 45 minutes of conversation. When an event is recorded you can access the recording at the vault.
This series is open to all.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
“Obstinate” Attachments: Clinging to Bad Objects Understanding Attachment & Relational Trauma
September 22, 2024 @ 9:00 am - 10:30 am PDT
“The emptier the real exchange, the greater is his devotion to the promising, yet depriving features of his parents which he has internalized and seeks within.”
Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983
Using the works of Fairbairn, Guntrip, Bowlby, Mitchell, Benjamin, and others, Dr. Cohen examines the dynamics involved in toxic, destructive relationships. If you treat people who are enmeshed in abusive relationships, you may feel frightened and frustrated as they edge closer to self-destruction. Some may withstand physical and emotional abuse. Others may subvert their identities, emptying themselves of need and desire, accommodating completely and seamlessly to their objects.
Why can’t they leave? How do they endure so much to get so little? How does someone who is so decimated begin to feel their own feelings and experience their own needs? What kinds of enactments emerge in the analytic space?
As many of you who work with this population know, object-relational and contemporary relational theories provide valuable concepts for understanding these kinds of attachments, and for helping us to empathize with and help these traumatized individuals.
*Fairbairn (1944) spoke of the “obstinate attachment” to the exciting object.
Presenter
Dr. Robin S. Cohen
Dr. Robin S Cohen is a Clinical Psychologist and a Training and Supervising Analyst at ICP. She is clinical faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA. She is a clinician in private practice at the border of Santa Monica and West LA. Dr. Cohen is a specialist in trauma. While she works with individuals with many different types of traumas, much of her focus is on working with individuals experiencing early attachment and relational traumas. She also specializes in working with those who are facing health and medical traumas, such as chronic pain and cancer.
Presentation Vault
Watch recordings and download papers and slides from past Connections and Conversations and Decentralized Learning Experiences.
