Series: Decentralized Learning Experiences
A learning experience can be almost anything, and any licensed clinician can propose one. It can be about a paper, a book or a movie. It can tackle an idea, such as field theory or dream analysis or focus on the work of a theorist. The format can be didactic or it can be a leaderless seminar or a one-hour conversation. It can be a one-off event or a series of weekly, biweekly, or monthly meetings. Currently, this program is in its pilot stage, so certain limits may apply.
Psychoanalytic Inquiry’s Learning Experiences are free.
This event will be recorded and available to watch afterward through our Presentation Vault.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
Infant Research and Couples Therapy
The foundations of our sense of self and others are laid down in the earliest months of life. These schemas or states of mind toward attachment continue to influence, and, most importantly, are themselves influenced by the vicissitudes of our adult relationships. Understanding the nonverbal “language” of infant/caregiver relationships offers a way to understand adult intimate relationships, especially in working with profoundly stuck or out of control relationships. In addition to understanding the nonverbal cues that trigger these patterns, this course will also look at how this understanding can reveal the developmental longing that underlie them. Couples therapy can then become a development-enhancing modality. The course will take place on three consecutive Monday evenings.
Meetings will be 1.5 hours long. Monday 5:30pm to 7pm PT.
Class 1: The Developmental Systems Perspective – 3/10/2025 5:30pm PT- 7:00pm PT
We will begin by exploring the state of mind that allows a therapist to enter into complex relationship system. A lot of cherished notions and comfortable assumptions must be discarded for us to enter what Stolorow, half-jokingly, called a “no-person psychology,” but attention to process, rather than product, allows us to catch fleeting moments of possibility: the lift of an eyebrow, the crook of one finger. We will also look at some of the basic concepts of chaos or complexity theory.
Class 2: From Dyad to Triad: What Infant Research Can Tell us About Couples Therapy – 3/17/2025 5:30pm PT- 7:00pm PT
The day begins with a viewing of Beatrice Beebe’s split camera video studies of caregiver/infant interactions, with particular focus on the origins of secure versus disorganized attachment. We will look at the entrance of a third (clinical) person into the infant/caregiver system, and the analogous developmental potential of a triadic system of therapist and two intimate partners. We will conclude with looking at video and frame by frame analysis of couple interactions.
Class 3: Clinical Examples – 3/24/2025 5:30pm PT- 7:00pm PT
This day illustrates the clinical value of close attention to the moment-to-moment flow of couples’ non-verbal communication, both in understanding what keeps them stuck and seeing openings for clinical action. We will be particularly interested in non-verbal communication of trauma and traumatic triggers, including the destabilizing effects of Tronick’s still face and Main and Hesse’s frightened/frightening expressions. We will look at video and slide examples of clinical material, including a case where the slightest detection of movement in a couple that sits rigidly side by side leads to an opening of hope and possibility, and an example where a frown of disapproval over money triggers a cascading pattern of anger and withdrawal in the other partner.
We will conclude with a video case example, questions and discussions.
Suggested Readings:
Beebe,B., Lachmann, F. Markese, S. and Bahrick, L. (2012). On the origins of disorganized attachment and internal working models: Paper I. A dyadic systems approach. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 22(2):253-272.
Shaddock D. (2000). Contexts and Connections. New York: Basic Books. Particularly Chapter 5: “No-Person Psychology: A Dynamic Systems View of Relationships”
Shaddock, D. (2023) Couples therapy as therapy: Fostering individual growth in conjoint contexts. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, Vol. 18, no. 3.
Shaddock, D. (2023) A triadic developmental system: Implications of infant research for couples treatment. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, Vol. 18, no. 3.
Readings will be posted here prior to class.
Presenter
David Shaddock PhD, MFT
David Shaddock PhD, MFT has collaborated with Beatrice Beebe and with Mary Main to look at couples therapy through the lens of infant research and attachment theory. He leads the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology’s Couples Therapy Interest Group. He is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context and is on the faculty of the Wright Institute and the Chicago Institute for Clinical Social Work. He is the author of From Impasse to Intimacy, Contexts and Connections and, most recently, Poetry and Psychoanalysis, as well as many papers on these topics. He is also a prize-winning poet who has published four books of verse. He maintains a private practice in Berkeley.
Series: Decentralized Learning Experiences
A learning experience can be almost anything, and any licensed clinician can propose one. It can be about a paper, a book or a movie. It can tackle an idea, such as field theory or dream analysis or focus on the work of a theorist. The format can be didactic or it can be a leaderless seminar or a one-hour conversation. It can be a one-off event or a series of weekly, biweekly, or monthly meetings. Currently, this program is in its pilot stage, so certain limits may apply.
In case of questions please contact: [email protected]
Infant Research and Couples Therapy
The foundations of our sense of self and others are laid down in the earliest months of life. These schemas or states of mind toward attachment continue to influence, and, most importantly, are themselves influenced by the vicissitudes of our adult relationships. Understanding the nonverbal “language” of infant/caregiver relationships offers a way to understand adult intimate relationships, especially in working with profoundly stuck or out of control relationships. In addition to understanding the nonverbal cues that trigger these patterns, this course will also look at how this understanding can reveal the developmental longing that underlie them. Couples therapy can then become a development-enhancing modality. The course will take place on three consecutive Monday evenings.
Meetings will be 1.5 hours long. Monday 5:30pm to 7pm PT.
Class 1: The Developmental Systems Perspective – 3/10/2025 5:30pm PT- 7:00pm PT
We will begin by exploring the state of mind that allows a therapist to enter into complex relationship system. A lot of cherished notions and comfortable assumptions must be discarded for us to enter what Stolorow, half-jokingly, called a “no-person psychology,” but attention to process, rather than product, allows us to catch fleeting moments of possibility: the lift of an eyebrow, the crook of one finger. We will also look at some of the basic concepts of chaos or complexity theory.
Class 2: From Dyad to Triad: What Infant Research Can Tell us About Couples Therapy – 3/17/2025 5:30pm PT- 7:00pm PT
The day begins with a viewing of Beatrice Beebe’s split camera video studies of caregiver/infant interactions, with particular focus on the origins of secure versus disorganized attachment. We will look at the entrance of a third (clinical) person into the infant/caregiver system, and the analogous developmental potential of a triadic system of therapist and two intimate partners. We will conclude with looking at video and frame by frame analysis of couple interactions.
Class 3: Clinical Examples – 3/24/2025 5:30pm PT- 7:00pm PT
This day illustrates the clinical value of close attention to the moment-to-moment flow of couples’ non-verbal communication, both in understanding what keeps them stuck and seeing openings for clinical action. We will be particularly interested in non-verbal communication of trauma and traumatic triggers, including the destabilizing effects of Tronick’s still face and Main and Hesse’s frightened/frightening expressions. We will look at video and slide examples of clinical material, including a case where the slightest detection of movement in a couple that sits rigidly side by side leads to an opening of hope and possibility, and an example where a frown of disapproval over money triggers a cascading pattern of anger and withdrawal in the other partner.
We will conclude with a video case example, questions and discussions.
Suggested Readings:
Beebe,B., Lachmann, F. Markese, S. and Bahrick, L. (2012). On the origins of disorganized attachment and internal working models: Paper I. A dyadic systems approach. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 22(2):253-272.
Shaddock D. (2000). Contexts and Connections. New York: Basic Books. Particularly Chapter 5: “No-Person Psychology: A Dynamic Systems View of Relationships”
Shaddock, D. (2023) Couples therapy as therapy: Fostering individual growth in conjoint contexts. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, Vol. 18, no. 3.
Shaddock, D. (2023) A triadic developmental system: Implications of infant research for couples treatment. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, Vol. 18, no. 3.
Readings will be posted here prior to class.
Presenter
David Shaddock PhD, MFT
David Shaddock PhD, MFT has collaborated with Beatrice Beebe and with Mary Main to look at couples therapy through the lens of infant research and attachment theory. He leads the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology’s Couples Therapy Interest Group. He is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context and is on the faculty of the Wright Institute and the Chicago Institute for Clinical Social Work. He is the author of From Impasse to Intimacy, Contexts and Connections and, most recently, Poetry and Psychoanalysis, as well as many papers on these topics. He is also a prize-winning poet who has published four books of verse. He maintains a private practice in Berkeley.
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Presentation Vault
Watch recordings and download papers and slides from past Connections and Conversations and Decentralized Learning Experiences.
