Leaders, Followers, and Society: Politics and Psychoanalytic Psychology

As American voters head to the polls this year, enduring questions about politicians, leaders, and systems arise once again. As psychoanalysis aspires to move from the individual to social context, what insights, complexities, and feelings arise?

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4 Sessions: Mondays, October 7, 21, 28; November 4, 2024
Time: 7:30-9:00pm EDT

All courses will take place online. Seminar sessions are not recorded
Registration Deadline: October 4, 2024

Registrants are expected to be able to attend all sessions in their entirety. Should your availability change, please contact the BPSI Team (team@bpsi.org) to remove your course registration and allow other interested participants to attend.

 

Leaders, Followers, and Society: Politics and Psychoanalytic Psychology

As American voters head to the polls this year, enduring questions about politicians, leaders, and systems arise once again. As psychoanalysis aspires to move from the individual to social context, what insights, complexities, and feelings arise? This short course will offer a concise introduction to selected psychoanalytic ideas about political leadership, justice, and change, using historical case studies as an occasion for reflection. Brief readings will include self psychology (Kohut), the ideas of the Frankfurt School on authoritarianism (Fromm, Adorno), and the literature on emotion and political effectiveness (Drew Weston). We will also explore excerpts from literary and historical debates over the role of violence in the overthrow of unjust systems (Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; Mahatma Gandhi on the British Empire; Frantz Fanon on colonialism).


Instructors

John Martin-Joy, MD
Psychoanalyst Member; faculty, BPSI psychotherapy fellowship program; codirector, Adult Development seminar, BIDMC Harvard psychiatry residency training program; author of Diagnosing from a Distance, a book that explores the ethics of psychiatrists commenting on the mental health of politicians. Private practice, Cambridge, MA.

Rafael Ornstein, MD
Psychoanalyst member; faculty, BPSI psychoanalytic training program. Dr. Ornstein is an Instructor in Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and has a private practice in Brookline, MA. He is an expert on self psychology and has presented on parallels between musical improvisation and free association in psychoanalysis. 


The course will be open to Non-Clinicians, Licensed Clinicians or Clinicians on the path to licensure. Continuing Education will not be offered for this program.

Scholarships are available for BPSI programs.

FEE:

$375 Course Fee
$50 Early Career Clinicians, Residents and Students
$350 Early Bird (available until 09/25/2024)  Use Code at Checkout: EB2024LFS

The fee is waived for BPSI Members, Trainees, and Partners. Scholarships are available upon request.

 

Explorations in Mind: Community Education at BPSI is made possible by the generous support of BPSI Members and friends. To make a gift to BPSI, contact Carole Nathan (cnathan@bpsi.org or 617-266-0953 x101),
go to www.bpsi.org, or send mail to BPSI, 141 Herrick Road, Newton Centre, MA 02459.

 
Program Administrator
Stephanie Cavanaugh: scavanaugh@bpsi.org

Program Chairs
Holly Friedman Housman, LICSW: holly@housman.org

Natasha Lifton, PhD: natashalifton@gmail.com

 
Event Cancellation Policies & Procedures
Any program participant requesting their individual program registration be canceled, must submit their request in writing via email to Stephanie Cavanaugh at scavanaugh@bpsi.org. For fee-based events, a request for cancellation (and refund using the original form of payment) must be received no later than 48 hours in advance of the event. Requests received later than 48 hours prior to the event will not be processed or accepted. All approved refunds are subject to a $10.00 administrative fee. If BPSI cancels an event, all registrants will receive a full refund of fees paid (no administration charge) no later than two business days following the scheduled date of the event, using the original form of payment.
 
Grievance Policy
Please address any questions or concerns about your experience at this or any program or event you have attended at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute to the Program Chair(s), via the Senior Administrator/Continuing Education Administrator, BPSI, 141 Herrick Road, Newton Centre, MA 02459; team@bpsi.org; 617.266.0953.
 
The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, Inc., 141 Herrick Road, Newton Centre, MA 02459, does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, age, sexual orientation, national origin or handicap in the admissions to or administration of its educational programs, scholarship programs or employment.