Unifying Theory and Practice – How Does Each Influence the Other?

We are all proud of our best work and our rewarding successes. We don't hear as much about failures and mistakes. The case rendered here is replete with both and offers numerous instances of practice neglecting and or defying theory. The presentation will provide opportunity in small group for participants:

--- to resonate with this subject in terms of similar experiences; to look at relevant theory; and to come up with practical alternatives which might have been more successful at different stages of the treatment.

No one will be allowed to humiliate the presenter as he has already suffered immeasurably by virtue of his mistakes.

The hand out will be a chapter from Frank's book, "Translating Somatic Experiencing and Gestalt Therapy into Music Therapy Practice with Adults". It is a short case vignette of a young lady with anorexic/bulimic behaviors. This will emphasize how using another mode of expression--drums, in this case-- helps to make missing or suppressed aspects of expression more figural in the interest of fuller contact which then serves to resolve the "unfinished business" of trauma.

(Ellen Shumsky, aguest, has been teaching Intersubjective Systems and Self Psychology Relational Psychoanalytic theory at psychoanalytic institutes for many years.

Though part of a broad human tradition of healing, psychotherapy evolved specific to a time, place, and social group. Its core methods of operation, dependent on words as communication of thoughts and feelings, were class bound. Gestalt therapy expanded this universe recognizing and legitimizing non-verbal methods and moved from an emphasis on intrapsychic dynamics to a more situational lens. Yet in many ways psychotherapy as a valid way of dealing with one's relationship to oneself and others, a journey with communal consequences, is not widely accepted. The understanding and use of psychotherapy is still class bound. The patterns of class relationships emerging from our early introjects can bedevil the abilities of people to successfully employ the tools of therapy; and color the perceptions of the therapist interrupting interaction and subverting the clinician's presence as a witness to another's life.

Jean-Marie Robine, a member of the NYIGT from Bordeaux, France, will present some of the ideas from his new book, "On the Occasion of an Other." His perspectives on organism/environment, the self, intentionality, and "the id of the situation" have been important contributions to our practice. He will be joined in a discussion with Dan Bloom Ruella Frank, and Carl Hodges.

A glance at our uses of metaphor -- in therapy, supervision, groups, and organizations.