Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis upcoming events

Fridays @CCP Lecture Series: The Gender of Object Use (Jill Gentile, PhD) (18 Sep 2026)

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

Jill Gentile, PhD

(New York, NY)

The Gender of Object Use

Friday September 18, 2026

7-9pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago & ZOOM

About the presentation: This essay considers the largely unrecognized role of gender in the development of object use. It proposes a developmental continuum from the abject object to the phallic object, arguing that these mark successive organizations of gender within the symbolic. Read in this way, Winnicott's account of object use discloses a developmental logic that is coextensive with, yet extends beyond, his own formulation. What emerges is a conception of object use no longer organized by a phallic symbolic, but by a vaginal or feminine spatiality capable of holding paradox, difference, and transformation. The movement beyond gender polarity thus becomes both the precondition and the achievement of love and mutual recognition.

Jill Gentile is faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, a training and supervising analyst at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity in New York, and is affiliated as teaching faculty at several other institutes. She is a corresponding editor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology. Her essays, describing a semiotic and phenomenological trajectory of agency, desire, intersubjectivity, and symbolic life, have been published in many psychoanalytic journals. A founding member of the DreamTank collective, dedicated to the application of psychoanalysis to democracy and to public, symbolic life, she is a practicing psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in Highland Park, New Jersey and in Manhattan, New York.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to articulate a developmental movement from use of the abject to use of the phallic object as a newly theorized dimension of object use.

Participants will be able to explain how a gendered reinterpretation of Winnicott's theory of object use opens a developmental pathway beyond gender polarity toward mutual recognition, democratic relatedness, and love.

This is an Intermediate Level Presentation

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

This program is sponsored for Continuing Education Credits by the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. There is no commercial support for this program, nor are there any relationships between the continuing education sponsor, presenting organization, presenter, program content, research, grants or other funding that could be construed as conflicts of interest. Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If the program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis maintains responsibility for this program and its content. CCP is licensed by the state of Illinois to sponsor continuing education credits for Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors, Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapy Counselors and Licensed Clinical Psychologists (license no. 159.000941 and 268.000020 and 168.000238 Illinois Dept. of Financial and Professional Regulation).

Professionals holding the aforementioned credentials will receive 2.0 continuing education credits for attending the entire program. To receive these credits a completed evaluation form must be turned in at the end of the presentation and licensed psychologists must first complete a brief exam on the subject matter. No continuing education credit will be given for attending part of the presentation. Refunds for CE credit after the program begins will not be honored. If a participant has special needs or concerns about the program, s/he/they should contact Toula Kourliouros Kalven by September 17, 2026 at: tkalven@ccpsa.org

References/Suggested Readings

Gentile, J. (2022). The missing signifier and a malfunctioning paternal law: On the feminine third as vital portal for sexual difference and emancipatory democracy. In A. Govrin & T. Caspi (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy (pp. 494–506). Routledge.

Gentile, J. (2023). The democratic significance of anatomical difference. In J. Petrucelli, S. Schoen, & N. Snider (Eds.), Patriarchy and its discontents (pp. 110–131). Routledge.

Kristeva. J. (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. L. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.

Seligman, S. (2006) The Analyst's Theoretical Persuasion and the Construction of a Conscientious Analysis: Commentary on Paper by Meira Likierman. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 16:397-405

Winnicott, D. W. (1969). The use of an object. International Journal of Psycho- Analysis, 50: 711–716

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee

Fridays @CCP Lecture Series: Who’s In Charge: Shame, Authoritarianism, and Freedom of Conscience (Peter Shabad, PhD) (16 Oct 2026)

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

Peter Shabad, PhD

(Chicago, Il)

Who’s In Charge: Shame, Authoritarianism, and Freedom of Conscience

Friday October 16, 2026

7-9pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

& ZOOM

About this presentation: In this course we will explore how self-shaming emerges in the aftermath of traumatic and chronically disillusioning experiences. Self-shaming can have profound inhibiting effects on the entire course of one’s life. We will devote special attention to how human beings transform their traumatic experiences outside of their control into shameful failures, in which they “blame the victim” in themselves for being a victim. Becoming the victim of one’s own self-punitive shame also leads to character passivity and interrelated dynamics of self-pity, envy, and eventually to resentment and a sense of entitlement to feeling owed by life. We will also examine how psychological symptoms are a non-verbal attempt to communicate and memorialize one’s traumatic experiences by soliciting witness to one’s lonely suffering. In the clinical section of the course, we will critically explore how diagnostic categories objectify the people we see in therapy. We will emphasize the importance of examining one’s countertransference, with special attention devoted to one’s omnipotent wish to fix the patient. in this regard, I will highlight the importance of understanding where one’s individual boundaries end and the patient’s begin, which form a respect for the patient’s freedom of self-determination. In this regard, we will also highlight important clinical tensions between developmental determinism and freedom of will, and corresponding countertransference tensions of love versus respect in the analyst’s attitude toward the patient. Finally, I will also highlight the importance of viewing clinical work as an ongoing, continually renewable process, which enables us to help facilitate the patient’s self-healing by learning how to replace self-shaming with an ethic of curiosity, inquiry, and ultimately self-accepting understanding. This radical self-acceptance of one’s inner life is a key element in the generative process of mourning.. In addition to analytic readings, we will also read Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych.

Peter Shabad, PhD is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern University Medical School. He is on the Teaching and Supervising Faculty of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and he is on the Faculty of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is also Supervising and Training Analyst at the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is an Associate Editor on the Editorial Board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Dr. Shabad is co-editor of The Problem of Loss and Mourning: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (IUP, 1989) and is the author of Despair and the Return of Hope: Echoes of Mourning in Psychotherapy (Aronson, 2001). He is the author of numerous papers and book chapters on diverse topics such as the psychological implications of death, loss and mourning, giving and receiving, shame, parental envy, resentment, and regret. Dr. Shabad’s new book Passion, Shame, and The Freedom To Become: Seizing The Vital Moment In Psychoanalysis (2024) was recently published by Routledge.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to describe how the self-doubt that emerges in the wake of shame leads to the certainties of authoritarianism

Participants will be able to describe the clinical value of respect for the patient’s freedom of determination can help replace the moralisms of authoritarianism with a freedom of conscience.

This is an All Level Presentation

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

References/Suggested Readings

Shabad, P. (2024). Passion, Shame, and Mourning: Seizing The Vital Moment in Psychoanalysis

New York: Routledge.

Shabad, P. (2022) Owing and Being Owed: Shame and Responsibility Toward The

Other, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 32:4, 389-404.

Shabad, P. (2020). The forward edge of resistance: Toward the dignity of human agency.

Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 30 (1): 51-63.

Shabad, P. (2017). The vulnerability of giving: Ethics and the generosity of receiving.

Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 37 (6): 359-374.

Shabad, P. (2011). The dignity of creating: The patient’s contribution to the reachable-

enough analyst. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 21: 619-629.

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee

Sundays @CCP: Holding, Containing, Dissolving: A Psychoanalytic View of Ketamine Treatment (Kevin Barrett, LCSW) (25 Oct 2026)

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Sundays @ CCP

****A recording will NOT be available for this session****

Kevin Barrett, LCSW

(Chicago, Il)

Holding, Containing, Dissolving: A Psychoanalytic View of Ketamine Treatment

Sunday October 25 , 2026

12-2pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

About this presentation: The landscape of psychedelic therapy has undergone a rapid transformation in recent years. Cities and states have moved to decriminalize a range of psychedelic substances, while psilocybin and MDMA have entered Phase 3 clinical trials for the treatment of major depressive disorder and PTSD. Ketamine clinics have proliferated across the country, making psychedelic-assisted treatment more accessible than ever before.

Even therapists who do not plan to utilize psychedelics within their own practice will increasingly be confronted with patients who have questions about these treatments or who arrive having already pursued them. Patients may come to sessions having undergone ketamine infusions, participated in guided psilocybin ceremonies, or explored MDMA-assisted therapy in clinical or informal settings, bringing with them experiences that require thoughtful clinical integration.

This presents a conflict for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, who value the depth and ongoing nature of therapeutic work and understand change as emerging gradually through the examination of unconscious processes, transference, and resistance. Psychedelic therapies, by contrast, are frequently promoted for their potential to catalyze rapid transformation. Yet, the relationship between psychedelic experience and psychoanalytic process may be more generative than it first appears. Both share a deep interest in the unconscious and in making previously inaccessible material available to conscious reflection. Psychedelic states may, in certain cases, lower defensive structures in ways that open new avenues for analytic exploration.

This talk examines the use of ketamine-assisted therapy within the context of a long-term analytic treatment, exploring the clinical, theoretical, and ethical questions that arise when these two treatments intersect.

Kevin Barrett has been a social worker for 20 years starting his career in foster care and supportive housing before moving into clinical practice 15 years ago. He currently practices in Chicago and lectures at the University of Chicago - teaching courses on psychoanalytic practice and psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. Kevin is a candidate at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He was a 2019 APSAA teachers fellow and published an article in 2021 in Psychoanalytic Dialogues titled Psychedelic Psychodynamics: Relational Knowing and the Unthought Known. He has also published in ROOM and The American Psychoanalyst. He is an active member of AAPCSW.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to identify clinical and theoretical questions that arise when integrating psychedelic-assisted therapies, such as ketamine, into psychoanalytic treatment.

Participants will be able to explain how psychedelic experiences and psychoanalytic processes may complement each other in making unconscious material accessible for therapeutic exploration.

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

References/Suggested Readings

Rundel, M. (2022). Psychedelic Psychoanalysis: Transformations of the Self. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 32(5), 469–483. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2022.2106139

Peoples, K., & Rundel, M. (2025). Expansion and Regression in Oceanic Experience: A Model of Psychedelic Consciousness for Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 35(6), 808–830. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2025.2574574

Guss, J. (2022). A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Psychedelic Experience. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 32(5), 452–468. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2022.2106140

Fischman, L. G. (2019). Seeing without self: Discovering new meaning with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Neuropsychoanalysis, 21(2), 53–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2019.1689528

Caper R. Does psychoanalysis heal? A contribution to the theory of psychoanalytic technique. Int J Psychoanal. 1992 Summer;73 ( Pt 2):283-92. PMID: 1512118.

Bollas, C. (1987). The shadow of the object: Psychoanalysis of the unthought known. Columbia University Press.

Nardou, R., Sawyer, E., Song, Y.J. et al. Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period. Nature (2023).

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee

Fridays @CCP Lecture Series: Psychoanalytic Endings (Joyce Slochower, PhD) (20 Nov 2026)

Sat, 21 Nov 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

Joyce Slochower, PhD

(New York, NY)

Psychoanalytic Endings

Friday November 20, 2026

7-9pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

& ZOOM

About this presentation: I consider the place of termination in contemporary psychoanalytic practice. A more flexible approach to therapeutic endings represents one dimension of a broader paradigm shift away from rule-boundedness and toward clinical flexibility. I first describe the broader move toward flexibility within the field and then explore its complex implications for psychoanalytic endings. Ironically, despite the power of our termination ideal, less-than-final, and absent goodbyes have always been part of psychoanalytic reality. While traditional psychoanalytic endings do exist, it’s my sense that they are far rarer than is believed. Our discussion will address the role of dyadic and individual dynamics on the decision to end, the impact of early experience of endings—ordinary and traumatic—on the termination process. We’ll also address the effect of real-world constraints (time limits, institutional pressures, pandemics, etc.) on termination. Finally, we explore the dynamics and implications of the decision not to end at all.

Joyce Slochower Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Psychology at CUNY; Faculty, NYU Postdoctoral Program, Steven Mitchell Center, National Training Program, & PINC in San Francisco. Second Editions of her books, Holding and Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective and Psychoanalytic Collisions were released in 2014. Her latest book, Psychoanalysis and the Unspoken, was released by Routledge in 2025. She is co-Editor, with Lew Aron and Sue Grand, of “De-idealizing Relational Theory: A Critique From Within” and “Decentering Relational Theory: A Comparative Critique” (2018, Routledge) both of which received the Gradiva award in 2019. She is in private practice in New York City where she sees individuals and couples and runs supervision and study groups.

Learning Objectives

After the lecture participants will be able to describe

1. The traditional psychoanalytic theory of termination

2. How contemporary thinking has changed our understanding of termination and its many shapes

This is an Intermediate to Advanced Level Presentation

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

References/Suggested Readings

1. Bass, A. Ph.D. (2009): “It ain't over ‘til it's over”: Infinite conversations, imperfect endings, and the elusive nature of termination. Psychoanalytic Dialogues: The International Journal of Relational Perspectives, 19:6, 744-759.

2. Bergmann, M.S. (1997). Termination: The Achilles heel of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Psychology 14(2) 172-174.

3. Loewald, H.W. (1988). Termination analyzable and unanalyzable. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 43:155-166.

4. Salberg, J., ed. (2010). Good Enough Endings: Breaks, Interruptions, and Terminations from Contemporary Relational Perspectives. New York: Routledge

5. Slochower, J. (2022). Sequels. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 70(5): 845-873.

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee

Fridays @CCP Lecture Series: Re-Finding the Feminine: Forgotten Threads of Meaning in Psychoanalysis (Marilyn Charles, PhD) (12 Feb 2027)

Sat, 13 Feb 2027 01:00:00 GMT

Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

Marilyn Charles, PhD

(Pittsfield, MA)

Re-Finding the Feminine: Forgotten Threads of Meaning in Psychoanalysis

Friday February 12, 2027

7-9pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

& ZOOM

About the presentation: Psychoanalysis has been grounded in Freud’s discovery of the profound impact of unconscious processes on human being and meaning. And yet, his theories and technique pushed towards the more rational realms of meaning-making. He recognized the extent to which female development remained a “dark” and unexplored “continent” but seemed to turn a deaf ear to those women, such as Karen Horney, who had a seat at the table as psychoanalysis was forming. One hundred years later, Horney’s theorizing about what impedes our ability to recognize more fully the capacities and vulnerabilities inherent in the feminine remains relevant. In this paper, I explore some of the forgotten, or under-valued threads from women who have made significant contributions to our field. Through this effort, I hope to invite greater integration of those capacities marked, disparately male or female, qualities essential to our development as embodied, rational beings. (145).

This essay considers the largely unrecognized role of gender in the development of object use. It proposes a developmental continuum from the abject object to the phallic object, arguing that these mark successive organizations of gender within the symbolic. Read in this way, Winnicott's account of object use discloses a developmental logic that is coextensive with, yet extends beyond, his own formulation. What emerges is a conception of object use no longer organized by a phallic symbolic, but by a vaginal or feminine spatiality capable of holding paradox, difference, and transformation. The movement beyond gender polarity thus becomes both the precondition and the achievement of love and mutual recognition.

Marilyn Charles is a psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Austen Riggs Center, Co-Chair of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS), and Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. Affiliations include the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, Universidad de Monterrey, Harvard Medical School, Adelphi University, and the Association for Psychosocial Studies. Research interests include creativity, metacognition, the intergenerational transmission of trauma, and the impact of devaluation on women and other marginalized groups. Books include: Working with Trauma: Lessons from Bion and Lacan; Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Echoes of Trauma: Meaning and Identity in Psychoanalysis; and a volume of poetry: Orphans of the Real: Reflections on Love and Loss. (109)

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to articulate a developmental movement from use of the abject to use of the phallic object as a newly theorized dimension of object use.

This is an Intermediate Level Presentation

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

References/Suggested Readings

Aulagnier, P. (2015). Birth of a body, origin of a history. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 96(5), 1371–1401.

Charles, M. (2024). Somatization and symbolization. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 84:57-78.

Charles, M. (2025). Re-finding the feminine: Forgotten threads of meaning in psychoanalysis. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85:531-553.

Charles, M. (2025). Echoes of Trauma: Meaning and Identity in Psychoanalysis. APA Books.

Crociani-Windland, L., & Charles, M. (Eds.). (2022). Repositioning the maternal: An intimate pedagogy [Special issue]. Journal of Psychosocial Studies,15(2).

Leikert, S. (2021). Encapsulated body engrams and somatic narration – Integrating body memory into psychoanalytic technique. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 102(4):671-688.

Lombardi, R. (2025) Transference onto the Body: Beyond the Relational, the Symbolic, and Hystorical. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 35:719-732.

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee

Fridays @CCP Lecture Series: Psychoanalytic Essentials for Couple Therapists: Clinical Application of Core Concepts (Peter Reiner, PhD, LMFT) (5 Mar 2027)

Sat, 06 Mar 2027 01:00:00 GMT

Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

***A recording will NOT be available for this session***

Peter Reiner, PhD, LMFT

(Chicago, Il)

Psychoanalytic Essentials for Couple Therapists: Clinical Application of Core Concepts

Friday March 5 , 2027

7-9pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

& ZOOM

About the presentation: This clinically-focused presentation will illustrate the central role of projective and introjective identification in bridging partners’ internal and external worlds, and in increasing role polarization or fostering empathic connection. A videotaped consultation interview with a married couple will be interwoven with commentary on the integration of systems theory with key psychoanalytic processes: splitting, projective identification, containment, and enactment.

Excerpts from a consultation interview will be presented, including these:

1.An immediate, powerful, clinically-significant sequence of projective/introjective identification between spouses that reveals core relationship dynamics and issues, which are later the topic of heated discussion;

2.Sequences of projective/introjective identification that contribute to the polarization of the couple into “pursuer” and “distancer” roles (“splitting”), thus demonstrating their key role in mediating between the intrapsychic and the interpersonal (or systemic);

3.Examples of projective and introjective identification between the husband and the therapist, showing how these processes can either strengthen or weaken empathic connection and illustrating both the benefits and challenges of containment.

Peter Reiner, PhD, LMFT is faculty and former Vice-President of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP); faculty at The Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University; and faculty, and training and supervising analyst at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute (CPI). He is adjunct clinical consultant in the Institute for Clinical Social Work’s (ICSW) Integrative Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy Program.

Peter was staff and clinical training coordinator at the Family Institute of Chicago, and Secretary of the Chicago Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology. He is an award-winning teacher who has led more than 60 graduate and post-graduate classes or seminars in systemically-oriented couple and family psychotherapy, psychodynamically-oriented psychotherapy, and psychoanalytic technique.

Dr. Reiner has written at length about the training and supervision of psychodynamically-oriented couple and family therapists, including “Training psychodynamic family therapists,” (in Lebow, Chambers, & Breunlin [Eds.] Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy, 2017) and “Systemic psychodynamic supervision,” (in Todd & Storm [Eds.], The Complete Systemic Supervisor: Context, Philosophy, and Pragmatics [2nd ed.], 2014). He is the author of “Psychoanalytic Essentials for Couples Therapists” (in Lebow, Chambers, & Breunlin [Eds.] Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy, revised edition; in press).

Peter is a psychoanalyst, clinical psychologist, and marriage and family therapist who provides consultation to mental health professionals and maintains a private practice in Chicago and by telehealth of psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy with individuals, couples, and families.

Learning Objectives

1.Participants will be able to explain the key role of projective identification in connecting the intrapsychic and the interpersonal realms.

2.Participants will be able to identify interactive sequences in couples that increase polarization and splitting.

This is an All Level Presentation

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

References/Suggested Readings

Morgan, M. & Friend, J. (Eds.). (2027). Love, its meaning and exploration in couple therapy. London: Routledge.

Nielsen, A. (2019). Projective identification in couples. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 67(4), 593-624.

Novakovic, A. & Reid, M. (Eds.). (2018). Couple stories: Application of psychoanalytic ideas in thinking about couple interaction. London: Routledge.

Reiner, P. (2017). Training psychodynamic family therapists. In J. Lebow, A. Chambers, & D. Breunlin (Eds.), Encyclopedia of couple and family therapy, (DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_665-1). Springer International Publishing AG.

Ringstrom, P. (2018). Relational psychoanalytic perspective on couples psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 38(5), 399-408

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee

Examining Racial Enactments: Learning Through Experience (13 Mar 2027)

Sat, 13 Mar 2027 20:00:00 GMT

Examining Racial Enactments:
Learning Through Experience

How Power, Authority, Demographics, and Privilege Shape Group Dynamics in Organizations

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP) is pleased to announce a workshop opportunity for growth, learning, and connection as part of its 2026–2027 Racial Equity Initiative.

This experiential workshop offers participants the opportunity to deepen their understanding of how race, power, authority, demographics, privilege, and other social identities shape relationships and group dynamics in organizations. Through direct experience and guided reflection, participants will develop greater awareness of the conscious and unconscious processes that influence conversations about race and diversity.

Instructor: Isabelle Reiniger, LCSW

Workshop Dates: March 13, March 20, and April 3, 2027

Meeting Time: Saturdays, 2:00–5:00 p.m. (CT)

Location: 1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

This workshop is based on the group relations model developed by the Tavistock Institute in the 1950s and influenced by the work of Kurt Lewin, W.R. Bion, and others. Following an introduction to key concepts, participants will engage in Small Study Groups to examine group dynamics as they emerge in the here and now.

Participants will observe and explore the roles they assume within the group and examine how power, authority, demographics, privilege, and other factors influence group processes. Rather than focusing solely on intellectual discussion, the workshop emphasizes learning through experience, allowing participants to gain deeper insight into the dynamics that shape interactions around race and diversity.

Throughout the Small Study Groups, Isabelle Reiniger, LCSW, will serve as consultant to the group, helping participants recognize and reflect on the racial enactments and group processes unfolding in real time.

Who Should Attend

This workshop is designed for professionals who work with groups, teams, and organizations, including:

Mental health professionals
Organizational consultants
Executive and leadership coaches
Human resource and DEI professionals
Educators
Leaders and managers
Anyone interested in understanding race and group dynamics through an experiential learning process

No previous group relations experience is required.

Isabelle Reiniger is a psychotherapist and organizational consultant with a full-time private practice in Evanston, Illinois. She is a Fellow of the A.K. Rice Institute and a Co-Creator of Group Relations International. From 2021–2024, she served as Chair of the AKRI Reparations Committee.

She is a member of the Chicago Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations and the New York Center for the Study of Groups, Organizations, and Social Systems. Isabelle received her graduate degree from New York University and completed the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Program at the William Alanson White Institute in New York. In addition to her psychodynamic training, she has completed Level I training through the Internal Family Systems Institute.

Workshop Fee: $250

Participation is limited to 10 individuals to foster an intimate learning environment that supports meaningful experiential learning, consultation, and discussion.

Registration is required. The registration fee includes participation in all three workshop sessions. Because each session builds upon the previous one, participants are expected to attend the full series to receive the greatest benefit from this experiential learning opportunity.

(Please note: Refunds for registrations cancelled at least 3 weeks before a course begins are issued as credit for CCP memberships, courses, and programs. There are no refunds for registrations cancelled within 3 weeks of a course’s start date.)

Examining Racial Enactments: Learning Through Experience (20 Mar 2027)

Sat, 20 Mar 2027 19:00:00 GMT

Examining Racial Enactments:
Learning Through Experience

How Power, Authority, Demographics, and Privilege Shape Group Dynamics in Organizations

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP) is pleased to announce a workshop opportunity for growth, learning, and connection as part of its 2026–2027 Racial Equity Initiative.

Instructor: Isabelle Reiniger, LCSW

Workshop Dates: March 13, March 20, and April 3, 2027

Meeting Time: Saturdays, 2:00–5:00 p.m. (CT)

Location: 1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

Who Should Attend

This workshop is designed for professionals who work with groups, teams, and organizations, including:

Mental health professionals
Organizational consultants
Executive and leadership coaches
Human resource and DEI professionals
Educators
Leaders and managers
Anyone interested in understanding race and group dynamics through an experiential learning process

No previous group relations experience is required.

Workshop Fee: $250

Participation is limited to 10 individuals to foster an intimate learning environment that supports meaningful experiential learning, consultation, and discussion.

Examining Racial Enactments: Learning Through Experience (3 Apr 2027)

Sat, 03 Apr 2027 19:00:00 GMT

Examining Racial Enactments:
Learning Through Experience

How Power, Authority, Demographics, and Privilege Shape Group Dynamics in Organizations

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP) is pleased to announce a workshop opportunity for growth, learning, and connection as part of its 2026–2027 Racial Equity Initiative.

Instructor: Isabelle Reiniger, LCSW

Workshop Dates: March 13, March 20, and April 3, 2027

Meeting Time: Saturdays, 2:00–5:00 p.m. (CT)

Location: 1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

Who Should Attend

This workshop is designed for professionals who work with groups, teams, and organizations, including:

Mental health professionals
Organizational consultants
Executive and leadership coaches
Human resource and DEI professionals
Educators
Leaders and managers
Anyone interested in understanding race and group dynamics through an experiential learning process

No previous group relations experience is required.

Workshop Fee: $250

Participation is limited to 10 individuals to foster an intimate learning environment that supports meaningful experiential learning, consultation, and discussion.

Fridays @CCP Lecture Series: The Sutured Subject of Race and the Obscene Pleasures of Racism (Sheldon George, PhD) (16 Apr 2027)

Sat, 17 Apr 2027 00:00:00 GMT

Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

****A recording will NOT be available for this session****

Sheldon George, PhD

(New York, NY)

The Sutured Subject of Race and the Obscene Pleasures of Racism

Friday April 16, 2027

7-9pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

& ZOOM

About the presentation: In this talk, Sheldon George will engage race and racism through a focus on psychoanalytic theory, racial whiteness, and African American identity. He will deploy the Lacanian psychoanalytic concept of jouissance, or excessive, painful pleasure, to argue that race and racism structure contemporary subjectivity in relation to a jouissance of race. This jouissance, he will suggest, sutures race to subjectivity, stitching race into the psyche of the modern subject. While race mends the lack in white subjectivity to produce a fantasy of wholeness, racism aims at unraveling the psychic cohesion of black subjects. Through analysis of the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, a reading of creativity in African American culture and music, and an interpretation of Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise, George will suggest the means through which African Americans protect themselves psychically against the traumas that assail the black psyche.

Sheldon George is Chair and Professor of Africana Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston. George’s scholarship focuses on race and racism through a study of culture, literature, and theory. His book Trauma and Race, published in 2016, was the first to offer an extended Lacanian analysis of African American identity. George is coeditor of Reading Contemporary Black British and African American Women Writers (2020). His publications include the pioneering collection of essays Lacan and Race: Racism, Identity and Psychoanalytic Theory (2021). His most recent book, published in 2024, is the collection Experimental Subjectivities in Global Black Women’s Writing: Race and Narrative Innovation. George is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society who has coedited two special issues of that journal and two special issues of Studies in Gender and Sexuality. He is a former Chair of the Executive Committee of the Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Literature forum of the MLA, and he holds the title of Extraordinary Professor of English at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Learning Objectives

1.Participants will be able to understand the role of otherness in Lacanian theory

2.Participants will be able to apply key Lacanian concepts like Suture and Jouissance to a psychoanalytic understanding of race and racism

This is a Beginers Level Presentation

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

References/Suggested Readings

Aulagnier, P. (2015). Birth of a body, origin of a history. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 96(5), 1371–1401.

Charles, M. (2024). Somatization and symbolization. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 84:57-78.

Charles, M. (2025). Re-finding the feminine: Forgotten threads of meaning in psychoanalysis. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85:531-553.

Charles, M. (2025). Echoes of Trauma: Meaning and Identity in Psychoanalysis. APA Books.

Crociani-Windland, L., & Charles, M. (Eds.). (2022). Repositioning the maternal: An intimate pedagogy [Special issue]. Journal of Psychosocial Studies,15(2).

Leikert, S. (2021). Encapsulated body engrams and somatic narration – Integrating body memory into psychoanalytic technique. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 102(4):671-688.

Lombardi, R. (2025) Transference onto the Body: Beyond the Relational, the Symbolic, and Hystorical. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 35:719-732.

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee

Fridays @CCP Lecture Series: The Cultural Inhibitions to “Dig” on Black Boys ‘La Winnicott in Psychotherapy'(Kirkland Vaughans, PhD) (4 Jun 2027)

Sat, 05 Jun 2027 00:00:00 GMT

Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series

Kirkland Vaughans, PhD

(New York, NY)

The Cultural Inhibitions to “Dig” on Black Boys ‘La Winnicott in Psychotherapy'

Friday June 4, 2027

7-9pm (CST)

1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago

& ZOOM

About the presentation: While it is abundantly clear that children and families of Hispanic origin are experiencing an overwhelming assault on their basic sense security and liberties in this nation, there seems to be little or no questioning as to how Black children in particular are experiencing what some consider to be a repudiation of the Civil Rights Movement. There are physical attacks against Asians and Anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish people, causing one to pause and label this era, as highly racially and religiously polarized. My specific focus is on Black boys and how cultural and historical racial attitudes have become so embedded within our thought pattern as to make them, non-thoughts, but more of a way of seeing and understanding the world. Hence, our responsibility as psychoanalytic clinicians to examine their influence on us, our profession, and most definitely on our treatment.

Kirkland Vaughans, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. A Fellow-training and supervising analyst-on the faculty of IPTAR, he is also faculty and founder of the Adelphi Derner/ Hempstead Child Clinic and Supervisor in the Child & Adolescent Program of the Derner Postgraduate Program and faculty at NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis and the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center. He is also the Honorary Institute Dean of the Harlem Family Institute. He is Founding Editor of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy and the co-editor of the two-volume Psychology of Black Boys and Adolescents. He has presented at over 125 conferences and panel discussions on issues pertaining to white racism, generational trauma among African Americans, and the school-to-prison pipeline for boys and girls of Color, and is a subject of the documentary, Your Mum and Dad. He Is a founding member of Black Psychoanalysts Speak and was a member of the Holmes Commission. In addition, he is a recipient of the 2024 Founder Award of SPPP. (Div. 39) APA.

Learning Objectives

Participants will recognize how Black children are culturally portrayed as lacking innocence as opposed to White children
Participants will recognize how for Black youth this perceived lack of innocence distorts the function of therapeutic empathy.

This is a Beginers Level Presentation

Fees

CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.

Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.

New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.

Non-CCP members, single admission: $50

Continuing Education

References/Suggested Readings

Cushman, D,.(2025) Who gets to be a child? Clinical and cultural reflections on racism, White infantilization, and Kyle Rittenhouse .Psychoanalytic Dialogues. 35(4), 478-499.

Davids, M,F. (2020) Psychoanalysis and black lives. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 101(5), 1039-1047.

Schwebach, E. (2023) Racism, activity, and passivity in the analytic dyad: A Favonian mediation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 70(4), 619-639.

Vaughans, K.C. (2021) Black boys in the eye of the storm. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 7(1), 47-58.

Vaughans, K.C. & Harris, L. (2016) The police, Black and Hispanic boys: A dangerous inability to mentalize. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 15(3), 171-178.

Presented by

The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee