John Conger will speak at Meridian University on May 21, 2011.
The Poetic Body
Somatic Psychology and Expressive Arts are blessed with rich histories and vibrant professional communities. Both approaches rely on accessing untapped sources of implicit knowledge to deepen our understanding of what it means to be human, and to strengthen our capacity for change. Although both Somatic Psychology and the Expressive Arts work with the imagination, and have developed sophisticated tools for undertaking the important work of personal and cultural transformation, few opportunities for dialogue between these two communities currently exist. This symposium is intended to be such an opportunity, and to foster an ongoing exchange of ideas, practices, and inspirations. Presenters include: Natalie Rogers, Eleanor Criswell, Larry Robinson, John Conger, Aftab Omer, Rae Johnson, Meagan Pugh, Arianna Strozzi, Lisa Herman, and Laury Rappaport. Students, professionals, and individuals interested in exploring "The Poetic Body" are encouraged to attend. Date: May 21, 2011; Time: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM; Location: Marin Campus; Cost: $85 (MFT/LCSW/RN CEU's available)
Click here for Registration and CEU details
Come and attend John's presentation
"The Symbol Hard As Stone: The Body and Symbolic Thought in the Freudian and Jungian Traditions."
at the Conference "Sigmund Freud & C.G. Jung: Collaboration, Polarization and Postmodern Analysis offered by the C.G. Jung Institute
Friday, November 19 and Saturday, November 20
San Francisco, CA
415-771-8080
exed@sfjung.org
More info
The Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology offers:
East Bay Intensive Study Group:
EROTICS AND INTIMACIES
How Do We Think About Sex?
Jeanne Wolff Bernstein, John Conger, Samuel Gerson, Shelley Nathans
32 weeks, September 23, 2010 through May 19, 2011
Thursdays, 10 AM to 12 PM
St. Clement's Episcopal Church, 2837 Claremont Avenue, Berkeley, 94705
$1,800 Non-Members / $1,700 NCSPP Members
Limited to 15 participants on a first-come/first-served basis. Priority for enrollment will be given to NCSPP members and associate members. Registration ends 9/2/10.
Sign up here
Program Segments
Eros and Thanatos: Theories About Sexuality, Death, and Passion Around Freud's Work at the Fin de Siecle
The Sexual Body: Theory and Practice (John Conger, PhD)
Eroticism in the Transference and Countertransference: Working with Phantasy and Enactment
The unconscious Sexual Life of the Couple
Program Overview
Sexuality may be the most volatile force in psychic life. Both vitalizing and transgressive, it can serve a multiplicity of functions: it may bolster a fragile sense of self, or offer an experience of abandonment from the constrictions of self. It can generate the most profound experiences of intimacy with others, or it can obliterate otherness altogether. It is inherently traumatic, and it can offer a pathway for the healing of trauma. Sexuality is fundamentally enigmatic, evoking both an intimate familiarity and a radical otherness. It stands at the crossroads of nature, culture, and psyche, of self and other, and of conscious and unconscious, thus forming a continuum that links the earliest somatic experience to the highest forms of symbolic/creative expression. Sexuality is particularly hazardous and delicate to address in the clinical setting, since in speaking of sexual feelings we risk arousing them, in ourselves as much as in our patients.
Whereas at one time “psychoanalytic” and “psychosexual” seemed almost synonymous, many now feel that sexuality has all but disappeared from psycho-analytic thought. In Freud’s theory, the sex drive is foundational to psychic life and the Oedipus complex the crucible of psychological development. Object relations theory, starting with Klein, shifted our thinking toward the centrality of pre-Oedipal phenomena, as did attachment theory; where at one time relation-ship needs were seen as defined by their motivating sexual drives, now sexual material is often seen as masking more fundamental needs for nurturance and closeness. The French theorists, notably Laplanche and Green, have emphasized another reading of these seemingly different viewpoints, conceiving the infant-parent interaction as vibrantly sensual and laden with unconscious sexual meaning. Our evolving view of the nature of sexualities, additionally, has moved the concept of perversion virtually out of the sexual realm.
In this year’s Intensive Study Group we bring together an outstanding group of local clinicians to take up the multi-faceted nature of sexuality. We aim to broaden and deepen how we think about sex, while increasing our comfort dealing with sexual issues as they arise in the consulting room. We’ll look at our ever-evolving view of sexualities, and how this view arises in a changing socio-historical context. We’lll discuss erotic transference and countertransference, sexuality in couples therapy, infant-parent erotics, and less pathologizing ways of understanding sexual perversions.
We kick off the year with the viewing and discussion of a film that brings to life the themes of sensualities, erotics, and intimacies. Please join us for an enlivening, evocative, and provocative year of learning.
Course Objectives
- Participants will be able to trace the history of sexuality in psychoanalytic theory.
- Participants will be able to describe the importance of the somatic dimension in attending to issues of sexuality in psychotherapy.
- Participants will be able to describe various theoretical approaches to understanding the enlivening, erotic and perverse transferences and countertransferences.
- Participants will be able to describe neo-Kleinian concepts relevant to thinking about sex in the couple.
1/2 Day Analytic Somatic Therapy: Bioenergetics and the Analytic Perspective.
An introduction into Analytic Somatic Therapy concepts and interventions.
(co-hosted with the Center for Personal Growth)
Come and meet Dr. John Conger. He will be presenting an introduction to the theory and practice of Analytic Somatic Therapy (AST). AST creates a synthesis of somatic and analytic therapy. At the end of the workshop, John will be available to answer questions regarding the 1-Year Intensive AST Training set to begin in November of 2010.
Date: tbd
Location: Berkeley, CA
Cost: $125 regular; $75 for students, trainees, interns
Group rates: $100 per person for each group of 5 (regular); $50 per person for each group of 5 (students, trainees, interns)
CEUs available
Fee will be applied for those who continue into the two or four-year training program
Contact: Monika Broecker for more information.
Email: monika@astti.com
Phone: 1-888-758-9707 ext. 24
John Conger and participant at last AST workshop in San Francisco, CA
| John P. Conger and Siegmar Gerken at recent workshop at Lomi event | John P. Conger, David Kest, Siegmar Gerken and Tom Pope at Lomi event |
