Psychoanalytic Synthesis and Innovation in Times of Upheaval
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
JOSHUA DURBAN, FIPA
REVISITED: HOME, HOMELESSNESS, AND NOWHERE-NESS IN EARLY INFANCY (Part 1)
with Moderator Tammy Kaminer, PhD
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4th, 8:00-10:00PM
*This is Part 1 of a two part event
Seating for this and all Colloquium events are on a first come, first serve basis.
ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
The construction of a sense of home in early infancy is a complex achievement. It is intertwined throughout life with the child’s pursuit of a safe physio-mental coverage. This process will be described as an interaction between: (a) a safe dwelling in the body-as-mother (constitution); (b) the internalization of the mother-as-me (internal object space); and (c) the establishment of Oedipal triangular space, which is responsible for the capacity to move between narcissism-as-a-home and the world-as-a-home.
The construction of a home as an interplay between these two elements is accompanied by distinct anxieties and unconscious fantasies. Disruption in the early process due to deficit, internal object relations, or environmental factors, might lead to severe withdrawal, mindlessness, hatred, violence, and murderousness. A distinction will be made between these mental states of being-at-home, homelessness, and nowhere-ness based on the corresponding levels of early developmental and typical anxieties.
Home and homelessness are seen as more developed states of object relating accompanied by some capacity for depressive feelings of loss, mourning, and longing. Nowhere-ness, however, stems from early states of anxiety-of-being and osmotic/diffuse anxieties, which are characterised by confusion between self and object, by a lack of orientation and of a sense of agency, as well as by nameless grief, nameless dread, and devastation. The varieties of home, homelessness, and nowhere-ness will be discussed along with clinical material from the analytic treatment of a refugee child on the autistic spectrum and of his father. The role of psychoanalysis and of the psychoanalyst in promoting the creation of an internal home will be described in reference to technique.
1.5 CEs are available for attending this presentation.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Joshua Durban, FIPA, is training and supervising child and adult psychoanalyst at the Israeli Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (IPA); and a research analyst and instructor at the Psychoanalytic Center of California (PCC) in Los Angeles. He is the founder and the clinical director of the Vista Autism Center (VAC) at the Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services (VDM) in Los Angeles, which provides psychoanalytic treatment for infants, toddlers, adolescents and young adults on the autism spectrum and their families. He is on the faculty of the School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, The Psychotherapy Program, Post-Graduate Kleinian Studies and the Early Mental States track. He is the editor (together with Dr. Merav Roth) of the Hebrew edition of the collected works of Melanie Klein. He is a member of the IJPA international editorial board and of the IPA inter-committee for the prevention of child abuse. He has a private practice in Tel-Aviv and Los Angeles and specializes in the psychoanalysis of ASD and psychotic children, adolescents and adults. He is currently also teaching and supervising in the UK, Germany, Australia and the USA. His research on autism, trauma and early development has been published and translated internationally.