Adolescent Upheaval: Contemporary Clinical Issues in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy with Adolescents

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Today’s adolescents are experiencing unprecedented amounts of emotional turmoil. In addition to the expected crises that accompany growing up, kids have experienced isolation during the pandemic, mass shootings in schools, social unrest after the murder of George Floyd, ongoing challenges to equal rights, and the raised temperature of our social discourse. More than ever, adolescents need help in processing the complicated social environment and their personal experiences and feelings.

The William Alanson White Institute is offering a timely and unique program for clinicians of all levels of experience, starting in January 2023. The program is focused on expanding and deepening one’s experience of working with adolescents within an Interpersonal and Relational framework. Each month a different distinguished senior faculty will present on a variety of contemporary clinical topics and case material. The program is designed to enhance participants clinical skills and intellectual understanding of psychodynamic psychotherapy with adolescents.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

Classes meet online, via Zoom, for one Monday of each month for ten months, between January-December, 2023. No classes in July & August.

The schedule is as follows:

7:30-9:00PM/Eastern time

January 9, February 13, March 13, April 10, May 8, June 12, September 11, October 9, November 13, December 11

Tuition* 

Early Registration for Professionals, through 11/20/22: $450

Professionals, cost starting 12/1/22: $550

Students, Candidates and current attendees of What Really Works: $400

* Payment plan available

15 Continuing Education Credits are offered.

Eligible Participants

Psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, mental health counselors, creative art therapists, marriage and family counselors, and nurse practitioners.

Steering Committee 

Jacqueline Ferraro, D.M.H., Lisa Dubinsky, Psy.D., Susan Fabrick, L.C.S.W., Daniel Gensler, Ph.D., Robert Gaines, Ph.D., Mara Heiman, L.C.S.W., Stacey Nathan-Virga, Ph.D., Wendy Panken, L.C.S.W., Susan Rose, Ph.D., Marcelo Rubin, Ph.D.

Co-Directors, this program:  Wendy Panken, L.C.S.W. and Stacey Nathan-Virga, Ph.D.

CLASS DESCRIPTIONS AND FACULTY

Class 1                         January 9, 2023          Robert Gaines, Ph.D. and Wendy Panken, LCSW     

I’m Not a Child Anymore:  A Developmental Interpersonal Approach to the Transition to Adolescence

Robert Gaines, Ph.D.  obtained a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from New York University and a Certificate in Psychoanalysis from William Alanson White Institute.  He is a Supervising Analyst, Past Fellow, and faculty member at the William Alanson White Institute.  He is also Co-Founder, Former Director, Current Director of Curriculum, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program, William Alanson White Institute.  Dr. Gaines is also a faculty member and Supervisor of the Child and Adolescent Program at Westchester Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.  He is an Executive Editor for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and is an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy.  He is the author of articles and book chapters on various aspects of psychotherapy with children and adolescents.  Dr. Gaines is in private practice in NYC and Westchester.

Wendy J. Panken, L.C.S.W is a graduate of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program of the William Alanson White Institute and member of its Executive Committee and faculty.  She has been studying psychoanalysis in private study groups and supervision for many years. Her special interests include adolescence and the relationship between the personal biographies of psychoanalysts and their theories and the relationship between feminism and psychoanalysis. She is in private practice in NYC.

Learning Objectives

1.  Participants will become familiar with the basic concepts of interpersonal developmental theory.

2.  Participants will understand the differences between classical developmental conceptions of adolescent development and interpersonal conceptions of adolescent development.

3.  Participants will understand how interpersonal concepts of adolescent development can be applied to individual psychotherapy with adolescents.

Class 2                         February 13, 2023                  Seth Aronson, Ph.D.

Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll – What’s Lost and What’s Gained in Adolescence

Seth Aronson, Psy.D. is Training and Supervising Analyst, Director of Training, Fellow at the William Alanson White Institute (WAWI), where he has also served as Director of Curriculum. He is on the teaching faculty of the psychoanalytic and child psychotherapy training programs at WAWI. At Long Island University’s doctoral program, he teaches child and adolescent psychopathology and psychotherapy. He has facilitated process groups for rabbinical students at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah for 18 years. He serves on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Quarterly and Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.  Beyond these formal roles, he has also presented and taught in many venues around the world, including Japan and Israel and has led a study program for mental health professionals and clergy for seven years.  Dr. Aronson has written extensively on a variety of topics in the field, with a focus on issues pertaining to children and adolescents, and ethical, practical, and emotional concerns of those in clinical roles. Together with Craig Haen, he is co-editor of The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy (Routledge, 2017).  He is in private practice in New York City.

Learning Objectives

1) Participants will be able to name three developmental tasks of adolescence

2) Participants will describe two experiences of necessary losses in adolescence

3) Participants will be able to describe two theoretical understandings of adolescence

Class 3                         March 13, 2023            Pascal Sauvayre, Ph.D. 

I am Not Your Son: The function of Negation and Negativity in Adolescence

Pascal Sauvayre, Ph.D.  is faculty, supervising and training psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute, New York. He studies and writes on the disciplinary boundaries of psychoanalysis, and he has a private practice in New York City.

Learning Objectives
1. Participants will appreciate the significance of adolescence as the culmination or fulcrum of the traumatic antecedents into a developmental arrest, as well as the historical and creative momentum of negation in the life cycle.

2. Participants will learn how, according to André Green, the concept of negation is foundational to psychoanalytic theorizing throughout its history.

3. Participants will understand the distinction between the creative potential of negation and its pathological vicissitudes, which are referred to as negativism.

Class 4                         April 10, 2023             Daniel Gensler, Ph.D.

Electronic Communication:  A Challenge for Adolescent Psychotherapists in the 21st Century

Daniel Gensler, Ph.D. is Director of Training and of the Externship at the Child Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program at the William Alanson White Institute as well as training and supervising analyst at William Alanson White Institute. He is co-author of Relational Child Psychotherapy (2002) and has published many articles and chapters in the professional literature. He is a clinical psychologist in private practice doing psychotherapy, supervision, and psychoeducational testing.

Learning Objectives

1) Participants will be able to describe benefits and drawbacks in the use of social media in adolescence.

2) Participants will realize ways they can use social media in remote and in-person psychotherapy.

Class 5                         May 8, 2023                            Jack Drescher, M.D.

Controversies in Treating Transgender Children and Adolescents

Jack Drescher, MD is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. Dr. Drescher is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Faculty Member at Columbia’s Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health.  He is a Senior Psychoanalytic Consultant at Columbia’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.  He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute.  Dr. Drescher served as Section Editor of the Gender Dysphoria Chapter in the DSM-5 Text Revision (DSM-5-TR) process (2022 publication). He served on APA’s DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders and served on the World Health Organization’s Working Group on the Classification of Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health that revised sex and gender diagnoses in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). He served on the Honorary Scientific Committee revising the 2nd edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2).  Dr Drescher has received several professional honors and His publications have been translated into Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Finnish, and German.

Learning Objectives

1) Identify three current, differing treatment approaches for children with Gender Dysphoria in Childhood

2) Describe the controversies in the wider culture regarding the treatment of gender dysphoric children and adolescents and how they affect clinical practice and research

3) Prepare for appropriate treatments, consultations and referrals of children and adolescents with Gender Dysphoria

4) Critique and revise binary thinking about gender and gender identity

5) Compare diagnostic criteria of the DSM-5-TR gender diagnoses with those of ICD-11

Class 6             June 12, 2023        Carol Valentin, Ph.D. & Wendy Panken, L.C.S.W.

Race, Identity, and Social Unrest for Adolescents 

Carol Valentin, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and a graduate of the Division 1 Psychoanalytic Training Program at the William Alanson White Institute. She graduated from the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology from the City University of New York in 1984 and became the Clinical Director of the Sheltering Arms Therapeutic Nursery in Harlem where she continued the legacy of Dr. Margaret Lawrence, one of the first African American psychoanalysts in New York City. The nursery served children ages three to five who exhibited the behavioral manifestations of psychological, physical, and sexual trauma. Since the closing of the nursery in 2019 Dr. Valentin now treats young adults and adults in her private practice in Princeton, New Jersey, and New York City. She is a co-founder of the Race & Psychoanalysis Study Group at the William Alanson White Institute and was a member of its Center for Public Mental Health.  She has supervised doctoral level psychologists, clinical social workers, caseworkers and educational staff at both private and public institutions.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will understand several conceptual models for racism and the concept of intergenerational transmission of the trauma of slavery

2.Participants will become familiar with the particular form the denial of American slavery takes, the phantom form.

3. Participants will appreciate the necessity of collective mourning for recognition and healing of the collective trauma of slavery.

No Summer Classes in July and August

Class 7                         September 11, 2023               Jacqueline Ferraro, Ph.D.

Self-Injury:  Adolescent Solution to Psychic Pain

Jacqueline Ferraro, D.M.H.  is Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program (CAPTP) at the William Alanson White Institute, faculty and supervisor; Executives Committee member, faculty and supervisor in the Eating Disorders, Compulsions and Addictions Service (EDCAS), the William Alanson White Institute.  Dr. Ferraro is in private practice in Manhattan.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to define and differentiate non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) from suicidality in adolescents.

2.  Participants will be able to describe variables central to non-suicidal self-injury, including the roles of emotional dysregulation and self-derogation.

3. Participants will identify NSSI as a communication through the body and learn ways to facilitate emotion regulation and deal with negative internal states, through interpersonal exchanges, developing a language for emotions, and using countertransferential experiences in the clinical work with adolescents.

Class 8                         October 9, 2023           Joseph Mikulka, L.C.S.W.-R
Sex and Technology: An Interpersonal Perspective on Sexual Development in the Technological Age 

Joseph (JT) Mikulka, LCSW-R is a soon-to-be graduate of William Alanson White Institute’s Certificate Program in Psychoanalysis and a graduate of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program. JT graduated from Hunter College School of Social Work and has published and presented his work on play therapy, working with severe pathology, severe trauma, adoption, gender transition, and on helping kids recover from war and armed conflict. JT is on the faculty at NIP and the William Alanson White Institute.  JT is also an associate editor of the Journal of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and President Elect of Section II, Children and Adolescents, of Division 39.  He is in private practice in New York City.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to identify multiple ways that technology is being used by teens to express aspects of sexual development and sexual and interpersonal relatedness.

2. Participants will be able to identify how new technologies are used by adolescents to manage interpersonal anxieties.

3. Participants will learn new skills in using the detailed inquiry to assess for safe use of technology for sex and dating and help teens navigate these difficult interpersonal tasks.

Class 9                         November 13, 2023               Lisa Dubinsky, Psy.D.

The Struggles of Parenting Adolescents

Lisa Dubinsky, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist, with a special interest in early childhood and children on the autism spectrum. She is a consultant with mainstream preschools and works with children of all ages, parents, and adults in psychotherapy.  She is a supervisor and faculty member of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program at the William Alanson White Institute.

Learning Objectives

1.Participants will have a better understanding of the conflicts that parents experience

while raising and caring for adolescents, as well as the stresses on the couple and

siblings.

2. Participants will develop skills for helping parents gain perspective on their teens’

emotional needs and then be better equipped to make sound decisions about

limits and consequences.

3. Participants will learn how to use their countertransference reactions in their work with

parents of adolescents.

Class 10                       December 11, 2023                Philip Rosenbaum. Ph.D.

Existential Issues for Adolescent College Students and Interpersonal psychotherapy 

Philip J. Rosenbaum, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, supervising psychoanalyst, and the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at Haverford College. He received his psychoanalytic training at the William Alanson White Institute. His interests are in studying the commonalities between contemporary interpersonal analytic practice and cultural psychology, particularly as it is connected to field theory and understanding meaning making processes as they occur in and are constituted by social and interpersonal situations. He is the co-author of the recently published book: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Adolescents: College student development and treatment. He is the former editor of the Journal of College Student Psychotherapy. Additionally, he has published in Culture & Psychology; Theory & Psychology; and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is in private practice in Philadelphia, PA and his website is www.philiprosenbaumphd.com

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to describe aspects of three existential-relational foundations of experience: experience is never complete, individuals are co-constituted within and through others and cultural processes, and development is never linear: we move continuously through the different
positions.

2. Participants will be able to describe four developmental positions: Contiguous, Paranoid-Schizoid, Depressive, and Transcendent.

3. Participants will be able to apply an existential-relational model towards various challenging aspects of adolescent becoming: including destructive processes (i.e. suicidal thinking) but also more general experiences of suffering.

Continuing Education Information:

For Psychologists:
The William Alanson White Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor Continuing Education for Psychologists. The William Alanson White Institute maintains responsibility for these programs and their contents.

William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0004.

For Social Workers:
William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0159.

For Licensed Psychoanalysts:
William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts. #P-0007.

For Mental Health Counselors:
William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Mental Health Counselors. #MHC-0025

For Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists:
William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists. #MFT-0019.

For Licensed Creative Arts Therapists:
William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists. #CAT-0011.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CE program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Continuing Education Credits:

CE/CME credits are calculated on a credit per course hour basis.