Community Meeting Highlights, Jan. 11, 2025

From Clinical Director, Joseph Scalia III, Psya.D.

We have now had our third monthly Community Meeting, on January 10, 2025. It was a fine gathering. Highlights that I took away include the following.

– What is a psychoanalyst? What characteristics does a psychoanalyst have? What constitutes “the end of analysis?” How do different psychoanalytic schools of thought theorize answers to these questions?

– How do we think differentially about praxis, here considered to be how theory and practice inform each other? This definition of praxis should be distinguised from a synonym of practice, the latter being its frequent meaning. How do the varying schools of thought uniquely conceptualize technique?

– Likewise, what is psychoanalysis? What does it mean to “make the unconscious conscious?” What is the difference between the analysand’s narrative – the conscious story they tell – and what we might hear as disguised messages from the unconscious? What are the clinical effects of one versus the other?

– What is a community? What is a group? How do groups, or institutes – for example, those of psychoanalysis, or of the humanities, or ecology or education – go awry in terms of group dynamics? Group resistances of idealization, or scapegoating, or collective hysteria come easily to mind as ways groups can unconsciously and compromisingly cohere.

– What is the place of psychoanalysis in today’s world? How is it that psychoanalysis has been marginalized by the mental health, or “behavioral” health institutions? Likewise, how is it that psychoanalytic institutes and associations have prevailingly opted out of public positions about the state of the world? Might culture inform psychoanalysis as much as psychoanalysis can inform culture?

– And how do we “grow” CCMPS? What do we offer, and do we offer something unique that would call potential students to consider affiliating with us? And, if so, how do we communicate this to the world?

As can be seen by the extent of the topics above, it was a rich meeting. We missed those of you who didn’t, or couldn’t, attend. Please watch for new zoom link URL’s that are sent out within a few days of each meeting, as these will be different ones for every gathering. If you are unsure, reach out to Executive Director Lynne Scalia for assistance, at either staff.ccmps@gmail.com or 406-581-5969.

Melanie Klein on Working-through

 

From Lynne Scalia:

As CCMPS Executive Director, I come from the perspective of a 30 years+ educator who believes PreK-12th schools need and would find relief and understanding if more psychoanalytic thinking was incorporated in working with young people. This is especially the case as we see a wide variety of students, each with their own unique needs, desires, and backgrounds, more included than ever in general classroom and special settings. Now, retired from education in Montana, but still involved in public school education in Colorado, I intend primarily to use this blog to explore conceptual and structural openings between psychoanalysis and education.

For now, on this first day of 2025, I want to share a passage from Melanie Klein’s Narrative of a Child Analysis, first published in 1975. This book is a daily record and reflections of an analysis of a 10-year old child, Richard, which lasted 4 months (93 sessions!) during World War II in England. In the preface, Klein writes:

Working-through was one of the essential demands that Freud made on an analysis. The necessity to work through is again and again proved in our day-to-day experience: for instance, we see that patients, who at some stage have gained insight, repudiate this very insight in the following sessions and sometimes even seem to have forgotten that they had ever accepted it. It is only by drawing our conclusions from the material as it reappears in different contexts, and is interpreted according, that we gradually help the patient to acquire insight in a more lasting way. The process of adequately working-through includes bringing about change in the character and strength of the manifold splitting processes which we meet with, even in neurotic patients, as well as the consistent analysis of paranoid and depressive anxieties. Ultimately, this leads to greater integration. (pgs. 12-13).

There is a treasure trove of Klein’s work located at the Melanie Klein Trust. Check out the child’s drawing of Envy. Oh, and yes, I know that in the psychoanalytic world Klein is considered to be “modern” but not big M modern. You will find that study and research into various schools of psychoanalytic thought is the order of business here. Innovation, creativity, a democratic community, and relevance to today’s world is what we seek.

(Photo by Louisiana naturalist, Taylor Naquin)

CCMPS Community Meeting | Friday, December 13, 2024

Friday, December 13, 2024

3 – 4:30 PM Mountain Time

Meetings are in discussion format.

There is much to discuss in our next community meeting, including Spring Semester courses. Faculty members Victor Stampley and Lynn Irwin and Clinical Director, Joseph Scalia III will briefly preview current offerings. Changes at the Board level are also happening, and we thank Travis Svensson for moving into the CCMPS Board Chair role and we thank Helene Stilman for her years of service as Board Chair.

We continue to make changes to CCMPS and to the website. You can find past newsletters on the About  page for those who may be interested. Websites have both static and dynamic content. You will begin to see more dynamic content via a CCMPS blog.

Thoughts today as we move through the week:

As community-building unfolds at our school, we have a seminal opportunity for evolution.

Can we embrace this opening together and help each other face the resistances that always accompany change?

Possible topics – from December 1 newsletter:

Thoughts to ponder as we approach our next gathering:
As we enter our second Community Meeting, moving forward from a time of sharp decline, we’re looking to a school future worthy of the term “community.” What, though, is community?

And what does it mean in today’s unprecedentedly troubling times for a space of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic community to exist? Is there a place in our perhaps apocalyptic era for psychoanalysis? And if so, toward what end? Can psychoanalysis learn from the humanities as well as contribute to them?

Can we live with differing schools of thought? Can we manage a move from more decidedly Modern Psychoanalytic theory and practice to a more diverse position? How does a school change its identity?

And perhaps most crucially of all, can we live within a healthy group functioning, “practicing what we preach?” Can we be open to discovering unconscious enactments amongst ourselves?

What might be our place in the psychoanalytic world and the world at large?