HOME

ORI's Newsletter Article (April 2010)

THE NINETEENTH ANNUAL OBJECT RELATIONS INSTITUTE CONFERENCE:

“SPIRITUALITY AND PSYCHOANLYSIS”

- by Susan Kavaler-Adler (Ph.D., ABPP, D.Litt)

This very unique conference, attended by approximately 70 people, began with a psychoanalyst from Argentina entering the art lined walls of the restaurant and exclaiming, “This is just like Buenos Aires!” Indeed the paintings on the walls, as well as the tables for all to be seated at comfortably throughout the conference--and the one large portrait of Argentine Tango milonguero and milonguera dancing by the beach--did create an atmosphere that would ease the mind into a transitional space mode of concentration. Consequently, there could be attentive listening as some well known scholars in psychoanalysis came to present their thoughts on why “spirituality” as a phenomenon was suddenly coming out of the closet, when it had been neglected in the past in the psychoanalytic realm of both discussion and practice. As Dr. Kavaler-Adler had said in her National Gradiva Award (2004) winning Routledge book (2003), Mourning, Spirituality and Psychic Change: A New Object Relations View of Psychoanalysis, which she then referred to in her conference paper, Scott Peck--who had written the best selling trade book, (top of the charts for years), on The Road Less Traveled--had challenged psychotherapists to stop shutting their patients up when themes and experiences of a spiritual nature came up in treatment. This challenge was responded to by all the speakers on this April 11^th, 2010 panel at the Object Relations Institute, beginning with Dr. Lewis Aron’s paper entitled “Going out to meet You I found You coming toward me: Transformation in Jewish Mysticism and Contemporary Psychoanalysis.” The paper began with a very personal and moving tale of Dr. Aron’s youthful experience in Yeshiva Studies in Jerusalem, where a voice, seemingly coming from heaven above, transformed his consciousness and led to his questioning Freud, Fenichel, and Ostow on their narrowing views of spirituality as a dimension of human aliveness. Taking on Ostow in particular, and referring to the work of D. W. Winnicott and the American Steven Mitchell, Dr. Aron played with the dialectics that could emerge from the formerly polarized views of spirituality as either religious dogma or as mere psychoanalytic regression to the remembrance of things past. In entering the question of a transformational domain, the images of current transitional space swell into the treatment room, bypassing the reductive view of human experience as mere reenactment of parent/child, or mother/child. If God is as in need of man as man needing to invent or find God, as Dr. Aron proposes from his studies of Torah, Old Testament, and Kabbala, then even the God/man hierarchy can have the dialectic of mutuality, just as is true of psychoanalyst and analysand. Thus Martin Buber’s “I and Thou.”

In discussing Dr. Lewis Aron’s paper, Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler offered a paper of her own that entered the clinical realm, engaging the audience as clinicians as well as thinkers.

She evoked psychoanalyst/analyst dialectics related to various in-depth studies she has in her book, Mourning, Spirituality and Psychic Change to illustrate how spirituality is a natural phenomena that emerges through the unconscious of the patient, and which can evolve into meaningful and defining self experience through the dialectical communication of analyst and analysand; but only when the psychoanalyst is a receptive container for such spiritual phenomena. Referring to the British Romantic Poets, John Keats and William Wordsworth, as well as to the British theorists, Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott, Dr. Kavaler-Adler gave voice to the resonance of spirituality in these poets and thinkers as they emerge in the visions of psychoanalytic patients (male and female). The patient she calls June reaches a state of joy, a swirl of energies, and a sense of extreme connectedness, which heats June up. June enters a state of spiritual heat in the treatment room after emerging from a psychoanalytic symbiosis, just having dreamed of her body separating out from her mother’s body. Dr. Kavaler-Adler, her analyst, is reminded of Emily Dickson’s poetic writings on being “a soul at its white heat” (see Kavaler-Adler’s two earlier books on women artists, The Compulsion to Create, Routledge 1993, Other Press 2000, and The Creative Mystique, Routledge 1996). She relates the spiritual heat to the sexual and creative evolutions that emerge as her patient comes through the deepest and most traumatic losses in a “developmental mourning” process. June’s process has involved visions of coming to Tibet, visions of the analyst being a shaman, visions of the analyst and herself wearing spiritual colors in dreams, and visions of parts of herself emerge in a new feminine spirituality through women dancing together in gold and orange gowns. In a male analysand, called Phillip, Dr. Kavaler-Adler shows how a profound mourning process leads to states of meditation in which Phillip encounters and merges with images of Jesus Christ. This is after Phillip forswears organized religion. Dr. Kavaler-Adler tells how this leads to a capacity for monogamy in a fulfilling marriage, to fatherhood, and to transforming from a high level corporate career to the practice of “energy healing” after many years of study.

Throughout these papers, and the latter events and papers, Dr. Jeffrey Lewis serves as a proficient moderator, who connects the themes and personalities of the various speakers and topics. He reaches out to the audience in an all embracing grasp of the cohesion of the various events of the day, and adds his own profound thoughts and comments.

A buffet lunch, extremely modestly priced, allowed all to stay and enjoy conversation, breaking bread together in the comfort of their chairs at the tables, where earlier they had had coffee and muffins, and now salmon, chicken, pasta, salad, and chocolate mouse cake. As Dr. Kavaler-Adler promised they could enjoy their concrete desert, which would be followed by a spiritual dessert. The spiritual dessert was revealed to be a high level Argentine Tango performance. First Sid Grant and Gayle Madeira, the professional Argentine Tango performers, spoke about spirituality and Argentine Tango, connecting such thoughts with the morning expositions. Gayle spoke of how psychological research shows the most profound human experience is related to mother/child hugs and affection, and then drew the parallel to the social forum of Argentine Tango at evening milongas where those of us in this Argentine Tango community share the embrace that contains the partners in the dance, so that each evening we receive “lots of hugs.” Sid Grant spoke of the embrace that allows the partners to be “corizone a corizone,” heart to heart, in the spiritual communion of the Argentine Tango dance. Then Sid and Gayle performed a romantic tango entitled “Poema,” and then a more peppy and happy form of tango, called milonga (the dance, as opposed to the party at night where we dance). Following this, Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler, the institute’s Executive Director as well as speaker, performed two forms of Argentine Tango with Sid Grant, one classic-modern tango and one waltz tango.

The afternoon brought more eloquence as Dr. Jeffrey Rubin, who has written Psychoanalysis and Buddhism and who has a new book entitled Psychoanalysis in our Time (NYU Press, 2010), presented a paper on “Psychoanalysis and Meditation as Partners in Healing.” Dr. Rubin confronted us all with the prospect of a world in which neither meditation nor psychoanalysis existed, and then proceeded to speak of how spiritual practices he had been engaged in for years allowed him to be truly in the moment with even the most difficult patients, responding from a depth of consciousness that would not be available to him with premeditated theoretical agendas binding him.. Providing clinical examples of a traumatized adolescent and a schizophrenic patient, Dr. Rubin demonstrated how his spiritual practices had prepared him to relinquish schemas and agendas so as to speak with authentic true self spontaneity, as if “without memory of desire,”—related to Wilfred Bion’s neo- Kleinian psychoanalytic writing. This provided an apt analogy to the “non anticipation” of the follower in Argentine Tango that we had just seen in the tango demonstration, where being in the moment, through connection between oneself, one’s partner, and the music is what it is all about.

Last but not least in the line of speakers comes Dr. Jeffrey Seinfeld, author of such books as The Bad Object, The Empty Core, and Interpreting and Holding, who enlivened all towards the end of the day with a brilliant extemporaneous exposition. Taking off from Dr. Rubin’s paper, as his discussant, Dr. Seinfeld gave a blow by blow child therapy encounter in which he learned how staying awake with a schizoid child became a profound Zen experience. As usual he rhapsodized poetic in theory and clinical innuendoes.

This naturally led to a dynamic discussion with the conference audience. Each participant went to the microphone and brought up new philosophical conundrums about “what is spirituality?” From Hegel and German philosophy to the question of “Don’t we have to speak about death?,” to questions about Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s receptive response to her patient’s description of core trauma located in Past Life Experiences, and to Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s suggestion that object relations theory lent itself to consideration of past and future lives in its view of an “internal world” that could go beyond the body, the field of discourse was engaging to all, even though it had been a day from 9:30am to 4:30pm! In leaving one participant exclaimed what a fantastic conference it was and later wrote an email, saying “…outstanding conference!!!...topic, discussants, food, tango and atmosphere…perfection!!! Sign me up for next year…”

And so it went with the 19^th Annual Object Relations Institute conference! Thanks to Dr. Inna Rozentsvit, the Object Relations Institute administrator who made it all possible, along with Dr. Kavaler-Adler, Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, and our prestigious panel of speakers. Due to Dr. Rozentsvit’s work ORI could also offer Continuing Ed credits to participants.

*****************************************************************************************************

Click & Watch the 5-minute Professional Video of the ORI's 2010 Annual Conference on Psychoanalysis & Spirituality!

Click & Watch the 5-minute Professional Video of the ORI's 2009 Annual Conference on Eroticized Demonic Object!

Join Us on FACEBOOK!

Support Our Cause on FACEBOOK: Support Mental Health Education!

*****************************************************************************************************

ORI, 511 Avenue of the Americas, #52, NY, NY, 10011

Please note - NEW - Mail correspondence to: ORI Administrator, 75-15 187 Street, Fresh Meadows, NY, 11366-1725

New: Tel: 646.522.0387 Fax: 718.785.3270 Email: admin@ORINYC.org

Inquiries about psychotherapy and psychoanalysis training: DrKavalerAdler@gmail.com

*****************************************************************************************************

Disclaimer: This site and its services, including the contents of this site are for informational purposes only.
It does not provide medical or any other health care advice, diagnosis or treatment.