Annual Scientific Meeting | Dissociation in the Clinical Setting and in Everyday Life, September 27, 2025

This program examines how dissociation functions as an essential mechanism in psychical life and the clinical situation, mediating the ever-adjusting mind-body relation, and facilitating transitions between different states of consciousness and self-states. Transient altered states, which enable new and creative forms of mind-body experience in everyday life and in the therapy situation, are contrasted with pathological forms of retreat into alter worlds— timeless, trancelike states that reinforce post-traumatic defenses, impair transitional capacities, and impede psychical movement and growth. These pathological dissociative structures reshape the life of the mind and of the body, requiring innovation in our clinical posture and approach.

In the morning program Dr. Goldberg will present theoretical concepts followed by their clinical applications.

In the afternoon program Joanne della Penta will present clinical case material to be discussed by Dr. Goldberg followed by audience participation.

Peter Goldberg, Ph.D. is a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, is Co-chair of Faculty at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and on the faculty of the Wright Institute in Berkeley. He is a co-author of Here I’m Alive: The Spirit of Music in Psychoanalysis (Columbia University Press, 2023) and has written and presented widely on a range of clinical and theoretical topics including the evolution of clinical theory in psychoanalysis; psychosomatic dissociation, sensory experience in analysis and cultural life; transitional mechanisms and the function of the analytic frame; non-representational states; and the impact of social trauma on individual psychology.

Clinical Case Presenter’s Biography:
Joanne della Penta ATR-BC, FIPA is a member of WCPSI and an adult psychoanalyst/ art therapist in Seattle, Washington. She works with adults, adolescents and children age 5 and up.

Learning objectives | After this workshop, participants will be able to:

• 1. Participants will consider the specific function of dissociation as a psychical mechanism
• 2. Participants will identify how dissociation operates in the clinical setting and in everyday life.
• 3. Participants will explore the role of dissociative mechanisms both in facilitating normal transitional states, and in the establishment of pathological dissociative states.

Recommended readings (Optional)

1. Fabricated bodies: A model for the somatic false self. (2004) International Journal of Psychoanalysis 85:823-840

2. Body-Mind Dissociation, Altered States, and Alter Worlds. (2020) Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 68:769-806

3. Active perception and the search for sensory symbiosis. (2012) Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association: 60(4):791-812

4. Analytic framing and shared psychosensory experience. (2023) Fort Da.  24(1): 17-34

Course Outline

9:00 to 9:30: Coffee and Continental Breakfast

9:30 to 9:40 Opening: Moderator Judith Setton-Markus, ME.D, R. Psych.
Welcoming Remarks: President of WCPSI: Risha Sharan, MD. FRCPC:
Introduction of Speaker: Judith Setton-Markus

9:40 to 10:15: Keynote Address: Dissociation in the Clinical Setting and in Everyday Life: Theoretical Concepts: Peter Goldberg, Ph.D

10:15 to 10:40: Audience Participation

10:40 to 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 to 11:30 Continuation of Keynote Address: Clinical Applications: Peter Goldberg, Ph.D.

11:30 to 12:30 Audience Participation

12:30 to 2pm Lunch/AITs meeting with Peter Goldberg

2:00 to 2:30 Clinical case presentation with interactive participation. Moderator: Elizabeth Wallace, MD. FRCPC & Case Presenter: Joanne della Penta, ATR-BC, LMHC, FIPA

2:30 to 2:50 Discussant: Peter Goldberg, Ph.D.

2:50 to 3:15 Audience Participation

3:15 to 3:35 Coffee Break

3:35 to 3:50 Continuation: clinical case: Joanne della Penta

3:50 to 4:15 Discussant: Peter Goldberg, Ph.D.

4:15 to 4:45 Audience Participation

4:45 to 5:00 Wrap up