The course will be held in two separate locations, Vancouver and Victoria, with different dates.
Minding the Body will take place in Victoria between the dates October 2105 to June 2016 >>
Minding the Body will take place in Vancouver between the dates September 2015 to March 2016 >>
The Western Branch CPS faculty is offering a theoretical/clinical course in preparation for the 2016 WBCPS Annual Scientific Meeting with guest speaker Alessandra Lemma, noted for her many studies on the mind body connection. Her two books are not only about what she discovers about the relationship between the mind and the body, but also how she discovers it. Her basic assumption is that embodiment shapes the mind, following Freud’s noted concept about the ego being first and foremost a bodily ego. In today’s world in which there is a trend toward using the skin and the body as the site for the expression of internal struggles, her studies come as a very timely addition to the psychoanalytic literature. In this course we will be studying several themes from her two books: Under the Skin and Minding the Body, along with several complementary articles from other authors. The themes include developmental considerations in the formation of the bodily self as a construct that forms within the relational matrix; developmental imitation and the influence of the mother’s internal world on the baby’s development of a sense of self; the issue of shame in relation to body dysmorphia; the psychodynamics of cosmetic surgery; gender identity and transsexual; the multiple psychic functions of the skin; the body of the analyst in the therapeutic setting, among others.