Special Events

Please join the TPI community at our upcoming events. For more information, email tpi@tpi-berkeley.org.

Saturday, November 6, 2010
9am-3pm

FALL SYMPOSIUM
Psychic Birth: A Narrative of Transformative Analytic Work
Presenter: Helen Marlo, Ph.D.
Discussants: Randolph Charlton, M.D.; Dawn Farber,Psy.D., MFT

Location: Krutch Theater, Clark Kerr Campus
2901 Warring Street, UC Berkeley

What really happens over time, in transformative, long-term treatment between two individuals who are deeply related to, and engaged with, the unconscious and each other? What transpires in a treatment that facilitates and inspires deep transformation in the patient? How do therapist and patient transform over time because of, and despite, each other? At the Fall Symposium on November 6th, Helen Marlo, Ph.D., will grapple with these questions.

So often we hear vignettes and case presentations meant to illustrate theoretical ideas but rarely do we have the opportunity to hear a master clinician present his/her work in detail covering a long and transformative therapy. This symposium is that rare opportunity to listen to and engage with the moment-to-moment unfolding of a real encounter. Using the themes of birth, development and transformation, Dr. Marlo will discuss how a deeply traumatized woman came to her and how the two of them traveled together through the dense forest of psychotherapy. Each, of course, were changed in the course of this long-term work and Dr. Marlo depicts the full embodied experience of both participants. For her, theory follows practice.

Themes of birth and transformation are sometimes manifested through deeply regressive, primitive states that aren’t yet able to be put into language. But over a long period of time with her patient, Dr. Marlo speaks movingly of the first stirrings of verbal communication between the two of them. Of course, there were moments of terrifying disruption and conflict. Yet, through careful work and the ballast of a deep regard that these two human beings created with each other, they were able to claim the transformative potential of their connection.

The Symposium promises a rich and complex engagement with clinical material from an experienced, deeply committed analyst. Dr. Marlo brings to bear an enormous range of analytic thought and development to share with us how she has come to think about her work, and specifically this remarkable case. Her theoretical influences range from Freud, Jung, and Ferenczi, to Bion, Winnicott, and Fordham, as well as contemporary theorists who are grappling with the depths of the human psyche. Her clinical work is grounded in a wide range of psychoanalytic theory, which is brought to life by her devotion to the well-being of her patient.

Helen Marlo, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Burlingame, CA, where she works with adults and children. A wife and mother of two children, she is an advanced candidate at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco; Associate Professor and Director of the Master’s of Science in Clinical Psychology Program at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, CA; and Associate Editor for Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. She has practiced psychotherapy and taught at various institutions for two decades.

Randolph Charlton, M.D., has practiced psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in Palo Alto for over 30 years. He graduated from Cornell Medical School, did an internship in medicine at UCSF and his psychiatric residency at Stanford. He is an adjunct clinical professor at Stanford and a teaching and training analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Northern California. Dr. Charlton edited and contributed to “Treating Sexual Disorders,” and has written more than twenty papers on evaluation, treatment and the theoretical basis of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha Honorary Medical Society, the International Association of Analytical Psychology, the Academy of Dynamic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and has received acknowledgment as the Outstanding Teacher in the Stanford Psychiatry Department on several occasions.

Dawn Farber, Psy.D., MFT, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Oakland and San Francisco. She is a Personal and Supervising Analyst and a faculty member at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) and she teaches psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy widely in the community. Dr. Farber is especially interested in clinically focused study groups and in consultation.