The journey of a treatment guided by the principles of ISP sometimes mirrors the structure of a hurricane. Though there is often a calm at the center, the day to day perils always involve a vortex ( the fear of traumatic repetition for both participants) that may appear to be endless. Building a “We” with a patient under such conditions, is a character building experience, for patient and therapist alike. Robert and I began our journey in calm seas, with Robert telling me that he had already been through an analysis in his young thirties, and that he and his therapist, who I knew, had tackled the hard stuff and that using his sailing metaphor, we were on the equivalent of a summer sail on a sunfish. He and his wife had hit a rough patch, and he now needed my help in navigating his relationship with what were mostly his wife’s problems. What unfolded, has been a trip, for both of us, navigating the Bermuda Triangle. I am here to tell our story.
Two Continuing Education Credits for NYS social workers, psychoanalysts, and psychologists.
Harry Paul
Harry Paul, PhD, is a founding member, past president, faculty and supervising and training analyst at the Training and Research Institute in Self Psychology in New York City. He is a board and faculty member at the Training and Research Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation and a member of the International Council of IAPSP. He is the co-author of The Self Psychology of Addiction and Its Treatment: Narcissus in Wonderland and most recently co-edited and contributed to Intersubjective Self Psychology: A Primer, Hagman, Paul, and Zimmermann, Routledge, 2019. He has authored numerous articles on self psychology, intersubjective self psychology, and addiction. He is in private practice in New York City and in Chappaqua, New York.
Gordon Powell
Gordon Powell is a licensed clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. In addition to being a faculty member at TRISP, he is on the faculty at ICP, The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, and PPSC, The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center, both in Manhattan. He is the author of “Intersubjective Self Psychology and Sexuality: What Matters,” in Intersubjective Self Psychology: A Primer.
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