From Kohut’s original descriptions to our most contemporary writers, the concept of empathic understanding and responsiveness has remained central to self psychology and intersubjectivity theory. But what is simple to describe is not necessarily simple to accomplish. The specific words we choose, the sequence in which we say them, the affective quality of our tone of voice, the emphasis we place on affect versus behavior, on external events versus internal reactions, on feelings versus intentions, on forward versus trailing edges, or on hopes versus dreads are just some of the factors and choices that go into whether true empathic understanding and responsiveness is achieved. The co-created nature of analytic dialogue and the uniqueness of any given analytic pair add yet another level of complexity to this process. In this talk, the presenter will offer vignettes and clinical examples to describe what her experience has led her to distill about nuances of how to listen and respond to patients in ways that facilitate an unfolding therapeutic process of connection and change. Following comments about her remarks by Harry Paul the discussion will be opened to all participants.
 
Two Continuing Education Credits for NYS social workers, psychoanalysts, psychologists, and LMHCs.
Jill Gardner

Jill Gardner

Jill R. Gardner, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist in private practice in Chicago, Illinois.  Over nearly five decades of practice, she has been extensively involved in the education and training of clinicians of all disciplines, through graduate level university courses, continuing professional education workshops, inservice programs in community settings, private study groups, and 20 years in a teaching hospital based-community mental health center.  Throughout all these settings, her focus has been on enabling clinicians to understand how the theoretical concepts of self psychology and intersubjectivity theory can be translated into their clinical work, bridging the gap between theory and practice.  Dr. Gardner has published a number of articles applying self psychological ideas, for example to clinical supervision and brief psychotherapy.  She is a member of the Executive Board of the International Association for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and an Associate Editor of Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context.

Harry Paul

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.

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