In a 1995 interview, imagined by the psychoanalyst Bennett Simon, Freud is asked to reflect on what, from the perspective of one hundred years of psychoanalysis, the well-analyzed person should be able to do? Freud responds: “To Love, to Work, and to Vote.” Dr. Simon goes on to consider the dilemmas of citizenship in the analyst’s role and its generally neglected or hidden place in the patient’s emotional life.
Beyond the consulting room, citizenship represents a developmental challenge for all of us: toward discovering our point of view, declaring it publicly, listening to the points of view of others and learning more, surrendering, or standing our ground. It faces us with problems of difference, conflict and compromise, with moments of decision which both join and separate us from others, and with the requirement to re-join, after the battle so to speak, in order to carry on something larger than the self, namely, communal life.
In today’s America, the common good so often seems casualty to what, from a psychodynamic point of view, is the defense of splitting, and perhaps also to the splitting inherent in the confusion of capitalism with democracy. Erik Erikson’s words of many years ago seem apposite: “Where the human being despairs of an essential wholeness, he re-structures himself and the world by taking refuge in totalism….an absolute boundary is emphasized...nothing that belongs inside must be left outside; nothing that must be outside should be tolerated inside."
One senses a longing for wholeness in contemporary America as hints of a generational shift may foreshadow a paradigm shift. In this rapidly evolving, charged context, how do we think about citizenship dynamically? How does a person’s vote reflect an interaction of psychological and social forces? How do cherished and disavowed identifications shape, consciously and unconsciously, the political landscape?
In this interdisciplinary conference, we will consider citizenship today from a range of perspectives, including that of psychoanalysis. Through presentations and discussions, scholars and clinicians will examine the nature, status and dynamics of citizenship toward the goal of understanding how, why and whether we exercise our authority as voters in today’s context.
Conference Directors
M. Gerard Fromm, Ph.D.,Conference Director, is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director of the Erik H. Erikson Institute for Education and Research at the Austen Riggs Center, Faculty Member, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and President of the Board of the Center for the Study of Groups and Social Systems, the Boston Affiliate of the A.K. Rice Institute.
Jane G. Tillman, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, treatment team leader, supervisor of psychotherapy and psychological testing, and Manager of Performance Improvement at the Austen Riggs Center. She has served as the President of the Section for Women, Gender and Psychoanalysis for Division 39 (Psychoanalysis), and is on the Editorial Board of Psychoanalytic Psychology. Dr. Tillman has published and presented papers on a wide variety of topics including: dissociation, psychosis, religion, erotized transference, impasses in treatment, and the effect of patient suicide on clinicians.
Presenters
Roberta Apfel, M.D. and Bennet Simon, M.D.
Encounters at Checkpoints: On Talking About Politics with Patients in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Roberta J. Apfel is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with training in public health and with a longstanding interest in maternal and child health. She currently teaches psychiatry residents in the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Program and first-year Harvard Medical students in the Patient–Doctor I course. She is active in the Refugee Asylum Network of Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Apfel is affiliated with Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston and the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.
Bennett Simon is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He currently teaches residents in the Cambridge Health Alliance program in psychiatry, and teaches undergraduate courses in the Harvard Core Curriculum. He is also active in the Refugee Asylum Network of Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Simon is affiliated with Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance and the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.
Benjamin Barber, Ph.D.
The Eclipse of Public Liberty and Other Pathologies of Privatization
Benjamin R. Barber, Ph.D., is Distinguished Senior Fellow at DEMOS, and President of CivWorld (at DEMOS), the international NGO that sponsors Interdependence Day and the Paradigm project. He is also a member of the Erikson Council of Scholars of the Austen Riggs Center. Professor Barber was Walt Whitman Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University for 32 years, and then Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society at The University of Maryland. He consults regularly with political and civic leaders in the United States and around the world, and was for 5 years an informal consultant to President Bill Clinton. His 17 books include the classic Strong Democracy (1984), the international best-seller Jihad Vs. McWorld, and most recently, Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole. Columbia University Press will publish a new paperback edition of his The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House in 2008.
Ange-Marie Hancock, PhD
Beyond the “Oppression Olympics”: Cultivating a Conscious Pariah Model of Citizenship
Ange-Marie Hancock is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California. As an assistant professor at Yale University and Pennsylvania State University in the Political Science she also taught in the African American Studies and Women’s Studies departments. She is the author of the award-winning book, The Politics of Disgust and the Public Identity of the “Welfare Queen” (2004, New York University Press) as well as numerous scholarly articles on the intersections of race, class and gender politics published in Perspectives on Politics, Politics & Gender, and the Journal of Law and Society. Prior to embarking on an academic career she conducted the original research and wrote the original proposal for the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), now in its 11th season.
Jennet Kirkpatrick, Ph.D.
Uncivil Disobedience: Violence and Democratic Politics in America
Jennet Kirkpatrick is a Lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and a doctoral degree in Political Science from Rutgers University. Her teaching and research interests focus on American political history, social movements, and American political thought. She is the author of Uncivil Disobedience: Studies in Violence and Democratic Politics, which is being published by Princeton University in September 2008. Her new research project is on American utopian communities.
Jane Mansbridge, Ph.D.
Incorporating Conflict in Our Search for the Common Good
Jane Mansbridge is the Adams Professor at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She is the author of Beyond Adversary Democracy and Why We Lost the ERA, editor of Beyond Self-Interest, co-editor of Feminism, and co-editor of Oppositional Consciousness: The Subjective Roots of Social Protest. She has worked on the politics of the common good and participatory democracy all of her adult life, with the conviction that such politics must be organized not to suppress conflict.
Edward Shapiro, M.D.
Citizenship as Development
Edward R. Shapiro, M.D., is the Medical Director/CEO of the Austen Riggs Center. A board certified psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, family researcher, and organizational consultant, he is also Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. A Founding Member of the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute, Dr. Shapiro is a Training and Supervising Analyst. He has published over fifty articles and book chapters on human development, personality disorders, and organizational and family functioning, and is the author, with Wesley Carr, of Lost in Familiar Places.
Peter Spiro, J.D.
Beyond Citizenship: American Identity after Globalization
Peter J. Spiro is the inaugural holder of Charles R. Weiner Professorship in international law at Temple University Law School. He was the Rusk Professor of Law at the University of Georgia Law School, where he also served as Associate Dean for Faculty Development. A former law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court, Spiro specializes in international law, the constitutional aspects of U.S. foreign relations, and immigration and nationality law. His book, Beyond Citizenship: American Identity after Globalization, was published by Oxford University Press in December, 2007. He has contributed commentary to such publications as Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic.
Conference Schedule
Registration - 7:30pm, Friday, Oct. 17
Welcome and Opening Presentation - 8:00pm, Friday, Oct. 17
Conference resumes - 9:15am, Saturday, Oct. 18
Conference Reception - 6:00pm, Saturday, Oct. 18
Conference resumes - 9:30am, Sunday, Oct 19
Conference concludes - 1:00, Sunday, Oct. 19
Conference Fees
$250 before September 22, 2007
$300 after September 22, 2007
$125 discount for students
$65 discount for multiple registrations from the same
organization (3 or more)
Scholarship
Limited scholarship funds are available on a first-come, first served basis. Send a brief letter of request outlining financial need and your interest in the seminar.
Refund Policy
Pre-registered participants may cancel in writing and receive a refund less a $25 processing fee. No refunds will be made after Friday, October 5, 2007.
CME Credits for MDs, PhDs, and Social Workers
12
Register Now.
Download File: Fall Conference Brochure
Location: Austen Riggs Center
Contact Information
Nadine Reddy
413-931-5236
erikson@austenriggs.net
