THE RELATIONSHIPS WE WATCH, THE RELATIONSHIPS WE LIVE: What The Bear,
Succession, and Modern Television Reveal About the Unconscious Patterns We Live By
Presenter: Alison Feit, PhD
Date(s): Jan. 6, 13, 20, 2027
Time: 7:00-8:15 PM
Sessions: 3
Credits: 3.75
Level: All Levels
Price: $154 (with credits), $25 (without credits)
Hybrid
Description
Why is it that every episode of The Bear feels like a panic attack disguised as a family dinner? Why can the Roy family in Succession acquire private jets, media empires, and unlimited power, yet remain trapped in the same emotional argument for four seasons? And why, if we’re honest, does some part of it feel familiar?
In this three-part course, psychoanalyst Dr. Alison Feit uses some of the most compelling stories in contemporary culture to explore one of relational psychoanalysis’s most provocative ideas: that we do not simply remember our pasts—we recreate them. Again and again. In our marriages, friendships, workplaces, group chats, political tribes, family holidays, and even in the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Drawing on the work of Jessica Benjamin, Philip Bromberg, Donnel Stern, Stephen Mitchell, and others, we will look beneath the surface of modern life to understand why different people so often leave us with the same feelings, why certain conversations seem impossible to escape, and why we repeatedly find ourselves playing roles we never consciously chose. If you’ve ever watched a television character self destruct and thought, “Why are they doing this again?” this course invites a more unsettling question: Where in your own life is the same scene playing on repeat?
Course Objectives
- Explain the relational psychoanalytic concept of repetition, articulating how unconscious relational patterns are recreated across intimate relationships, family systems, workplaces, and cultural life rather than merely remembered as past events.
- Apply key relational theories (including mutual recognition, enactment, dissociated selfstates, and unformulated experience) to analyze recurring interpersonal conflicts in both clinical material and contemporary narratives such as The Bear and Succession.
- Identify and critically examine repetitive relational roles in their own lives, recognizing how specific emotional positions (e.g., rescuer, outsider, mediator, rival, invisible one) become stabilized across different contexts.
- 4. Formulate a relational understanding of change, distinguishing between insight and transformation, and evaluating how increased awareness of repetition can open new possibilities for agency, mutual recognition, and emotional freedom.
References
- Benjamin, J. (2009). A relational psychoanalysis perspective on the necessity of acknowledging failure in order to restore the facilitating and containing features of the intersubjective relationship (the shared third).International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90, 441–450. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00163.x
In this influential article, Jessica Benjamin elaborates her theory of mutual recognition and “thirdness,” arguing that relational breakdowns occur when partners collapse into rigid doer/doneto dynamics. She demonstrates how impasses are cocreated and sustained through unconscious relational patterns. This work provides a foundational framework for understanding why emotional conflicts repeat across relationships, families, and institutions.*
- Bromberg, P. M. (1994). Shadow and substance: A relational perspective on clinical process. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 11(2), 147–168.
Bromberg conceptualizes the self as multiple and organized around dissociated selfstates that emerge in different relational contexts. He argues that enactments are inevitable expressions of these unintegrated parts of the self. This article illuminates why individuals repeatedly “find themselves” in familiar emotional scenes and why certain relational dynamics feel compulsively relived rather than consciously chosen.*
- Stern, D. B. (1983). Unformulated experience: From familiar chaos to creative disorder. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 19(1), 71–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.1983.10746593
Stern introduces the concept of unformulated experience—dimensions of lived experience that remain outside symbolization yet shape perception and relational behavior. Repetition, in this view, emerges not only from remembered trauma but from unarticulated expectations and emotional templates. This framework helps explain why certain interpersonal situations evoke an uncanny familiarity, even when their origins remain obscure.*
- Mitchell, S. A. (1988). Relational concepts in psychoanalysis: An integration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mitchell’s seminal text integrates object relations, interpersonal, and selfpsychological traditions into a coherent relational paradigm. He reframes psychic life as fundamentally organized around enduring relational configurations rather than isolated drives. His work provides the structural foundation for understanding why we recreate relational worlds across time and context.
- Gabbard, G. O. (2009). The repetition compulsion in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 37(3), 477–492. https://doi.org/10.1521/jaap.2009.37.3.477
Gabbard revisits Freud’s concept of repetition compulsion within contemporary psychodynamic practice, emphasizing how individuals unconsciously restage formative relational scenarios in present relationships. He argues that repetition contains both defensive rigidity and an implicit hope for transformation. This article directly supports the course’s central premise: that we do not simply remember the past—we recreate it in ongoing relational life..
About the Presenter
Alison Feit, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychology practicing in Atlanta and New York. She serves on the Communications/Website committee for the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), is on faculty at St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute (STLPI), China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) and the William Alanson White Institute (WAWI) where she also serves on the Artist Group and the Sexual Abuse Service. Her upcoming youtube and podcast “Ghost Note” focuses on unconscious processes and relational dynamics that shape individual and collective life.
Credit Information
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Credits Available
- Physicians: 2.5 Credits
- Psychologists: 2.5 Credits
- Social Workers: 2.5 Credits
- PAs: 2.5 Credits
- Nurses & NPs: 2.5 Nursing Contact Hours
- Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 2.5 Credits. Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
- Interprofessional Continuing Education (Counselors, NPs, students): 2.5 Credits
Other Profession Types
Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute holds the final say on which accredited activities they accept.
Disclosure Statement
None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.
COUNSELORS: The St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5953. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company. — Updated December 2022