(Fingert Lecture) The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst: Enactment, Trauma and Time  (with Robert Grossmark, PhD, ABPP)

Unrepresented and yet-to-be-suffered trauma and neglect announce themselves in the language of symptoms, absence and emergent enactments in the treatment field. This lecture will address the challenges when working with patients whose trauma does not avail itself to symbolization and mentalization. In this lecture I will outline how the analyst can unobtrusively create the safe and robust space within which the fullness of the patient’s internal world and trauma can be realized and companioned such that the patient can be known in the register of illusion, fragmentation and non-relatedness that are the signature of the residue of trauma and neglect. The emphasis is on companioning and being-with the patient in their particular idiom and register rather than seeking to bring the patient into the analyst’s reality and understanding. This unique therapeutic relationship offers the space for the instantiation of time such that trauma can be located in memory and the past. This involves the un-telling and un-doing of prior “translations”, personality structures and relational patterns such that being and time can be re-assembled and re-integrated.

Fee:                                                              Credit Hours:

$48 (without credits)                                 1.5

$73 (with credits)

$10 (student registration; no credits)

Class Level:                                                Class Format:

All Levels                                                    Virtual

Dates:

Feb. 26, 2026 | 7:30 – 9:00 PM

A Psychodynamic Approach to Working With Adolescents and Their Parents (with John Lucas, MA, LPC)

Many clinicians are hesitant to begin working with adolescents, although there is a significant need for adolescent therapists. This course will serve as a primer on working with adolescents and their parents/caregivers from a psychodynamic framework. We will cover both theoretical and clinical perspectives. The course will highlight the contributions of psychoanalysts to the field of adolescent psychotherapy and parent work.

Fee:                                                              Credit Hours:

$150                                                             5.0

$10 (student registration; no credits)

Class Level:                                                Class Format:

Beginner                                                     Hybrid

Dates:

Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25, 2026| 6:00 – 7:15 PM

Falling In Love (with Nikki Karalekas, PhD, LCSW)

Love is both mysterious and a psychoanalytic term of art. Despite worrying that love was beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, Freud developed several different theories of love. Perhaps most famously, in the Three Essays on Sexuality, he writes, “The prototype of every love relationship is the child sucking at his mother’s breast. The finding of the love object is in fact a refinding” (p. 222). More recently, psychoanalysis has drawn on and expanded beyond Freud’s theories of love as a repetition compulsion, a narcissistic projection, or an atonement for loss. Contemporary thinkers have developed theories of yearning and desire; mature and immature love; and love as an achievement. But what are all of those often maddening, explosive, and tingling feelings of falling in love, really? This Valentine’s Day, I invite you to put cynicism aside, and join us for a psychoanalytic exploration of falling in love.

Fee:                                                              Credit Hours:

$144                                                             4.5

$10 (student registration; no credits)

Class Level:                                                Class Format:

Intermediate                                              Hybrid

Dates:

Feb. 11, 18, 25, 2026| 7:00 – 8:30 PM

American Slavery & Psychoanalytic Reflection (with Volney Gay, PhD)

We explore American slave owners who embodied the existential contradiction of American values (individual liberty) with human bondage. We focus on their struggles to defend themselves against that contradiction. We locate those struggles within the biographies of famous persons, such as President Washington, and unknown persons who claimed to be both adamantly for liberty AND yet were adamantly pro slavery. Psychoanalysis offers unique insights into those struggles and the national crime they engendered.

Fee:                                                              Credit Hours:

$120                                                             3.75

$10 (student registration; no credits)

Class Level:                                                Class Format:

Beginner/Intermediate                            Hybrid

Dates:

 Jan. 7, 14, 21, 2026 | 7:30 – 8:45 PM

Multicultural Competency in Psychodynamic Practice (with Alicia Naveas, LPC, MEd)

This course will explore foundational concepts of cultural competency within psychodynamic frameworks. Emphasizing the work of authors such as Tummala-Narra, Salman Akhtar, and Patricia Gherovici will integrate multicultural awareness into psychoanalytic thinking. For instance, Tummala-Narra (2025) conceptualizes multicultural competence as a reflective capacity to shift perspectives and understand the patient’s lived experience.

Fee:                                                              Credit Hours:

$135                                                             4.5

$10 (student registration; no credits)

Class Level:                                                Class Format:

Beginner                                                     Hybrid

Dates:

Apr. 8, 15, 22, 2026 | 7:00 – 8:30 PM