COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

CENTER FOR PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINIG AND RESEARCH

Methodology I

Dr. Rees - Chair

Dr. Coates - Instructor

The educational goal of three classes that are taught at the end of the first year is to familiarize candidates with the epistemological problems that must be considered when trying to use data from the observational and empirical sciences. We explore some of the problems associated with attempts to create conceptual bridges that link different kinds of knowledge. At the end of this unit, candidates should be able to think critically about how to use research data and apply it.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit per hour of instruction. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLUSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial information to disclose.

Class 1

Stern, D.N. 2000. The relevance of empirical infant research to psychoanalytic theory and practice. In J. Sandler & P. Fonagy (Eds.) Clinical Observational Psychoanalytic Research: Roots of a Controversy. Psychoanalytic Monograph no. 5 of the Monograph Series of The Psychoanalysis Unit of University College, London and The Anna Freud Center, London. (pp. 73-90)

Green, Andre. 2000. Science and science fiction in infant research In J. Sandler & P. Fonagy (Eds.) Clinical Observational Psychoanalytic Research: Roots of a Controversy. Psychoanalytic

Monograph no. 5 of the Monograph Series of The Psychoanalysis Unit of University College, London and The Anna Freud Center, London. (pp. 41-72)

Optional:

Wolff, Peter. "The irrelevance of infant observation for psychoanalysis, JAPA, 44: 369-392, 1996

Class 2

Stern, Daniel. (1995) Chapter 6, The infant’s representations viewed clinically@, pp. 99-110 in Motherhood Constellation.

Green, Andre (1986). Chapter 7, The dead mother, pp. 142-173. In, On Private Madness

Class 3

Coates, S.W. and Moore, M.S. The Complexity Of Early Trauma;Representation And Transformation, Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 1997, 17: 286-311.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

CENTER FOR PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINIG AND RESEARCH

To: First Year Candidates

From: Ellen Rees and Susan Coates

Re: Methodology I

Dear All,

We would like to welcome you to the Methodology Sequence. The Methodology Sequence is a series of classes throughout the curriculum that is designed to encourage critical thinking about psychoanalytic knowledge.

The educational goals of the sequence are:

  • A critical perspective
  • Vocabulary and conceptual skills
  • To familiarize candidates with controversies in our field that have their bases in different epistemological points of view about the nature of our discipline and about what we do as psychoanalysts
  • To help candidates appreciate the epistemological problems that have to be considered when we try to use information and theory from the observational and empirical sciences

Methodology I is devoted to helping you understand the controversies about the relevance of developmental research and direct observation of infants and children for psychoanalysis. If you are to have the opportunity to use the wealth of information that is becoming available to us from the observational and empirical sciences, it is important that you be familiar the epistemological problems that are inherent in this attempt. Our exploration of these epistemological problems will focus on the views of two psychoanalysts, Daniel Stern and Andre Green.

Several themes are central to the debate about the relevance of these observational and empirical findings for psychoanalysis. The most fundamental of these is how we define psychoanalysis and its goals. What is the psychoanalytic point of view? What are the phenomena that define its boundaries?

A second theme is how do we think about the impact of real experience on psychic reality?

A third is how are we to address the problems associated with our attempts to describe the subjectivity or mental states of another, whether an infant or an adult? Whether in the consulting room or in the laboratory?

We hope you enjoy exploring these questions.

See you in class,

Ellen Rees and Susan Coates