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Working Group
on the Study and Development
of Psychoanalysis
Working Group
on the Study and Development of Psychoanalysis
OUTSTANDING CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYSTS
We see our task in spreading psychoanalytic knowledge among specialists working in the field of mental health, in attracting their attention to the proven, existing since the 19th century, developing and effective method of providing psychological help to people - psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis has had a tremendous impact on culture and human knowledge of the self and its discoveries have been of great interest for over 100 years and continue to generate much interest and ongoing discussion in various fields of human studies.
We invite internationally renowned psychoanalysts, representatives of various psychoanalytic fields, united in the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), who are ready to share their many years of experience and theoretical knowledge. Their seminars and supervisions provide an insight into their personal style of work, allowing participants and supervisees presenting clinical cases to gain invaluable experience that influences the formation of analytic thinking, allowing them to deepen their understanding of the therapeutic situation, and to learn new perspectives and possibilities.
In addition, IPA analysts organise clinical seminars and supervisions, which you can receive regular newsletters about if you register on this website.
Schedule
Online lecture and supervision
Christine English
The Kleinian approach to narcissism
26 October, 2 and 23 November, 7 and 14 December 2025
This autumn Christine English will teach a 5-seminar series on the subject of Narcissism in Kleinian psychoanalysis. In the first seminar of the series (October 26th 2025) we will revisit Freud’s seminar paper ‘On Narcissism’, in which he fully elaborates the concept. We will look at this in conjunction with Hanna Segal and David Bell’s paper, ‘The theory of narcissism in the work of friend and Klein’, which very helpfully discusses Freud’s paper and explores the development of his theory of narcissism in the work of Melanie Klein.
In seminar 2 (2nd November 2025) we shall look first at Rachel Blass’s paper, ‘Freud’s view of death and repetition as grounds of a Kleinian approach to narcissism: implications for clinical practice’. This paper further considers the grounding of Klein’s work in Freud's, especially his thinking about the death instinct, and addresses what characterises Kleinian clinical practice. We will also study Denis Flynn and Helga Skogstad’s paper, ‘Facing towards or turning away from destructive narcissism’. With clinical material from work with adolescents, they address the theory of destructive narcissism as elaborated by Freud and then Rosenfeld.
In seminar 3 (23rd November 2025) we will look at another of Hanna Segal’s papers, ‘Some clinical implications of Melanie Klein’s work: emergence from narcissism’, in which she elaborates her own view that a narcissistic personality structure serves as a defence against the death instinct and envy. We will then study Leslie Sohn’s paper, ‘Narcissistic organisation, projective identification, and the formation of the identifícate’. Here, Sohn describes a narcissistic organisation in which psychic equilibrium is upheld through an identificatory process which establishes an ‘identifícate’, an internal object which has assumed the characteristics of another object which has been taken over. This serves as a powerful defence against the recognition of envy, dependence, need and illness.
In seminar 4 (7th December 2025) we will look at two of John Steiner’s papers, ‘Perverse relationships between parts of the self: a clinical illustration’, and ‘Seeing and being seen: Narcissistic pride and narcissistic humiliation’. The first uses detailed clinical material to highlight the difficulty of making contact with a patient with a narcissistic personality structure. The second looks at the challenges connected with emergence from a narcissistic retreat, which entails the recognition of separateness and then the experience of seeing and being seen, which may be felt as a total humiliation.
The final seminar (14th December 2025) will focus on the work of Ron Britton, looking at two of his more recent papers. The first, ‘Libidinal and destructive narcissism’, considers the difficulties patients with narcissistic disorders face in analysis, including those posed by the internal saboteur. The second, ‘Narcissistic problems in sharing space’, addresses the problems and anxieties which arise where mental space seeps, as it inevitably does, into physical space. The roots of such difficulties in early failures of containment are considered.
Marilia Aisenstein has passed away: sad news that is hard to accept.
We invite you to gather together to pay tribute to this wonderful woman, an amazing person, an outstanding psychoanalyst, thinker and author.
Her contributions to psychoanalytic theory and training in the art of psychonalysis are recognized worldwide.
We will not forget her kindness and the respect she always showed to the participants of the seminars she gave for the Working Group for the Study and Development of Psychoanalysis, where she generously shared her knowledge and experience for four years.
The meeting will take place online on June 1, 2025 at 5 pm CEST (4 pm London, 5 pm Paris, 6 pm Moscow)
To get the link in zoom, please register:
OUTSTANDING CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYSTS
Irma Brenman Pick - was Training Analyst and Supervisor, Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Served as Chair of the IPA Education Committee. Subsequently became President of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She was one of the key figures of the post-Kleinian movement in psychoanalysis. She had contact with Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, her supervisors have been Herbert Rosenfeld and Wilfred Bion, and her teachers have included Paula Heimann, Esther Bick, Betty Joseph,
Anders Zachrisson - training and child psychoanalyst in the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society, and associate professor emeritus, Psychological department, University of Oslo, combining classical and modern psychoanalytic approaches.. He was editor of The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review 1993-1997, and president of the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society 2002-2006. He has been lecturing and supervising at the School for child and adolescent psychoanalysis in the Psychoanalytic Institute for Easter
She is a training and supervising analyst in the Hellenic Psychoanalytical Society and in the Paris Psychoanalytical Society, former President of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society, Former chair of the International New Groups committee (ING) IPA. Co-chair of the Annual French-speaking Congress. Former representative for Europe at the IPA’s executive Committee. Worked for many years at the Paris Psychosomatic Institute.
Talvik - IPA member, training analyst, supervisor and President of the Estonian-Latvian Psychoanalytic Society, member of the IPA monitoring committee for new groups, deputy director and lecturer at the European Psychoanalytic Institute (EPI).
Gary Goldsmith - Training analyst and supervisor for the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and the Boston Institute for Psychoanalysis (IPA). Founder and director of psychiatric services for Russian-speakers at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Psychiatrist. Former Chairman of the CIS Training Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA). He has been a teacher of the PIEE (Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe) for many years.
Jean-Michel Quinodoz - Training Analyst and Supervisor of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society. He was Editor for Europe of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis from 1994 to 2003 and from 2003 to 2014 Editor-in-chief of the New Annuals published in several European languages, including Russian. Known as an author who continues to develop the ideas of Melanie Klein.
A Training and supervising psychoanalyst (IPA). Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis (London). She works in private practice and for more than 20 years at the Brent Centre for Young People, seeing adolescents and supervising staff. She teaches and supervises on the Training Courses of the Institute of Psychoanalysis (London), where for 5 years she was the chair of its Foundation and Post Foundation courses.
David Bell is a training analyst, supervisor and ex-president of the British Psychoanalytic Society; psychiatrist, leading specialist at the Tavistock Clinic (London). Working in the tradition of Freud, Klein and Bion, D. Bell has made a significant contribution to the development of psychoanalytic theory and practice. He has numerous publications in the field of clinical psychoanalysis.
Gilbert Diatkine - Member of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), training analyst and supervisor, titular member of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, ex-president of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society. For a long time he was Associated Director and Lecturer at PIEE (Han Groen-Prakken Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe). Dr. Gilbert Dyatkin made a great contribution to the development of psychoanalysis in Eastern Europe.
Christine English is a child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst IPA. Chair of Archives Committee of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Archivist of the Melanie Klein Trust. Honorary Professor of Psychoanalysis Unit at the University College London (UCL). Author of Melanie Klein's Narrative of an Adult Analysis, 2023 and a number of other publications.
A well-known psychoanalyst, training analyst and supervisor of the Dutch Psychoanalytic Association. Ex-President of the Dutch Psychoanalytic Association. Author of the programmes "Theory and Techniques of Psychoanalysis" and "Training for Training Analysts" for advanced training of specialists in the field of psychoanalysis. For a number of years he was one of the leading teachers of the psychoanalytic institute Han Groen-Prakken (PIEE), Chairman of the IPA Committee for India.