Rapaport-Klein Study Group

Annual Meeting Program - June 14-16, 2002

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2002

8:00 p.m.: ARNOLD MODELL, "Cathexis Revisited: Psychoanalysis and a Biology of Meaning" [see full-text paper]

SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2002

Title for the entire day (6 papers): "WHERE IS THE DREAM IN CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYSIS? WORKS IN PROGRESS IN CLINICAL, THEORETICAL, HISTORICAL, CULTURAL, COGNITIVE AND NEUROSCIENTIFIC REALMS"

Introduction by Paul Lippmann: It is now 102 years since the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams. Psychoanalysis entered the 20th Century on the wings of dreams just as dreams entered the 20th Century carried on the wings of psychoanalysis. The relation between these two - dreams and psychoanalysis - has undergone a major transformation since those heady days when Freud’s psychology of the unconscious and interest in dreams went hand in hand.  Both dreams and psychoanalysis have gone on to new interests. It is fitting that our group spend some time to see what some of our members and an invited guest have been up to in the realm of the relation between psychoanalysis and dreams. In Stockbridge, in seminars at the Austen Riggs Center, in classes at the Western Massachusetts Psychoanalytic Institute and, for a year, in New York at the NYU Research Center for Mental Health, David Rapaport slowly and deeply entered the world of chapter 7 and like a Talmudic scholar, he took his students with him into a phrase by phrase, careful and respectful reading of the central ideas within Freud’s text.  Students were expected to flow fully into the world of Chapter 7, to follow its logic, to know its architecture, to engage with its view of mental life.

This morning and afternoon we will hear from Jim Fosshage, Rosemary Sand, Steve Ellman, Harris Fiss, and our invited guest, Mark Blechner; these will join me in brief presentations of our recent thinking about dreams.  Originally, I had suggested that we share informally, with the group, works in progress, ideas that have not been fully worked out. But each presenter was free to design the way he or she wished to discuss dreams. 

9:00 to 10:30 a.m.: Informal go-round: Sharing our current work (All members invited)

10:30 to 11:00 a.m.: JIM FOSSHAGE, "The Organizing Functions Of Dream Mentation" [see full-text paper]

11:00 to 11:30 a.m.: ROSEMARIE SAND, "The Dream Wish and What Freud Learned in High School"

11:30 to 12:00 noon: Discussion

12 noon to 1:30 p.m.: Lunch

1:30 to 2:00 p.m.: STEVEN ELLMAN, "Dreams as Reflecting Issues of Survival: The Joining of Biological and Psychological Survival in the Structure of a Cohesive Sense of Self"

2:00 to 2:30 p.m.: PAUL LIPPMANN, "The Canary in the Mind: The Transformation of Dreams as an Endangered Species in the Post-Human Electronic Culture" [see full-text paper]

2:30 to 3:00 p.m.: Discussion

3:00 to 3:30 p.m.: Tea time

3:30 to 4:00 p.m.: HARRY FISS, "Psychoanalysis and a Biology of Dreaming" (Abstract: It is a synthesis of recent experimental work of mine in which a validation is attempted of the theory first proposed by Jim Fosshage and later extended by myself to the effect that dreaming serves the superordinate function of facilitating the growth, maintenance, and restoration of the self. It tries to integrate the results of recent psychological research with those of neurobiological research, and also demonstrates how this new integrated knowledge can be usefully applied in a clinical setting)

4:00 to 4:30 p.m.: MARK BLECHNER, "Disjunctive Cognition and Interobjects: What Psychoanalytic Dream Study Can Tell us About the Brain" [see full-text paper]

4:30 to 5:00 p.m.: Discussion

5:00 p.m.: GERARD FROMM will commemorate the 100th Anniversary on this day of the birth of Erik Erikson [see full-text paper]

6:00 to 8:00 p.m.: Cocktails at the Lippmanns

SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2002

9:00 to 10:00 a.m.: Business Meeting

10:00 to 11:00 a.m.: Members Discussion, Following a Night of Dreaming (Continuation of Saturday's Discussion)

11:00 to 12 noon: JAMES GILLIGAN, "Fundamentalism and Terrorism: Reflections on the Need for Certainty in the Modern World"

12 noon to 1:00 p.m.: Discussion

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