A Scientific Meeting Presented James W. Anderson, PhD
Event Price: This event is free. CE fee is $10 for members and $20 for non-members.
Continuing Education (CEU/CME): 1.5 credits
(CE information will be sent to all attendees the week after the event.)
Attendance: This is a hybrid event: in-person and online attendance is available. Online attendees will have a webinar experience, which will not include the ability to ask questions of the speaker. No attendance limit.
NOTE: Pre-registration is encouraged. Walk-in registration is available. No CEs available for walk-ins.
Reception 6 - 6:30 p.m. at the Center before the presentation.
Program Description: A focus of James W. Anderson’s book on psychobiography is his exploration of how the authors’ relationship with the people written about impacts the biographical account. For example, Sigmund Freud co-authored a psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson, whom Freud admitted he hated. Freud thought he could be fair to Wilson, but he wasn’t. Erik Erikson, in his writing about Gandhi, started out idealizing him but suffered from writer’s block when he encountered some of the Mahatma’s hypocritical, mean behaviors. Margot Duxler knew and liked Anaïs Nin, but, after the diarist’s death, she learned that Nin had often lied to her and others. Duxler wrote a psychobiography of Nin in large part to come to grips with her feelings about this deception. Anderson will discuss how his studies of various psychobiographies enlivened and deepened his insight and appreciation of countertransference – and helped refine his work with patients in psychotherapy. In this presentation, he will explore how we use our countertransference to better understand our patients. He will underscore the ways that countertransference can be both our greatest ally and our greatest challenge in conducting psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
Learning Objectives:
1) appreciate how a study of psychobiography contributes to an understanding of the countertransference that a therapist has for a patient;
2) deal more effectively with patients for whom they have complicated feelings;
3) describe how feelings for a patient are both inevitable and necessary for a substantial engagement with the patient.
James W. Anderson, PhD, who grew up in Shaker Heights, is a former President of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society and a faculty member of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. A Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, Dr. Anderson specializes in psychobiography, the study, using a psychological perspective, of historical, political, literary, and artistic figures. His book, Psychobiography: In Search of the Inner Life, was published in 2024 by Oxford University Press. Another major area of his research is the study of D. W. Winnicott’s life and work.