Take advantage of this rare opportunity to sit in on three fascinating consultation sessions with legendary psychoanalyst, Dr. Otto Kernberg. The clarity of his insights, and the direct and practical advice he gives, will certainly dispel many myths about contemporary psychoanalytic practice.
- Amy presents the case of a woman who grew up being severely sexually abused. According to Amy, “She’d be happy if she never had sex for the rest of her life.” Amy wants to be able to better help her client free herself from her victim stance and black/white thinking.
- Steve discusses a client he has been seeing for four months yet still feels like a stranger. Steve wonders why his client’s conflicts with his wife, which led him into therapy in the first place, don’t come up in sessions.
- Annie describes her work with an isolated, single man who is longing for a fully expressed sexual life, yet is caught in masochistic and fetishistic wishes. Annie has tried to help him with his extreme sexual inhibition yet feels stuck when her convictions clash with the approach of the 12-step group he attends.
By watching these consultations, you’ll get a keen sense of Kernberg’s mastery of working with extremely challenging patients, as well as his skill as a teacher and consultant. By asking a series of wisely chosen questions, he is able to quickly hone in on key characterological aspects of the patients, as well as the dynamics of the therapist-client interactions, and then offer extremely useful and jargon-free suggestions on how each therapist can proceed in a more effective manner.
