Being Careful in Only a Perverse Way: The Use of Aesthetic Experience in Psychoanalytic Work. Presentation and Dinner with Dr. Steven Cooper, MPI's Visiting Professor

Abstract

Dr. Cooper describes his interest in the painting of Richard Diebenkorn, the poetry of Bob Dylan, and a lifelong enjoyment of entomology and fly fishing as it comes into “play” with his analytic work. Diebenkorn’s “Notes to Myself Upon Beginning a Painting,” which were discovered after his death in 1995, are remarkably overlapping with elements of the ontological analysis of both Winnicott and Bion. Dr. Cooper elaborates a few elements of analytic listening from inside his personal “aesthetic matrix,” a concept so helpfully introduced in Palmer’s paper, “The Aesthetic Matrix: A Conversation Between a Painter and a Psychoanalyst.” There is special attention to a few varieties of visual and verbal imagery that are linked to auxiliary containing functions for the analyst.

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to:

1. Describe how to use artistic modalities to find and connect with patients.

2. Make use of Winnicott's conception of paradoxes in formulating effective

interpretations.

3. Discuss how reveries including those of artistic endeavors, can inform the analyst of more ephemeral interpersonal dynamics at play.

Biography

Dr. Cooper is Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and on the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. He is the author of numerous books and articles and has presented both nationally and internationally, along with serving as editor and on editorial boards of several psychoanalytic journals.

Agenda

Cash Bar and charcuterie-6-6:30; dinner-6;30-7;30; paper and discussion 7:30-9:00. 1.5 CE Credits Cost: $70-members and guests; $35 students and candidates. Choice of vegetarian or salmon.