9:00—10:30

What can an analytic couples therapist learn from Tronic’s infant-mother research and interpersonal neurobiology?

Speaker: Ken Israelstam / Chair: Tim Keogh

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Abstract
A paper will be presented describing how infant -mother researchers, neurobiologists and psychoanalysts, initially working in parallel with one another, were eventually drawn together to collaborate in a shared interest involving the dynamics of dyadic interaction. Clinical material will be presented and the participants will be invited to provide their feedback relating to the couple’s dynamics. In particular the group will be asked to provide their thoughts on whether they believe that these areas of research, might or might not enhance the work of an analytic couples therapist.

Biography
Ken Israelstam is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada (In Psychiatry), and a senior training and supervising analyst with the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. He is a Member of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and a Member of the European Psychoanalytical Federation. He has a special interest in analytical couples therapy, candidate education and the theories of transformation, with publications on these subjects in international journals.

10:30—11:00

Morning Tea

11:00—12:30

Thinking about child work: the interplay of frame and process in symbolisation and transformation

Speaker: Louise Gyler / Chair: Louise Hird

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Abstract
Psychoanalytic therapy comprises two aspects: the process and the frame or setting. The process involves the patient’s and the therapist’s participation which is informed by ideas about containment, transference, countertransference and interpretation. In this paper, the focus is the frame / setting. In the 1950s, a more nuanced understanding of the value of setting evolves with writers such as Bion and Winnicott suggesting that the setting is analogous to the mother – child relationship. The frame is now conceived as more than a mere practical background to stage the therapeutic work. Bleger further extends the thinking about the frame proposing that all aspects of the engagement between patient and therapist need to be considered. He argues that the process and the frame dialectically relate in order enable symbolisation and transformation. In child work, it is common for the therapist to feel pressured to modify her psychoanalytic frame. Two child clinical vignettes, one relating to the external setting and the other to the internal setting are described to encourage discussion about challenges and complications fundamental to thinking about the function of the frame.

Biography
Louise Gyler, Ph.D. is a Child and Adult Training Analyst and President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society, a guest member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a visiting professor at the Chinese - American Continual Training Program at Wuhan Hospital for Psychotherapy. She chairs the Programme Committee for IPA Asia-Pacific Conference 2023 (India). She authored The Gendered Unconscious: Can gender discourses subvert psychoanalysis? (Routledge, 2010). In 2007, she was runner up for Ticho Charitable Foundation Lectureship at the 45th IPA Congress, Berlin and in 2019, won the 22nd International Frances Tustin Memorial Prize and Lectureship. She has a private practice in Sydney.

12:30

Closing remarks – Scientific Chair: Shanthi Saha