FREE ASSOCIATION LISBON

​​Green was a leading voice in French psychoanalysis, one whose contributions sit at a crossroads, where the challenges posed and the opportunities presented by the work of Lacan, Klein, Winnicott and Bion meet the still generative insights of Freud, many of which Green reminds us have yet to be fully appreciated or developed. This course will attempt to convey to the audiance Green’s contributions and struggles to expand the reach of our theory and practice to patients whose difficulties lie beyond the spectrum of neurotic disturbances for which classical psychoanalysis was originally intended.

Patients who have suffered childhood traumas often retreat from relationship in an effort to protect themselves. Yet their suffering continues unabated due to their inability to process and think about what they are experiencing. They lack the words to explain themselves and have no impulse to communicate to others. Their lack of faith in others, their past experiences of being misunderstood and perhaps abused interferes with their ability to make use of the analyst. Their despair brings them to us, seeking something that they themselves often cannot name. They are afraid to hope for understanding, but think that perhaps they may be able to find relief. Analysts working with these states, which are largely unmentalized are required to use their counter-transference in order to reach them.