This work suggests a change in our therapeutic identity from that of someone who listens and interprets to someone who is fully present as a discursive partner offering care, healing, and relief of pain and suffering. Perhaps the most important way of validating psychoanalytic ideas is to ask if they go beyond theoretical abstractions to produce measurable improvement in the lives and being of our patients. Validation of our theories must come from outside of psychoanalysis in fields of interdisciplinary studies. This work is solidly anchored in 21st-century neuroscience, social network studies, and the postmodern concepts of Being, World, and Self.
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Educational Objective(s)
- List two aspects of the centrality of the concept of a bio-psycho-social self as the subject of psychoanalytic treatment, showing how such an understanding improves patient outcomes.
- Define multimodal discourse taking place on conscious and unconscious, cognitive and emotional levels, illustrating the connections with improved patient care.
- Illustrate the role of care and healing as central parts of any psychoanalytic treatment.
Presenter Information
Mark Leffert’s first book is Contemporary Psychoanalytic Foundations, presenting his ideas about the roles of postmodernism, complexity, and neuroscience in informing thinking about and practicing psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. A second book, The Therapeutic Situation in the 21st Century, treats some concepts only introduced in Contemporary Psychoanalytic Foundations. In addition to being a psychoanalyst, Dr. Leffert is also a professional sculptor and a photographer.