Description: This lecture theorizes the need for control, which manifests as an effort to curate experience: a metaphorical gating mechanism that emerges in response to experiences deemed intolerable and leads to the use of various defensive strategies intended to achieve the feeling of control. The feeling of control is characterized by five interrelated experiences: (1) predictability, (2) agency in relation to internal states, (3) narrative coherence, (4) certain forms of bodily experience, and (5) distance from intolerable experiences.
These ideas are developed through both a literature review, which highlights the ways that a wide range of theorists have dealt with the theme of control, and with a clinical case. Drawing on psychoanalytic epistemology, recent developments in neuroscience, and early Buddhist philosophy, the paper concludes with a reflection on the possibility that control is a fundamental condition of experience and that the need for control is a response to this condition, becoming organized in various ways throughout development.
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- Partial attendance at a CE/CME activity will not be awarded CE/CME credit.
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When
CEUs
Educational Objective(s)
- Discuss the need for control, an effort to curate experience, as a fundamental condition of experience and describe the feeling of control, including its five interrelated experiences.
- Explore how the need for control manifests in eating disorders, using a clinical case to discuss the interplay between defensive strategies, bodily experience, and the need for and feeling of control.
Presenter Information
Bio: Tom Wooldridge, PsyD, ABPP, FIPA, CEDS-C is Chair in the Department of Psychology at Golden Gate University as well as a psychoanalyst and board-certified, licensed psychologist. His first book, Understanding Anorexia Nervosa in Males, was published by Routledge in 2016 and has been praised as “groundbreaking” and a “milestone publication in our field.” His second book, Psychoanalytic Treatment of Eating Disorders: When Words Fail and Bodies Speak, an edited volume in the Relational Perspectives Book Series, was published by Routledge in 2018, and has been well reviewed. His third book, Eating Disorders (New Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis), was released in 2022. His fourth book, co-edited with Burke, Michaels, and Muhr, is entitled Advancing Psychotherapy for the Next Generation: Rehumanizing Mental Health Policy and Practice.
He is a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute for Northern California and a Training Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. He is on the Scientific Advisory Council of the National Eating Disorders Association, Faculty at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC), the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP), the William Alanson White Institute’s Eating Disorders, Compulsions, and Addictions program, and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and has a private practice in Berkeley, CA.
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Continuing Professional Education Accreditation
The San Diego Psychoanalytic Center (SDPC), is proud to offer CME credit to Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, Psychologists and Social Workers. These CME credits will usually satisfy requirements for Social Worker and Psychologist CEUs. However, clinicians should consult their state licensing boards for final approval. Please see the CE/CME credits page for more information.
Continuing Education certificates of attendance will be awarded electronically upon completion of an evaluation form. For refund policies or cancellations, please visit our policies page. Any other questions, contact the SDPC Continuing Education Manager.
AMA Credit Designation Statement: The San Diego Psychoanalytic Center designates this Continuing Education activity for a maximum of 2 hours AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™️. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
CAMFT Accreditation: The San Diego Psychoanalytic Center (SDPC) is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) as a continuing education provider, (#050121), to offer Category 1 credit for LMFT’S, LCSW’S, LPCC’S and LEP’S. SDPC as required by the California Board of Behavior Sciences. SDPC maintains responsibility for this course program and all of its content.
Psychologists: SDPC is also approved as a Continuing Education Provider by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, Provider number PCE#794, to offer Category 1 credit for LCSWs, MFTs, and Registered Nurses, Provider Numbers CEP#4940. The California Board of Psychology accepts the Category 1 CE credits from the CMA. Psychologists are responsible for reporting their individual attendance to the Board of Psychology. All attendees are responsible for keeping their certificate of attendance for personal records.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program has any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
The San Diego Psychoanalytic Center (SDPC) CME Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that none of the planners and presenters for this activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. This activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME's identification, mitigation, and disclosure of relevant financial relationships. This activity does not have any known commercial support.
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content that an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.
Statement of Commitment: San Diego Psychoanalytic Center does not discriminate in employment and in its educational programs and activities, including admission or access thereto, on the basis of race, national origin, color, creed, religion, sex, age, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
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The San Diego Psychoanalytic Center is affiliated with the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA), the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), and the organization of Southern California Psychoanalytic Institutes and Societies.
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