Master Clinicians in Neuropsychoanalysis: an interdisciplinary approach to traumatic brain injury, PTSD, trauma and stress
November 13-14 2010
The goal of this conference is to educate professionals involved with neurological rehabilitation in psychoanalytic principles for TBI recovery, as well as to show psychoanalysts how they might expand their practices through working with neurological impairments. This project has developed out of the work of the California Neuropsychoanalysis Research Group (CNRG). The CNRG has spent the past three years focused on the relevance of developing theory of mind through psychoanalytic treatment in the rehabilitation of TBI.
The conference will take place in November 2010 . The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, in conjunction with the CNRG, will bring master clinicians in neuropsychoanalysis and traumatic brain injury together. The keynote speakers will be Dr. Mark Solms of Capetown University, a pioneer in working analytically with brain damaged patients; Dr. Anthony Chen, from UC Berkeley and UCSF, a leading neurologist who specializes in TBI and works with the VA in San Francisco and Martínez; Dr. Ronald Ruff, leading TBI specialist at UCSF; and Dr. Harold Kudler, Department of Defense Mental Health Director, who is dedicated to bringing psychodynamic long-term treatment to veterans’ rehabilitation. Our target is psychoanalysts, rehabilitation professionals, mental health professionals, physicians, psychologists, social workers, case managers, nurses, family therapists, physical therapists and all those interface with traumatic brain-injury patients.
Our aim is to teach and demonstrate the efficacy of a psychoanalytic approach in working with neurological conditions using traumatic brain injury as a model, and to promote further research through the collaboration of neuroscience and psychoanalysis. In this way, we hope to interest psychoanalysts in working with neurological conditions and to educate neuropsychologists and others who work with neurological conditions in how a psychodynamic approach might facilitate their work. We specifically believe that a psychoanalytic treatment can in fact increase the capacity of the patient for cognitive rehabilitation and we have demonstrated this in a case study.
We expect the conference will inspire further neuropsychoanalytic research. We view the conference as the foundation for a clinic to make psychoanalytic work possible for traumatic brain injury patients.
Mission Statement
The purpose of this conference is to spark new ideas and groundbreaking concepts arising out of the dialogue between neuroscience and psychoanalysis. We hope to advance the field of traumatic brain injury research and recovery through an exchange between the TBI rehabilitation community and the psychoanalytic community. Bringing together the “subjective” knowledge of psychoanalysis, with the “objective” view of the mind elaborated by neuroscience, concepts that incorporate multiple disciplines will be developed, with the goal of providing interdisciplinary health care that improves the health and well-being of traumatic brain injury patients. Toward this goal, the value of psychoanalytic principles and treatment for the problems associated with recovery from traumatic brain injury will be presented and incorporated into a multidisciplinary treatment system.
Objectives
The objectives of this conference are as follows: provide practitioners with an essential vocabulary and a basic overview of the clinical and humanistic perspective informed by psychoanalysis; demonstrate how psychoanalytic concepts can be applied to treating traumatic brain injury patients in preparation for cognitive behavioral and other forms of treatment; promote a better understanding of psychoanalysis and encourage effective and innovative dissemination of psychoanalytic ideas and services to the public; train practitioners in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis as applied to the repercussions of traumatic brain injury, such as the difficulties associated with self-identity and theory of mind capacities; create a common vocabulary between the rehabilitation community and the psychoanalytic community; promote research connected to the coincidence of TBI and PTSD; explore further research into the integration of the psychodynamic approach in the treatment and clinical management of traumatic brain injury; improve the accessibility of the psychodynamic approach to treatment of traumatic brain injury; and connect psychoanalytic programs with the Veterans Administration and community programs in order to provide accessible and long-term care to TBI patients and their families.
A psychoanalytic approach will be presented as efficacious for long-term treatment effects and successful cognitive retraining. A “non-jargon” overview of how psychoanalysis helps in working with the “difficult” traumatic brain injury patient will be explained. Trained professionals in psychoanalysis and neuroscience will discuss key topics in major presentations and smaller workshops during the two days of the conference. Workshops will also be devoted to research interests and ideas. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and raise issues at the end of each major presentation and during the workshops.
In summary, we hope that this major conference will foster interest in a psychoanalytic approach to TBI rehabilitation. This will allow TBI patients to benefit from the psychoanalytic process as we have seen is possible in work with a patient we present in a case study. He was able to reconstruct his life in a manner that we could say was even more effective than his life had been previously because of his increased capacity for self reflection and theory of mind. In the words of the patient; “I didn’t know what was happening here at first. I just knew I felt better when I left. Then one day I realized that it was the relationship that was making the difference in how I felt. I’m beginning to understand what is happening here. Your mind is communicating with my mind and that changes my emotional state. When I leave here, I feel much better.”