Reconsidering the Contributions of Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion: Then and Now

                          Wilfred Bion                                                                    Donald Winnicott

Free parking available at Labor Temple garage (access in alley between 1st Avenue and Western) 

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For additional information, click here or contact NPSI Administrator Hollee Sweet at (206) 930-2886 or admin@npsi.us.com. 

Schedule

Friday, February 5, 2016

 "Winnicott and Bion: Irreconcilable Differences?" 

7:00-7:15 pm socializing 

7:15 pm introduction

7:30-9:00 pm Joe Aguayo presentation and audience discussion

CEUs for Friday: 1.5 hours

While some analysts have drawn upon the work of both Bion and Winnicott (Grotstein, Ogden), our interest here is to survey how these two pioneering figures related to each other's work as it evolved and developed. Now that we have the Complete Works of W. R. Bion it is surprising to see how in Bion's works, he participated in the London Kleinian group's prejudicial indifference to the work of Winnicott. What were the forces that maintained a group divide between these two seminal thinkers at the British Psychoanalytical Society, especially during the 1950s and 60s?

With the passing of other important London analysts such as Hanna Segal and Betty Joseph, Kleinian analysts who effectively maintained a ghettoized divide between the Kleinian and Independent groups, a new era has begun as differences between theories can now be legitimately discussed at the conference level. This lecture takes up three important clinical developments and contextualizes how Bion and Winnicott came to their differences in terms of the following concepts: 1) the differences between Bion's notion of "containing" and Winnicott's notion of "holding"; 2) the uses of countertransference in analytic work; and 3) the role of aggression and the death instinct in the clinical setting.

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Saturday, February 6, 2016 

"Bion's Italian Seminars: Facilitating and Learning from 

the Group Experience"

8:30 am Registration (coffee & tea provided)

9:00 am - Noon 

CEUs for Saturday morning: 3 hours

The idea for this panel originated in a teleconference study group held in 2015, in which panel members Caron Harrang and Maxine Nelson were participants, and which was facilitated by featured presenter Joe Aguayo. The group read and discussed the nine seminars included in Wilfred R. Bion: The Italian Seminars (Karnac: 2005).

Bion conducted a series of clinical seminars between 1967 and 1979 (Los Angeles, 1967; Brasilia, 1975; Tavistock, 1976-79; Rome, 1977 and Sao Paolo, 1978) in which he transmitted ideas developed in his epistemological writings of the 1960's vis-à-vis his exemplification of "being in the moment" with a live audience. Additionally, the organizers are hoping to evoke Bion's way of working with groups. Thus, like a Matryoshka doll, this panel presentation will be a group experience intended to evoke not only a sense of what it was like to participate in the 2015 Italian Seminars study group, but also the experience of the Italian clinicians who participated in the 1977 seminars in Rome facilitated by Bion.

About the panelists:

Joseph Aguayo, PhD, FIPA,  is a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of California and in private practice in West Los Angeles. He is also a Guest Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society in London. He holds UCLA doctorates in both Clinical Psychology and European History. He has been awarded a number of research fellowships from the IPA's Research Advisory Board and has merged his clinical and research interests by numerous publications in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP) on the clinical history of Kleinian and Bionian psychoanalysis. His current book is a co-edited project with Barnet Malin: "Bion's Los Angeles Seminars and Supervision" (Karnac, 2013). His most recent publication is "Bion's 'Notes on Memory and Desire: Its Initial Clinical Reception in the United States-A Note on Archival Material," (IJP, 2014).

Caron Harrang, LICSW, FIPA is a psychoanalyst with a practice in Seattle. She is the current President of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and has been a member of the Alliance since its inception and a frequent presenter at the Forum conference. 

Maxine Nelson, LICSW, FIPA is a psychoanalyst with a practice in Bellevue. She is the current Secretary-Treasurer of the Northwest Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and managing editor of Selected Facts: Newsletter of NPSI.  Maxine is also a longtime member of the Alliance and a frequent presenter at the Forum conference. 

 Afternoon Clinical Seminar (limited to 30)

2:00 - 3:30 pm  

CEUs for Saturday afternoon: 1.5 hours

Joe Aguayo, PhD, FIPA will facilitate an intimate discussion of clinical case material presented by an invited local clinician. Discussion will include attention to how the case may be viewed from a Winnicottian or a Bionian perspective. Priority will be given to attendees of both Friday and Saturday events. Limited to the first thirty who register.