By: Jess Eipper of the SICP Friday Night Lecture Series Committee

On May 17th we welcomed the return of the SICP lecture series with a presentation by Johanna Dobrich. Johanna is both an ICP board member and supervisor in the Psychoanalytic program. In this fascinating, in-person lecture “Expanding Dissociation Informed Psychoanalytic Practice: How to make conceptual sense of Not-me, No-me, & Many mes” Johanna identified persistent confusion that exists in the field between dissociation as a defense and dissociation as a structure of the self. Using Sullivan’s idea of the self as a system, she explored the ways that dissociation exists on a continuum that ranges from a continuous self-system to a discontinuous self-system. The significant differences between these different types of self-systems on the continuum and treatment implications for working with patients along this spectrum were discussed.

A lively Q&A followed the paper. It was clear that those in attendance found Johanna’s work clinically resonant and theoretically impactful and there was a collective eagerness to continue learning about these new and important ideas.

It was also wonderful to see how happy people were to be back together in person at ICP. There was the opportunity to mingle and reconnect after the lecture and it was meaningful to share that familiar space again.

We are excited that the SICP lecture will continue in the 2024 academic year with an interesting and varied series of papers beginning with presentations by Robert Grossmark on October 18th and Balin Anderson and Gabriel DeCecco on November 15.