Psychoanalytic Reading Group: Aliveness — Fall, 2025
Details forthcoming
Instructor
Arjan Berkeljon has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Brigham Young University and is board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) in Group Psychology. He obtained Master's degrees in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he conducted research in developmental psychology. A former faculty member in the departments of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology at the University of Rochester, Dr. Berkeljon is currently in private practice where he provides supervision/consultation as well as psychoanalytic psychotherapy to individuals, couples and groups.
Past Reading Groups
Aloneness and Connectedness — Winter and Spring, 2025
In this course we will explore ideas and practice in psychoanalysis through the work of Donald Winnicott and Emmanuel Ghent. We will read Essential Aloneness—Rome Lectures on DW Winnicott (2023), by Christopher Bollas and The Collected Papers of Emmanuel Ghent (2018). In the Rome lectures Bollas addresses the question of how to apply Winnicott’s concepts such as aloneness, transitional object, true/false self, and playing and creativity in the clinical space. The papers of Emmanuel Ghent, one of the founders of relational psychoanalysis, address such topics as the mutuality of the psychoanalytic encounter, the notion of need, and submission and surrender. Both Winnicott and Ghent emphasize development and growth as well as loss and the fact that change is often painful. We will examine these themes through discussion of readings and cases with an eye to expanding participants’ understanding of psychoanalytic theory and clinical skill with patients.
The Penguin Freud Reader (Edited by Adam Phillips) — Spring, 2024
In this course we will explore essential ideas in psychoanalysis and how they relate to contemporary clinical practice. We will read The Penguin Freud Reader, edited by Adam Phillips. This book includes new translations of a selection of Freud's foundational and well-known papers, such as Negation, Remembering, Repeating and Working Through, Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Screen Memories. In reading Freud as he might have sounded were he writing today, this course is focused on (re)familiarizing participants with concepts such as the unconscious, resistance, repetition, and transference/countertransference in the therapy relationship. Through discussion of readings and case materials this course aims to deepen understanding of psychoanalytic theory and to enrich participants' clinical work.