Psychotherapeutic Forms of Love
From Eros to Agape
Recorded Saturday 30 January 2021
With Dr Andrea Celenza, Professor Paul Gilbert, Dr Richard Gipps and Dr Joy Schaverien
CE Credits: 4 hours
This project began with a discussion between people working at Confer on whether love of the client is essential for the therapeutic process to work. Some thought it would be strange if a slowly emerging, intimate experience of deeply knowing another, and being known, did not result in love of some kind. Others wondered how a therapeutic stance of being loving might inhibit the client’s need to use the therapist as a hateful object.
READ MORE...We considered the many forms and representations of love that might arise in the relational field, from maternal tenderness to erotic desire.
We talked about the wider philosophical, theological question of whether love heals, and whether loving can ever be a deliberate project. We thought about love as a product of the therapeutic frame – which makes it safe to give and receive these deep emotions without fear of consequences.
Clearly these questions raise many pathways of enquiry about what constitutes a deep enough emotional engagement for therapy to be therapeutic. In creating the resulting programme, we asked four author-practitioners to speak about love in therapy. The subsequent conversation is not about erotic transference/countertransference – although it does include that – but about the patient as beloved simply by virtue of being human and seen.
Continuing Education (CE) credits for 4 hours are available as part of the course fee. You will need to fill out an evaluation form and pass a multiple choice questionnaire related to the content in order to receive your certificate.
Access to the Talks On Demand runs for 365 days from the date of purchase.
FULL PROGRAM
Dr Richard Gipps
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Therapy helps the patient become, and know herself to be, lovable – so that she may live with dignity and not be lost to loneliness or mental illness. How can we understand this therapeutic love? Discussions tend to turn it into a feeling, focus on parental care or erotic passion, or see therapy as a trade of love for money. But psychotherapists aren’t analogous to prostitutes, surrogates, or foster parents. Instead they’re “love coaches” who disclose the patient’s humanity to him; who promote the value of being known and, in that, being found lovable; and who, in the face of dejection, cleave to the knowledge of love’s value for the truly lived life.
Q&A with Dr Richard Gipps
Dr Andrea Celenza
The Maternal Loving Transference and the Fate of Feminine Signifiers
The maternal loving transference is the site of the earliest experience of love, care, and attention. Sensorial modalities of looking and touching are identified as early modes of receptivity, representative of desires to take in the analyst. Different forms of love will be discussed, including the false dichotomy of identificatory love and object love. In this presentation, I will present my patient Petra to illustrate aspects of unconscious feminine identity and various transformations by receiving love in the analytic process. A transformation in myself, related to experiences with my own dying mother, expanded my containing capacities and opened up new areas of patience, love and receptivity in me.
Q&A with Dr Andrea Celenza
Dr Joy Schaverien
Love and Loss within the Analytic Frame
When we embark on psychotherapy with a stranger the shape the journey will take is always unknown. So it was with a man who was referred to treat the depression that had blighted his life. Then, three months later, with an unforeseen diagnosis of terminal cancer, the analysis deepened, the individuation process speeded up and a transference/ countertransference dynamic, characterised by eros in its many guises, developed. The intense love (and hate) that emerged, alongside the tragic circumstances, put the analytic frame under extreme pressure. Drawings, made by the analyst, will illustrate the personal as well as professional ending we came to.
Q&A with Dr Joy Schaverien
Professor Paul Gilbert
Why Compassion is About Care, Courage and Wisdom
This talk will explore some of the origins of compassion focused therapy. It will highlight how compassion is about three core therapeutic qualities: caring, courage and wisdom. What distinguishes human compassion from caring motives and behaviours in other animals is our ability to have a certain kind of awareness with a knowing intention to be helpful and address suffering wisely. Compassion can be distinguished from love and kindness and we will consider when and why.
Q&A with Professor Paul Gilbert
All panel Q&A
FEES (USD)
Includes: 1 year’s access, test and CE Certificate of Attendance, subtitles and transcript
INDIVIDUAL
$78 (or $39 Confer member)
GROUP RATE
$50pp in groups of over 10 (please apply to accounts@confer.uk.com)
CE
Continuing Education (CE) credits for 4 hours are available as part of the course fee. You will need to fill out an evaluation form and pass a multiple choice questionnaire related to the content in order to receive your certificate. You can submit this test up to a maximum of 5 times.
This event is accredited by:
- NBCC
This event is NOT accredited by the following organisations:
- ASWB
- NYSED (Psychology)
Please contact events@conferonline.org for any further questions.
Confer has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7136. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Confer is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
SCHEDULE
00:05:05
Dr Richard Gipps
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
00:53:07
Q&A with Dr Richard Gipps
00:58:51
Dr Andrea Celenza
The Maternal Loving Transference and the Fate of Feminine Signifiers
01:52:49
Q&A with Dr Andrea Celenza
02:00:04
Dr Joy Schaverien
Love and Loss within the Analytic Frame
02:52:16
Q&A with Dr Joy Schaverien
02:59:30
Professor Paul Gilbert
Why Compassion is About Care, Courage and Wisdom
03:47:34
Q&A with Professor Paul Gilbert
03:58:23
All panel Q&A
04:28:55
End
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Explain how therapy helps the patient become, and know herself to be, lovable – so that she may live with dignity and not be lost to loneliness or mental illness.
- Discuss the philosophical, theological question of whether love heals, and whether loving can ever be a deliberate project in the therapeutic context.
- Explain the many forms and representations of love that might arise in the relational field, from maternal tenderness to erotic desire in therapy.