Envy, Hunger and Desire In Eating Disorders: Anorexia and Bulimia From Psychoanalytic Object Relations Perspective

When: June 26th, Saturday, 1-3pm (with the ORI’s Open House following it, from 3 pm to 5 pm)

Where: 115 East 9th Street, 12P, NY, NY 10003    or VIRTUALLY (ask for the log-in information by email to admin@orinyc.org)

This workshop will have a precise clinical focus. Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler will present two profound resolved cases of anorexia and bulimia, which were described as case studies in her earlier clinical writings. The workshop participants will get the understanding about eating disorders being directly related to an internal world where an envious, hungry Mother resides.  This kind of Internal Mother has disrupted and arrested the person’s self-integration and separation-individuation processes.

The resolution of developmental trauma, which involves a “developmental mourning process” in treatment, and a clear look at the “demon lover complex,” within the internal world, as well as the blocked erotic desires that are part and parcel of arrested “developmental mourning” and the “demon lover complex”- will be illustrated and discussed.

The role of symptomatic compulsive spending, in the case of the bulimic, will be seen as transitional stage phenomena in the resolution of physical bulimia, and in the emergence of psychic bulimia in the transference.  The role of self-righteousness and contempt will be seen as manic defenses in the case of the anorexic.

These themes relate to the themes of discussion in Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s monthly and weekly supervision groups.  They also relate to her books and articles, and to her well known and original object relations theory.

For a taste of the topic, please visit The Object Relations View mini-video series on YouTube (http://youtu.be/XDSVKLJAAh0) and on ORI’s web site (http://orinyc.org/you.html), to watch the video (part 13) on Eating Disorders: The Object Relations View.

For those who want preparatory reading for this workshop, they can explore three of Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s clinical and literary books: Mourning, Spirituality, and Psychic Change:  A New Object Relations View of Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2003; won the 2004 Gradiva Award from NAAP); The Anatomy of Regret: From Death Instinct to Reparation and Symbolization in Vivid Case Studies (Karnac, 2013); and The Compulsion to Create: Women Writers and Their Demon Lovers (Routledge 1993, Other Press 2000, ORI Academic Press, 2013).

Bio: Susan Kavaler-Adler, PhD, ABPP, D. Litt., NCPsyA is in practice as a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst for almost 40 years. She is the founder and executive director of the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, where she serves as the training and supervising analyst, and senior faculty member, after teaching and supervising for many other institutes, including NIP.  Dr. Kavaler-Adler offers private monthly and weekly supervision and writing groups, and virtual (Internet-based) supervision groups, and a monthly intensive psychotherapy and mourning group, where she employs guided meditative visualizations for group sharing.  Dr. Kavaler-Adler also does much individual supervision, psychotherapy and creative writing consultations.  She is a prolific author, with five published books and over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and edited book chapters. Dr. Kavaler-Adler is the recipient of 12 awards for her writing in the field of psychoanalysis.   For more information about her practice, publications, and speaking engagements, visit www.kavaleradler.com  Dr. Kavaler-Adler can be contacted by email, drkavaleradler@gmail.com or phone 212-674-5425.