IPAA 2019 – New Speaker Announcement – Theory and Practice of Balint Groups

We are pleased to announce an addition to the Balint Groups part of IPAA 2019.

Christine Christie will join us from Belfast to present a paper on Michael and Enid Balint, their lives, their work and the Theory and Practice of Balint Groups.

Christine is an ICP Registered Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Group Analyst and Supervisor and has been in private practice in Belfast for 30 years with a Klein/Bion orientation.

With colleague Dr Glenda Mock – a local GP with Group Analytic training, she has been running groups in Belfast for quite a while. They have also been running Balint weekend conferences in Belfast and have conducted groups at weekends in Sligo and Oxford. She has supervised Balint workers in the NHS for a number of years. She would also have a keen interest in the psychoanalytic work of Michael and Enid Balint.

With the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board recently announced Statutory Registration of our profession comes one step closer. Balint Groups have been operating in the Health Service in the U.K. and beyond and are a well-established multi-disciplinary practice.

This presentation will give attendees an opportunity to learn about Balint Groups in an experiential way. We are very pleased to add Christine to the Programme.

Register here

Dept of Health to agree new protections for competence standards via Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board

IPAA will be represented on the newly established Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board, under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 by ICP CEO Jean Manahan.

The Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board will seek to protect the public by fostering high standards of professional conduct, education, training, and competence amongst counsellors and psychotherapists.

The Board will also advise the Dept. of Health on the professional titles which should be protected.

Health Minister Harris said “It is absolutely vital that users can have confidence in the service they receive. We have seen the impact of rogue operations in undermining faith in the profession. It is absolutely vital this area is regulated to ensure adequate supervision of the profession and to ensure its users are protected.”

The Health and Social Care Professionals Council (CORU) will arrange for the first meeting of the Board in the coming months.

The Board will then begin the substantial body of work which must be undertaken before it is in a position to open its registers.

It is envisaged that this process will take a minimum of two years to complete.

When the Board has opened the registers and the transitional period to allow existing practitioners to register is completed, a person who does not meet the standards necessary will not be able to register with CORU.

It will be an offense, punishable by a class A fine or imprisonment of up to six months, for a person not registered to use any of the titles protected, such as ‘counsellor’ or ‘psychotherapist’.

IPAA President to host IPAA 2019 Conference

IPAA President Fergal Brady MA. will host this year’s IPAA 2019 Conference on May 11 which focuses on the The Budapest school of Psychoanalysis and the work of Sandor Ferenzci.

Fergal spoke at the Ferenczi Summer School in 2017 presenting a paper about Fantasy versus Real Memory in the Treatment of Trauma. He presented a case history titled ‘An Extract of the Analysis of the Monkey Puzzle Boy’ at the 13th International Sandor Ferenczi Conference in Florence in 2018. He had first encountered Ferenczi’s work in 2007 as part of a study on the Phylogenetic Structure of Child Sexual Abuse at the University of Sheffield.

Working in private practice as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist principally in Dundalk but also in Dublin. He is the current President of the Irish Psycho-Analytical Association.

IPAA Conference 2019 – Lexicon Theatre, Dun Laoghaire – 11th May: The Budapest School of Psychoanalysis – 6 PSI/IACP/ICP CPD Points

The IPAA 2019 conference will cover themes of the theory and practice of Ferenczi and the Budapest School including:

  • Innovations in therapeutic approach.
  • Counter-transference in the therapeutic relationship.
  • Regressive States.
  • A therapeutic model for treatment of Adult Survivors of Sexual abuse.
  • Balint Groups and Multi Disciplinary Team approaches in Health Service settings.

Conference Agenda

09.30 Registration
10.00 Welcome
10.05 President’s Address – A Budapest State of Mind – Fergal Brady
10.45 Dr Marcus Bowman – The Development and Consequences of Freud’s Seduction Theory
11.10 Coffee Break
11.30 Dr Arnold Rachmann – The Evil Genius of Psychoanalysis
13.00 Lunch
14.00 IPAA@The Movies – A special documentary on Ferenczi made as part of the ‘Major Figures of the 20th century series’ – Introduced by Dr Judith Mezaros
15.00 Dr Judit Mezaros – ‘Why Ferenczi Today?
15.20 Coffee & Animated Short: The Confusion of Tongues – Em Cooper (2018 Emmy Nominee).
15.40 Dr Arnold Rachman – ‘The Confusion of Tongues’
16.00 Panel Session – Chair: Ros Forlenza
16.20 Bringing Psychoanalysis To The NHS: The Balint Group – Christine Christie
17.00 Video presentation: Circumcision, Self-analysis and Countertransference by Robin Buick RHA.
17.45 Conference Close

The Budapest School of Psychoanalysis and the work of pioneering psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi have been enjoying something of a revival. For half a century much of the richness of this tradition was suppressed and neglected. These decades coincided with the political tumult and warfare of the 20th century.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and with changes in the European political landscape, ideas that were hidden have come to the fore again. With this too has come the felt sense that some of the story of Ferenczi and the Budapest School has a familiar feeling to it; a return of something that was lost.

This conference brings some of the history and ideas of the Budapest tradition to a Dublin audience for the first time. We have two major figures in the Ferenczi revival here to present papers.

Arnold Wm. Rachman, PhD, FAGPA is a licensed psychologist, trained psychoanalyst, Member of the Board of Directors at the Sandor Ferenczi Center, The New School For Social Research, NYC, and Honorary Member at the Sandor Ferenczi Society, Budapest, Hungary.

Judit Mészáros, PhD is the president of the Ferenczi Society,
training analyst of the Hungarian Psychoanalytical association, board member of the International Ferenczi Network, as well as a psychoanalyst in private practice.

Fergal Brady, MA, President of the Irish Psycho-Analytical Association (IPAA) will host the event. Fergal works in private practice as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist principally in Dundalk but also in Dublin.

Register here

Prof Arnold Rachman to speak at IPAA 2019 on May 11

We are delighted to welcome celebrated author and international Ferecnzi expert to this year’s IPAA 2019 Conference.

Prof Arnold Rachman

Arnold Rachman is a licensed psychologist, trained psychoanalyst, Member of the Board of Directors at the Sandor Ferenczi Center, The New School For Social Research, NYC, and Honorary Member at the Sandor Ferenczi Society, Budapest, Hungary.

Prof. Rachman is also:

  • Clinical Professor Of Psychology – Aldelphi University, Derner Institute, Postdoctoral Program In Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Garden City, NY;
  • Associate Professor of Psychiatry, New York University Medical School, NYC;
  • Training and Supervising Analyst, Postgrad. Psychoanalytic Institute, NYC;
  • Supervisor, Relational Track, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis;
  • Board Member, The Sandor Ferenczi Study Center, The New School University, NYC;
  • Honorary Member, The Sandor Ferenczi Society, Budapest, Hungary.

Among his published works are:

  • Sandor Ferenczi: The Psychotherapist Of Tenderness and Passion. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1997.
  • Psychoanalysis’ Favorite Son: The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi (ED.) Psychoanalytic Inquiry. 17;4, November, 1997.
  • Psychotherapy Of Difficult Cases: Flexibility and Responsiveness in Contemporary Practice. Madison, Conn: Psychosocial Press, 20003.
  • Sandor Ferenczi and the Evolution of Psychoanalysis: Innovations in Theory and Technique (ED.) Psychoanalytic Inquiry. 34:2, February-March. 2014.
  • With Susan A. Klett Analysis of the Incest Trauma: Retrieval, Recovery, Renewal. London: Karnac, 2015.

Register here

IPAA Conference 2019: Speaker Prof. Judit Mézáros

We are honored to welcome esteemed Hungarian psychoanalyst – Prof. Judit Mézáros – to this year’s IPAA Conference 2019 on May 11.

Judit Mészáros, PhD, is training and supervising analyst of the Hungarian Psychoanalytical Society (affiliated with the IPA); honorary professor at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and a staff member at the European Psychotherapy Training Institute, Budapest.

She was invited as a lecturer by psychoanalytic societies/institutes among them in Brussels, Lisbon, Lviv, and Vancouver and by the William Alanson White Institute in New York, and the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge.

She has written scores of papers and author of several books, the last published one: Ferenczi and Beyond. Exile of the Budapest School and Solidarity in the Psychoanalytic Movement during the Nazi Years. Karnac, 2014.  

She has also curated exhibitions about Ferenczi and the Budapest School at the Freud Museum, London (2004), and the Galeria Centralis of the Open Society Archives, Budapest (2006), and consulted on documentaries on Ferenczi’s life (2001, 2012). She was one of the authors (together with Carlo Bonomi) of the Ferenczi House Project (2006-2011) finished by purchasing the former office of Ferenczi’s original villa in Budapest. Now it serves as the Ferenczi Center and Archives.

She is the president of the Ferenczi Society, board member of the International Ferenczi Network, as well as a psychoanalyst in private practice.

You can register for the event here.