Upcoming Events with Sacramento Psychoanalytic Society

September has arrived, and SPS has been working to put together workshops, speaking engagements and film events! Here is a brief round-up of events planned for this fall. We hope you can join us as we meet to socialize and discuss topics relevant to the practice of psychoanalysis.

Outsider.Freud (2025) is an award-winning documentary on the life of the founder of psychoanalysis. Combining animation, dreams and interviews with prominent psychoanalysts and historians such as Adam Phillips and George Makari, it explores Freud's experiences of marginalization--as a Jew, and as a physician with radical new ideas about treatment. We'll mingle and have some light snacks before watching the hour-long film, and we'll have some time for discussion afterwards.

When: Saturday, September 12th 6:00-8:30 Where: 422 Alhambra Blvd., Sacramento

Arrival (2016) is an Academy Award-winning film that explores themes of language, time and determinism. 12 alien spacecraft arrive on Earth, and a linguistics professor (Dr. Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams) must learn to communicate with them before tensions provoked by the unknown cause the humans to attack. As she learns the alien language, she begins to realize, via memories and dreams, that it rewires the human brain and its conception of time.

When: Saturday, October 17th, 4:00pm Where: Dreamland Cinema, 1901 P St., Sacramento

Discussion to Follow Film

Have We Lost Our Love of Psychoanalysis? with Ilene Philipson, PhD

Saturday, November 7th, 4:00-6:00

The history of psychoanalysis is riven with interpersonal and inter-institutional conflicts, from Freud's infamous break with Jung to the "controversial discussions" between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, and the excommunication of Jacques Lacan from the IPA. It seems almost no School or Psychoanalytic Institute is immune from conflict among members, and often these conflicts culminate in a failure to reconcile, which leads to a breakdown in the organization's ability to function. Professionals engaged in the talking cure stop talking with one another altogether. In her recent paper "Have We Lost Our Love of Psychoanalysis?" Ilene Philipson, PhD explores how the recent turn toward social activism among some psychoanalysts may have brought new relevance to the profession, but has also brought conflict and led to the loss of its core values. (This paper is part of an edited collection under the same title due out next year from Routledge.) She'll read from her paper and facilitate a discussion on conflict among analysts.

Dream Analysis in the Treatment of Psychosis with Bret Fimiani, PsyD

Saturday, December 12th, 4:00-6:00

Working with psychosis in psychoanalysis is taxing. The delusion that stitches together the ego of the psychotic subject is difficult to encounter day in and day out, and a false step on the part of the analyst may lead to an acting out that ruptures the treatment at best or, at worst, leads to more terrifying consequences. Jacques Lacan offered a theory of psychosis that has allowed the Freudian School of Quebec to develop a holistic treatment model, founded in psychoanalysis, that has proven effective in allowing psychotic patients respite from their delusions, and given them the ability to live, work and love. Their work with psychotic patients often centers on dreams. The dream, as a function of psychic life not subject to the same censorship as thought in waking life, offers a challenge to the delusion. If the analyst can sustain this challenge in the dream analysis, the psychotic may be led to question their delusion and begin the arduous process of rebuilding a healthier psychic life. Bret Fimiani is a psychoanalyst working in Oakland with people experiencing psychosis. He has worked and studied with The Freudian School of Quebec for years and is on the Board of Directors of the Hearing Voices Network. His 2022 book, "Psychosis and Extreme States" is a manual for the treatment of psychosis. Dr. Fimiani returns to Sacramento this year for a talk focussed on working with dreams in the treatment of patients suffering from psychotic disorders.