What Can Psychosis Teach Us About Psychoanalysis? A talk with Bret Fimiani, Psy.D.
Saturday, February 7th, 1:00-3:30 p.m. 422 Alhambra Blvd., Sacramento
Please join us for a conversation with Dr. Bret Fimiani on the ethics of psychoanalytic treatment with patients who are hearing voices and/or experiencing extreme states. While the focus of this conversation is on treating psychosis, it should be edifying for clinicians working with patients from across the diagnostic spectrum as well as for anyone interested in understanding the human experience, as we find the psychotic has much to teach us.
Dr. Fimiani writes, "In the U.S. we are seeing an increase in collective efforts, within the post-Lacanian psychoanalytic field, to better understand and more effectively treat psychosis. To reach this point, psychoanalysis has had to learn from the psychotic (what s/he ‘knows’) and allow this knowledge to guide us in reinventing the fundamentals of our practice. In my talk, I will discuss the clinical relevance of the concept of (psychotic) structure, the necessity of ‘reversing’ the transference with psychosis, and the role of ethics in the positions of the analysand and analyst. As a way to explore these conceptual questions, I will discuss a clinical example where a person experiencing psychosis faces a choice, under transference, to either remain in his delusion or to exit his delusion. The subject of psychosis guides the treatment and it is his choice to develop a new ethic by way of listening to his voices and speech, and to the failure of delusion. It is also his choice to follow the new opportunities (and freedoms) that the failure of his delusion offers. Ultimately, my aim is to offer a way to recognize desirable results when working with psychosis psychoanalytically."
Dr. Bret Fimiani is a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalyst of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis. He is also a member of the Society for Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Interventions and Research After Lacan (SPIIRAL). He works with people experiencing psychosis and extreme states in his private practice in Oakland, CA and he is on the board of directors for the Bay Area Hearing Voices Network. His recent book on psychosis is titled “Psychosis and Extreme States: An Ethic for Treatment” (Palgrave-Macmillan 2021).