PSYCHOANALYTIC ESSENTIALS · SELF-STUDY
Developing an Advanced Ethical Framework for Clinical Practice: A Psychoanalytic Approach
On demand · Online self-study · 4 CE credits · $89 (including transaction fees)
Program Description
This Psychoanalytic Essentials distance learning (self-study) course is offered for licensed psychologists and other mental health clinicians to explore applied clinical ethics from a psychoanalytic perspective. Participants will view two video lectures and read two corresponding papers that examine ethical principles and challenges in the practice of psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.
In the first video lecture, Dr. Kunst provides an overview of a dynamic model of clinical ethics from a psychoanalytic perspective. Her unique framework takes seriously the need for an “outside in” and an “inside out” approach to ethical considerations. The external established framework of legal and professional ethics serves as the foundation for an internal model. The clinician’s internalized ethical sensibility allows for a dynamic, fluid, and lived approach to ethical challenges that emerges from and is clarified within the clinical work itself. She explores ways in which an advanced ethical sensibility can be developed, tracing the progression from Freud through Klein and Bion and drawing from their models of the super-ego, the Oedipus complex, and container-contained.
Dr. Kunst’s lecture also draws from the work of Swedish psychoanalyst Rolf Künstlicher to explore the application of this ethics model to the psychoanalytic frame. The frame functions as a protection of the treatment relationship as it consecrates the space, guards against violations, upholds the incest taboo, establishes an inner room to think, and allows mutuality that is protected from seduction and violent acting out. The “rules of treatment” are reimagined as the “rules of play”, as the dynamic pressures of analytic treatment are understood more fully.
Dr. Kunst’s second video lecture is entitled, How to manage the ethical ideal of our impossible profession. In this lecture, Dr. Kunst explores an advanced ethical framework which shifts emphasis from a rule-based model to a model of applied, lived ethics. This advanced model takes seriously the ethical challenges of psychoanalytic work due to the desires of the clinician, the unruly nature of the unconscious, and the recursive structure (après-coup) of the analytic process. She delves deeply into the ideas of Boston psychoanalyst Sarah Ackerman from her paper, Impossible Ethics (Ackerman, 2020), which includes a detailed case example of an ethical challenge in a psychoanalytic treatment.
As part of this distance learning course, participants will also read and reflect on the two corresponding papers that are foundational for the video lectures.
- Rolf Künstlicher (1996). The Function of the Frame: To Protect the Psychoanalytic Room. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 19(2), 150–164.
- Sarah Ackermann (2020). Impossible Ethics. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 68(4), 561–582.
Participants will view the video lectures (1 hour 45 min) and read/reflect on the two papers (2 hours 15 min). Upon completion of these course materials, learners will complete a post-test. A minimum score of 80% is required on the post-test in order to receive the continuing education credit certificate. Upon completion of the post-test, a course evaluation form and continuing education credit certificate will be emailed to each learner.
Learning Objectives
- Differentiate legal, ethical moral, and technical considerations in clinical practice;
- Articulate how the super-ego and the Oedipus complex function as part of the clinician’s ethical attitude;
- Distinguish enactment repetitions from enactment violations;
- Identify how the concept of “deferred action” contributes to developing an advanced ethical framework in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy;
- List three factors that make it impossible for clinicians to realize their ethical ideals in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.
Target Audience
This activity is designed for psychologists and other licensed mental health professionals who have an interest in psychoanalytic or psychodynamic psychotherapy. The level of the course is intermediate to advanced.
Instructor
Jennifer Kunst, PhD is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Pasadena, CA where she works with adults, adolescents, couples, and families. She earned her PhD at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology and is licensed in the state of California. Dr. Kunst trained at the Psychoanalytic Center of California, where she is a Training and Supervising Analyst and teaches courses on Kleinian theory and technique. She is passionate about distilling the complexity of psychoanalysis into ideas that can be applied to everyday life. She has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed professional psychology journals on the topics of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and the interface between religion and psychology. Her outreach projects include her Psychology Today blog, “A Headshrinker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and her book, “Wisdom from the Couch: Knowing and Growing Yourself from the Inside Out” (Central Recovery Press, 2014).
Registration, Cancellation & Disclosures
Cost: $89, including online transaction fees. Cancellation: There will be a $10 cancellation fee for cancellation after purchase.
The planners and presenters for this activity have not received commercial support for this activity nor are there any relevant financial relationships between the sponsors, presenters, program content, research, grants or other funding that could reasonably be construed as conflicts of interest.
Jennifer Kunst, PhD is approved by the California Psychological Association to provide continuing professional education for psychologists. The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts continuing education credit granted by the California Psychological Association or by any of its Approved Providers. Jennifer Kunst, PhD maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
If you plan to use the credits in another state, please check with that licensing jurisdiction to see if the credits will be accepted.
