Foundations of British Object Relations

This course will span the academic year –18 sessions– and will explore the context and development of the basic but complex object relations concepts arising from Klein’s work with children, who based her work on the theories of Freud, and were expanded through later theorists and clinicians. We will also consider necessary conditions for growing a mind, and the clinical implications when that process is affected by neglect or trauma.

Fall Quarter will outline Klein’s expansion of Freud’s idea of psychic reality, and the concepts that Klein (and others) developed from this. As such, we will look at the British Object Relations constructs of mental processes such as unconscious phantasy, internal objects, and the depressive and paranoid-schizoid positions.

Fall Instructors: Sean Jackson & Kerry Ragain

Winter Quarter introduces the question: How does a mind grow? This quarter attempts to work with some of the central concepts and processes that are useful in considering the complexities of how a mind grows. The concepts of projective identification and container/contained will be introduced as well as the processes of transference and countertransference.

Winter Instructors: Adam Schneider & David Krom

Spring Quarter investigates psychopathology from the Object Relations viewpoint. In this quarter we will think about major areas of psychological problems, including narcissism and narcissistic character structure, psychic retreats and pathological organizations, and trauma. We will read key papers but mostly use our clinical experience to think about these important issues.

Spring Instructors: Eric Borgh & Joanne della Penta

Learning Objectives:

Students will obtain an understanding of the historical perspective that Melanie Klein and British Object Relations comes from, including what BOR added to analytic thinking in time. i.e., what are unique analytic concepts that arose from British Object Relations Theory?
Students will learn basic Object Relations concepts such as unconscious phantasy, splitting and projection, projective identification and the paranoid/schizoid and depressive positions.
Students will learn how the concepts of British Object Relations apply to their clinical work.

Registration & Payment

Course Details

In-Person at the COR office: 2915 E Madison St, Suite 300

Thursdays at 7:30 – 9:00 pm

Fall class dates: 9/24, 10/8, 10/22, 11/5, 11/19, 12/3 [2026]

Winter class dates: 1/7, 1/21, 2/4, 2/18, 3/4, 3/18 [2027]

Spring class dates: 4/1, 4/15, 4/29, 5/13, 5/27, 6/10 [2027]

CEUs: 1.5 per class, 27.0 total

Class Size: Minimum 5 | Maximum 12

Fee: $1,485.00

Member Fee: $1,262.25

Instructors

Sean JacksonMA, LMHC

Sean Jackson, MA LMHC, is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, working with patients in Seattle and on Bainbridge Island. He has been involved with COR since 2013 as a board member and student. He currently serves as the chair of COR’s Education Committee.

Kerry RagainPhD

Kerry Ragain, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a private practice on Mercer Island. He provides psychoanalytically-based psychotherapy for children, adolescents, and adults. Dr. Ragain received his Masters’s from Seattle University, and his Doctorate from Pacifica Graduate Institute, and completed a postdoc fellowship at the University of Washington. He has also completed SPSI’s Child Psychotherapy Program. His current academic interests include psychoanalytic ways of understanding the experience of early childhood adoption, and the creative mysteries of reverie. For fun, he spends time outside with his wife and two kids and plays music with Seattle’s Keith Highlanders bagpipe band.

Adam SchneiderPhD

Adam Schneider, PhD is a licensed mental health counselor in private practice in Washington State. He completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. His research interests include archetypal psychology, Lacanian psychoanalysis, treatment of psychosis, and intersections with Catholicism.

David KromPsyD

David Krom, PsyD, has been involved with the Center for Object Relations since 2016, including contributing to the Publications Committee from 2017 to 2018. In 2022 he earned his PsyD in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Clinical training includes two years at Fairfax Behavioral Health Hospital in Kirkland, Washington with adults and adolescents, in addition to a predoctoral internship at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services Outpatient Counseling Clinic in Los Angeles, California. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Jeff Grant at the Portage Bay Clinic and has been in private practice in Seattle since September 2024. In his work with both individuals and families, he draws on family systems theory, object relations, and psychoanalytic approaches, continually working to integrate these into a clinical sensibility that feels genuinely his own.

Eric BorghMA, LMHC

Eric Borgh, MA, LMHC, is a psychotherapist in private practice with an office located in Madison Park. He’s been involved with the Center for Object Relations and the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Studies since graduating from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology in 2012. He is currently a candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC).

Joanne della PentaATR LMHC FIPA

Joanne della Penta, ATR LMHC FIPA, is a recent graduate of analytic training at SPSI. She began private practice in 2005, moving to full time in 2014. Her practice is in Madison Park, where she sees adolescents and adults. She began as an art therapist at Fairfax Hospital in 1998. She has a certificate in British Object Relations from COR (from when COR gave certificates), and is a practicing artist and dog lover.