From the Editor
As a former bookseller, I will, from time to time, talk about books. The path by which I find meaningful reading material can be circuitous in these virtual times. I followed a story on Instagram by a beloved writing teacher (Sonya Lea) to an article titled, “What if There’s No Such Thing as Closure?” by Pauline Boss. She offers, “six nonsequential guidelines meant to help people bear their [...]
The World of Creativity— Scabbiolo Interviews Franco #3
Seth: The previous interviews in this series between Franco and Scabbiolo have been a World of Confusion for me, so I'm happy to have the chance to enter into this world of confusion and ask you both some questions. First of all, why is confusion important? Franco: Well, it's terribly important to overcome the fear of confusion because we have the tendency to look for certainties, to look for [...]
On Making Art: A Conversation Between Terry Hanson and Peter Hopkins (part 2)
The following is the second part of a conversation between Terry Hanson and Peter Hopkins on art and the influence of the artistic process on their work as therapists. The discussion left off last time with Peter talking about the feeling of failing that can sometimes happen while painting, and the role that the superego can play in impeding the artistic process. Terry: I wonder if the feeling that [...]
Working Through #1: “Tell Me This Isn’t Happening”
It’s 2pm and my legs hurt. I push myself up from my office desk and head down the hallway to the waiting room to see my next patient, not exactly limping but not exactly steady on my feet either. I bear the ache with a sense of pride: it’s the result of a hard run through the Arboretum during a free hour earlier in the day. I capped it [...]
Dreaming into death: An interview with Rikki Ricard—conducted by Seth Aichele
(Rikki Ricard, FIPA, is a psychoanalyst in Seattle and her husband, Adrian Jarreau, also a psychoanalyst in Seattle, died 10 months after his diagnosis with cancer. Both were graduates of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society & Institute (NPSI) in Seattle, Washington.) Rikki: Hi. Seth: Hi. So, it's a little bit mysterious to me—the process of having an intuition that we should address the idea of death in this issue. Because [...]
Member Highlights
Update on Judy Eekhoff, PhD, FIPA Judy K. Eekhoff, PhD, FIPA, has just released her second book, Bion & Primitive Mental States: Trauma and the Symbiotic Link, (2021), which is part of The Routledge Wilfred R. Bion Studies Book Series. She also published her article, “Body Relations and the Black Hole” in the International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Volume 30, 2021 - Issue 3: Presence of the body in Psychoanalysis. [...]
COR News
Thank You, Rick Clark! There are few people who have affected the Center for Object Relations (COR) community as much as Rick Clark. Although not in the mental health field, and usually behind-the-scenes, Rick has been a vital member of COR since 2005 when he edited his first issue of CORRelations. His knowledge of writing and his feel for voice have helped COR members express their experiences, explorations, and [...]
President’s Letter
Out of Theory, Into Life “The world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” —Mary Oliver On the morning of August 10th, I was playing with my then 13-month-old son, Will, when my wife, Katie, came downstairs looking distraught. Her face was pale; her body was trembling. It [...]
In Memory of Morry Tolmach, MSW
by Stanley S. Mandell, PHD Our community, professional and musical, was fortunate to have such a passionate and generous voice and such skilled leadership as that of Morry Tolmach. His intense curiosity, passionate immersion, and search for excellence in many diverse areas of life made him a rare and wonderful friend and colleague. I met Morry in Los Angeles in the late 1970's. He was working as a Social [...]
On Making Art: A Conversation Between Terry Hanson and Peter Hopkins (part 1)
Terry Hanson and Peter Hopkins are both therapists who practice in Seattle, Washington. They have worked together on a number of classes and projects, especially related to the writings of Harold Searles, Wilfred Bion, and Donald Meltzer. What follows is the first part in a two-part series. Peter: We’re here to discuss our interest in art, art making, and the relation of our artistic processes to psychotherapy. How has [...]
Changes
Renovations are continuing on the new COR Office in preparation for the eventual return to in-person classes and events. Eventually, the office will have a bright, quiet, and comfortable space, surrounded by bookshelves, plants, and things that carry meaning for us as an organization. More to come as the project continues to unfold. Expected completion date: End of August 2021. Kathleen Heppell [...]
O’Donnell Day on Coming Home— Interview Conducted by Seth Aichele
Seth: I can hardly think of a word that arouses more pain and more longing than home. I'm wondering where this word takes you. O'Donnell: What comes to mind is what Winnicott said—it’s the title of one of his books actually—Home Is Where We Start From. That's what came to my mind, that we really do start at a home with our mothers, our families. It's really, as a [...]
Hearth and Home
“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson The Greek goddess, Hestia, whose name translates to “hearth,” was the symbol for home for the ancient Greeks. Her understated and underappreciated role in the Greek pantheon was to tend to the hearth, keeping the fire stoked and aflame so it was ceaselessly ready for the Gods to [...]
Member Highlights
Janey Ganta, MA, She/Her, is a recent graduate from Pacifica Graduate Institute seeking an associate license in Marriage and Family Therapy. During Ganta's time at Pacifica, she volunteered for COR events, Ganta is now co- chairing the Education Committee with Kathy Weissbourd and a Board Member. Ganta has a heart to work with generational trauma and chronic crisis cycles with both individuals and family systems from a psychoanalytic and [...]
From the Editor
I arrive at the Center for Object Relations during a time of great transition, both in the organization and in the world. This issue of CORRelations has been a joint effort and I could not have completed it without Rick Clark’s generous gift of time. I also want to thank Katie, Kathleen, Seth, and Collin. I have really enjoyed this opportunity and I look forward to seeing what [...]
The World of Creativity— Scabbiolo Interviews Franco #3
Seth: Hi Franco, thanks for not abandoning us. Franco: I am here. Seth: I hope you are ok today to talk about what you have promised to us: the nature of processes, the creative conflict, and the world of creativeness. Franco: Yes, thanks for the opportunity. Creativity is a subject that, generally speaking, comes out well when we don’t know what we are talking about. Possibly, this is the [...]
COR Course Review: Eight Gates to Listening: Exploring A Psychotherapist’s Attention, Instructor Jeffrey J. Eaton, MA, FIPA
In this seminar, Jeff Eaton explored a variety of listening tasks within the psychotherapy process. He built on the work of Melanie Klein, Donald Meltzer and Wilfred Bion, among others, to develop different listening perspectives, which he calls “gates”, to help the clinician explore the patient’s “picture of the world," and how this internal world picture affects the way a person experiences and navigates their emotional life and external [...]
Mistakes as Portals of Discovery
While watching my son, Will, play naked on the floor in his fourth month of life, he taught me a priceless lesson. He had recently started lying on his back, thrusting his feet up towards the sky while reaching for his feet with his hands in the “happy baby” pose. He was in a good mood as he made hearttickling baby sounds, his mouth wide open in a [...]
Pandemic-Era Use of Zoom, Insistence and Peril
At the start of the pandemic, many of us made a quick pivot to work remotely, and much of that work is done over Zoom. Obviously, Zoom is the corollary to nearly every in-person interaction we had pre-pandemic. We are forcing school, happy hours, conferences, and funerals into the Zoom format. While video conferencing is a very good tool, it still feels rudimentary in many ways. If we want to [...]
Katie Wilson on Having a Baby and Object Relations —Interview Conducted by Seth Aichele
Seth: So, you gave birth this year, and you're immersed in this psychotherapeutic tradition, which so centers on the birth experience. I’ve been curious what that combination has been like for you. A question I have is: Did your immersion in this material prime you to think about specific aspects of your pregnancy in a different way than you might have? Katie: It's such a good question. So, of [...]
Enika Cocoli Bowen on Catastrophic Change— Interview Conducted by Seth Aichele
Seth: I had this loose idea of talking to you about catastrophic change, and I presented the idea to you some weeks ago, and I'm curious about what you've been thinking about catastrophic change. I don't know much about your history, but I know that you immigrated to the United States, and I'm curious about that—whatever you'd like to share, whether it connects or doesn't connect to the idea [...]
Beginner’s Mind #11: On Wanting to Be a Good Therapist for Black Patients
I awaited Henrietta, knowing that I wanted nothing to do with her today. We had only started seeing each other the week of Labor Day, and our work had started calmly enough. In our first hour together, she told me she was seeking therapy to help her find new ways of dealing with problems in her life that needed urgent attention, like helping her widowed grandfather find a better [...]
COR Course Review: Foundations of British Object Relations, Fall Quarter 2020, Instructors Rikki Ricard, LMHC FIPA & Josh Sandoz, MA LMHC
I sincerely thank Josh and Rikki for their welcoming introduction to the BOR journey. With their warm and authentic presence, the introduction to BOR was unthreatening and surprisingly enjoyable! I enjoyed the small and intimate class size (eight students and two instructors), and we had ample time for discussion and questions each week. I especially appreciated the sharing of the students’ and instructors’ case examples, and they helped me [...]
Centering Black Voices in Psychoanalytic Work: A COR Study Group
In the wake of the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor on March 13, 2020, and the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, the COR board of directors penned a letter to our members that included the following: “Transformative emotional experience comes in many forms, but sometimes these experiences are catastrophic. They shake us to our core, dysregulating us, and irreversibly disturbing our understanding of ourselves and the [...]
Beginning Infant Observation
COR is set to begin a new infant observation class, starting in the summer of 2021. Please inquire below.
Joanne Della Penta, ATR-BC, LMHC
Joanne della Penta, ATR-BC LMHC, has recently moved her practice to 3136 East Madison St. Seattle, Washington 98112. She works with adults as well as with children (five years old or older) and adolescents. For the most part, she does psychotherapy with adults and art therapy, sand tray, and talk therapy with children and adolescents. She still has hours in Bellevue, but home base is in Seattle. She welcomes referrals. [...]
Jeff Eaton, MA, FIPA
Jeff Eaton, MA FIPA, has recently published a chapter titled "Building a Floor for Experience" in a book titled Transgenerational Trauma and the Aboriginal Preschool Child: Healing through Intervention. The book is edited by Norma Tracey
Allison Chow, MA, LMHC
Allison Chow, LMHC, has returned to her practice at The Shelterwood Collective in Pioneer Square after maternity leave. She is accepting new patients and works with adolescents and young adults. You can visit her website at Allisonchow.com.
A Man of Service and Integrity
by Mel Knight COR Founding President A word of appreciation for a founding member of COR, concluding his final term of service on the Board of Directors. You might not remember him by name. That is unless you had received supervision by him on a particularly difficult case. Then you couldn't forget it. He may not be remembered as a prime shaper of clinical practice at COR. That is [...]
From the Editor
Words are strange sound symbols we can’t live with and can’t live without. They are and aren’t. They bridge us over to one another and block our way. We forever hazard mistaking word for object, solidifying a word or idea into a specific form or image, making us forget that the universe is forever changing and words today don’t mean what they meant yesterday or what they’ll mean [...]
The Compass—The Adaptive World and the Confused World: Scabbiolo Interviews Franco
Scabbiolo: Thank you, Franco, for this first in a series of three interviews. Today we are going to address the Compass and two of its worlds: The Adaptive world and the Confused world. The second interview will cover the Delusional world and the world of Creativeness. And in the third we will address the world of Abandonment. Franco: You are welcome. Scabbiolo: In a series of presentations in February [...]
Winnicott, Closeness, and Distance
KATHY WEISSBOURD If he were alive today, what would Donald Winnicott say to us as clinicians, as some of us try to carry on our careers at home while our children, in the next room, need help with their schoolwork? Or when we are preoccupied with at- risk family members, or are at risk ourselves? If the past provides a key, he would reassure us that we are "good [...]
President’s Letter
The Wound is the Place Where the Light Enters On Thursday, May 28th, I woke to a voicemail from Tom Saunders, informing me that Austin Case, one of the founding members of COR, had passed away at age 90. While I never met Austin, I know Austin’s life is inextricably intertwined with COR’s origins and his spirit remains imbedded in COR’s collective psyche. The following day, protests and [...]
An Interview with Tom Saunders about COR Founder Austin Case
Interviewer: Seth Aichele Seth: What was your relationship to Austin Case? Tom: Well, he was a teacher, he was a consultant, he was a supervising analyst when I was in analytic training.... But first, he was somebody who helped me discover the infant in the mother and the infant who had a relationship to the mother. He brought me toward getting to know the internal world of the infant. [...]
What Are Theories Good For?
ENIKA COCOLI BOWEN This question—What Are Theories Good For?—has been on my mind and others’ minds as the result of conversations we’ve had during these past months. It’s particularly important to find out how theories help when everything hangs in the balance. Theories have organizing value for us to live in our worlds, realities, and meet those of others. I was both surprised and not surprised to find out [...]
Reflections on Living in a Time of Global Pandemic
JOSH SANDOZ Living and practicing psychotherapy during this time of COVID-19 has generated a wide variety of thoughts and feelings in me. This has, of course, included times of having difficulty thinking at all, especially in moments of sheer exhaustion. However, as the days have turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months, there has been a particular set of associations to working with the challenges of the [...]
Therapy in the Time of COVID-19—An Interview with Kris Wheeler
Interviewer: Katie Wilson Katie: All of us are impacted in some way by COVID, and I'm grateful that you are willing to spend some time talking to me about your experience. I think it’s helpful to hear people talk about their different experiences, and I'm curious to hear about your thoughts, your process with your patients, and anything else you’ve noticed about your practice during COVID. Kris: Let’s begin [...]
Beginner’s Mind #8: Confession
In 2017, my wife and I decided to sell our home in south Seattle and move northward. Our rationale at the time was that we wanted to be closer to our family and friends in the north end, where we had both grown up, and to invest in real estate in the nicest neighborhood where we could afford to purchase it. To do this, we had to sell our [...]
COR Course Review: Narcissism: A Clinical Approach
RILEY MCCORMICK The COR course Narcissism: A Clinical Approach came at just the right time for me. When I signed up for this course, how could I know that the practice of examining my own narcissism would benefit me greatly in the process of also dismantling my whiteness? I did not anticipate that this course would ultimately help me on my journey to become a more useful participant in [...]
Member Highlights
Matthew Goodwin has opened his private practice in the Fremont neighborhood. He works with adults and specializes in a long-term, depth- oriented approach that brings together elements from psychoanalytic theory and interpersonal neurobiology. The aim of Matthew’s work is addressing both the mind and the body in an integrative, relational therapy process. He is an active member of both COR and The Alliance. For more details please visit matthewgoodwintherapy.com. [...]
COR News
Welcome Matt Stichman as New COR Board Member I am a Licensed Mental Health Clinician in private practice in the Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle. I entered into the mental health and substance abuse fields in 2004, working in residential treatment and hospital settings. I completed a graduate degree at Seattle University with a focus on existential- phenomenological psychology. My clinical internship was conducted through University of Washington’s School [...]
Letter from the COR Board of Directors
Dear COR Community, The Center for Object Relations is built upon the idea that psychological understanding comes through deep emotional experience that transforms and enriches our internal world. On this idea, we strive to connect with and support our patients and our community towards lives of meaning and love. Transformative emotional experience comes in many forms, but sometimes these experiences are catastrophic. They shake us to our core, dis-regulating [...]
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