This workshop will focus on a case involving two individuals who have reached a stalemate in their ability to relate to one another as a couple. Using Intersubjective Self Psychology as our starting point, we will examine the way these partners have come to mutually influence each other’s behaviors and emotional responses, creating intractable relational patterns that are difficult to unravel and understand. The therapist’s role in managing these complex interactions will be a focus of discussion. We’ll also identify the presence of important ISP phenomena such as mutual empathy, selfobject experience and leading versus trailing edge emphasis. A number of other concepts will be touched on, including dissociative experience in couples, the couple as intersubjective system, repetitive behavioral sequences, and the persistence of emotional drifting. 
 
Two Continuing Education Credits for NYS social workers, psychoanalysts, and psychologists.
Nancy Hicks

Nancy Hicks

Nancy Hicks is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and Metuchen, NJ. She currently serves on the faculty at the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey and the New Jersey Couples Therapy Training institute of New Jersey. She is a member of the Training and Research Institute in Intersubjective Self Psychology. Specializing in work with adults and couples, she provides supervision for clinicians through CPPNJ and NJCTT, in her private practice, and for the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers.