EVENTS

All events are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA IN CLINICAL PRACTICE:
INDIVIDUALS AND COUPLES
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2026     
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM EST on Zoom
PRESENTERS: VIVIAN ESKIN, PH.D. and DEBRA GILL, LCSW

This seminar explores how trauma is transmitted across generations—not through direct narratives or biological mechanisms, but through silence, repetition, narcissistic identification and embodied emotional communication. Inherited trauma affects the internal object world and influences the formation of an internal couple that carries into adult partnerships. Unconscious ties to the suffering from previous generations impair psychic separateness and identity formation. According to Marianne Hirsch, second and third generation Holocaust survivors can unknowingly remain bound to post memory living inside traumas that precede and supersede their own existence.

Relying on case material and relevant theory, we will examine how unmetabolized trauma from previous generations becomes the psychic inheritance of the next generations.

In the treatment situation, we will consider the meaning of the analytic frame, as conceived by José Bleger, for its therapeutic provision of constancy. The analyst provides the steady backdrop, that holds unmetabolized trauma until the inevitable disruptions occur, revealing psychotic parts of the personality. These disruptions are essential when what has been hidden and silently carried becomes visible and available for analytic work. Therapeutic witnessing and the analyst's containing function are essential processes through which the therapist gradually metabolizes unprocessed psychic experience. Over time, analytic patients begin to recognize and consider the meaning of inherited trauma, allowing for an emergence of a third position—and in couple work, a couple state of mind, all representing a reflective thinking space where transformation becomes possible through mourning, symbolization, and the creation of new relational life.

Learning Objectives:
Participants will be able to:
1) identify multiple pathways of intergenerational trauma transmission, including biological, narrative, identificatory, and embodied modes, and recognize how silence, repetition, and projective identification function as carriers of inherited suffering in clinical presentation.
2) apply concepts of containment, metabolization, and the emergence of the third position to clinical work with individuals and couples carrying traumatic legacy, understanding how the therapist's capacity to process unmetabolized content creates space for symbolization and mourning.
3) utilize the analytic frame as a therapeutic instrument to provide constancy while remaining responsive to inevitable disruptions that reveal dissociated or psychotic aspects of personality organization shaped by intergenerational trauma.

 VIVIAN ESKIN, Ph.D. Certificate in Psychoanalysis, New York Freudian Society, Graduate of NYFS/IPTAR Anni Bergman Parent-Infant Program. Qualifying Diploma in Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Tavistock Relationships, London, UK. Faculty and Supervisor: The Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Adult Program. Training and Supervisory Analyst: Contemporary Freudian Society. Member: NY Freudian Society, American Psychoanalytic Association, International Psychoanalytical Association, CIPS, NASW, IPTAR.

DEBRA GILL, LCSW Certificate in Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the Contemporary Freudian Society. Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Faculty and Supervisor: Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Adult Program. Faculty, Training and Supervising Analyst: Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the Contemporary Freudian Society. Fellow: International Psychoanalytical Association. Member: Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies; American Psychoanalytic Association.

LOCATION: ONLINE THROUGH ZOOM

FEE: $60 or $40 for students (with proof of student status)
NO FEE FOR MCMH STAFF THERAPISTS

Zoom instructions and meeting link will be emailed to participants prior to the workshop.

Registration deadline: March 19, 2026

The New York State Education Department has approved this online workshop for 2 contact hours (CEUs) for LMSWs, LCSWs, LMHCs, LPs, LMFTs and Licensed Psychologists. A certificate will be emailed to those who sign in at the beginning of the session, stay until the end of the session, complete an emailed evaluation. The evaluation form will be emailed to you within a week of the event and usually much more quickly. Full session must be attended to be eligible for CEUs/Contact hours.

THE HUNGRY SELF: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES TO BINGE EATING DISORDER
SATURDAY, MAY 2, 2026         
1:30 PM – 3:30 PM DST ON ZOOM
PRESENTER: KARI OLSON, Ph.D., LCSW

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is the most recently recognized eating disorder, becoming a diagnosis in the DSM in 2013.  It is also the most common eating disorder. Psychoanalytic theorists have relatively recently begun to focus attention on BED, linking it to early trauma and attachment issues, dissociated self-states, and alexithymia. Concepts including “the hungry self”, “body-states” and “not-body/not-self” have arisen to help define the phenomenological experiences of BED, as well as effective treatment approaches. This workshop will consider the psychoanalytic theories that explore the developmental origins of binge eating disorder that link it to childhood experiences, as well as societal ideals of body image. Resulting symptoms of binge eating and accompanying dissociation, including the dire need to suppress and avoid difficult emotions and bodily sensations, will also be reviewed through examples from clinical cases. Treatment approaches that emphasize the therapist’s need to tune into, not only patients’ unique histories and different self- and body states that emerge, but also our own emergent self- and body-states in and out of the therapeutic setting, will be explored.

Learning Objectives:
Participants will:
1) define and recognize the common underlying self-structure and defensive mechanisms and how they are related to the symptoms of patients with Binge Eating Disorder.
2) identify how insecure attachment and trauma histories can lead to Binge Eating Disorder.
3) learn therapeutic approaches to patients with BED from a relational/interpersonal perspective.

PRESENTER: KARI OLSON, Ph.D., LCSW Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Certificate in Eye Movement Sensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), EMDR Institute, Inc. Supervisor: Metropolitan Center for Mental Health. Member: Metropolitan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists. 

LOCATION: ONLINE THROUGH ZOOM

FEE: $60 or $40 for students (with proof of student status)
NO FEE FOR MCMH STAFF THERAPISTS

 Registration deadline: April 30, 2026

The New York State Education Department has approved this online workshop for 2 contact hours (CEUs) for LMSWs, LCSWs, LMHCs, LPs, LMFTs and Licensed Psychologists. A certificate will be emailed to those who sign in at the beginning of the session, stay until the end of the session, complete an emailed evaluation. The evaluation form will be emailed to you within a week of the event and usually much more quickly. Full session must be attended to be eligible for CEUs/Contact hours.

PAYMENT OPTIONS

•  Zelle – Debit Card or Bank Account
  You may use Zelle through your bank or download the Zelle app and follow the instructions.  Zelle will not accept credit cards. Payment should be made to: info@mitpp.org.
  

• Chase QuickPay with Zelle – Access through the Chase app.
  

• PayPal - Please add $4.00 to your total to cover PayPal fees for payments up to $75. For payments above $75, contact MITPP for fee information. PayPal payments should be made to info@mitpp.org.
  
  If you are unable to pay electronically and would like to send a check, please contact MITPP.

  For questions about payment, please email info@mitpp.org

   

REGISTRATION FORM

PAYMENT OPTIONS

• Zelle – Debit Card or Bank Account
  You may use Zelle through your bank or download the Zelle app and follow the instructions.  Zelle will not accept credit cards. Payment should be made to: info@mitpp.org.

• Chase QuickPay with Zelle – Access through the Chase app.

• PayPal - Please add $5.00 to your total to cover PayPal fees for payments up to $75. For payments above $75, contact MITPP for fee information. PayPal payments should be made to info@mitpp.org.
  
  If you are unable to pay electronically and would like to send a check, please contact MITPP.

  For questions about payment, please email info@mitpp.org

Refund Policy

If you find you are unable to attend an event for any reason, you must notify MITPP by email at least 48 hours prior to the time the course/workshop begins in order to receive a full refund. No refunds will be issued after that time.