Events and Seminars

Event	:	Exploring Breakdowns and Recoveries in and Between Fathers and Sons
Venue	:	Online & In Person at Notre Dame University of Maryland, United States
Date	:	05/11/2023
Duration	:	3pm - 7pm GMT / 10am - 1pm EST
Extra Info	:	Exploring Breakdowns and Recoveries In and Between Fathers and Sons: Implications for Treatment with Louis Rothschild, Ph.D. Based on his recently published book about fathers and sons, Louis Rothschild takes a psychoanalytic lens to fatherhood. Through reflections and refractions in encounters with clinical material, myths, literature, and personal reveries, Dr Rothschild addresses the role of the father and masculine identification with an eye toward professionals working with individuals, couples and families. Developmental issues and concern about therapeutic action will guide our discussion of topics such as resolution of enactments and crunches in order to show that nurturing capacities often demonstrated in fatherhood are central to a nurturing model of masculinity. To that end, this seminar will illuminate fatherhood as a time of potentiality and active development for both parents and children. From a historical viewpoint, fathers receive a rather cold conception in Freud’s work, and their role has often been neglected in a matricentric psychoanalytic theory. Here is a feminist consideration of masculinity where fathers may become increasingly attuned to relational mutuality and intimacy as a source of flourishing without sacrificing strength. Additionally, the concept of ‘Rapprochement’ will be explored to situate the idea of father as another attachment figure who is best when able to be present as a good enough container. Rapprochement is understood in its well-known definition as a sub-phase of child development marked by a dramatic expression of conflict, and also as an expressive ambivalence regarding conflicts between autonomy and dependency found across the lifespan. With material that includes the grief of failed reunion, particular stories are mediated through thinking alongside philosophy and psychoanalytic theory in order to depict the difficulty of integrating nurturing capacities into conceptions of masculinity. As a critique of gendered rigidity, a case is made for a social surround that s mutual vulnerability to exist in a state of permanent inquiry and relational curiosity. Such openness can function to aid parents, clinicians, and respective community members. By extension, a good-enough father is one who recognizes breakdown, a need for refueling, and possesses and practices a willingness to encounter uneven rhythms in human dimensions.
Organised By	:	The Baltimore Society for Psychoanalytic Studies
Web Link	:	http://www.bspsmaryland.org/upcomingconferences.html