Avedis Panajian: Working with and Understanding the Place of Grief

We are honored to partner with the Center for Object Relations to welcome back psychoanalyst Avedis Panajian, Ph.D ABPP, for another memorable exploration of the deeply human endeavor that is psychoanalysis. In this year’s visit, Dr. Panajian will focus on grief, mourning and pathological mourning and the ways in which particular psychoanalytic theorists can help us understand the complex and contradictory nature of the painful, creative, and indelibly human experience of loss. Dr. Panajian will explore the physical and psychic pain, healthy and pathological identifications, memories and fantasies, day-dreams and dreams, creative solitude, internal voids, narcissistic pain, and narcissistic structures that inhere to mourning in its normative and pathological forms. He will also discuss the impact that losses have on psychological organization, and specifically the sacrificial role that the ego often plays in surviving the trauma of loss.

Working with and Understanding the Place of Grief: Healthy and Pathological Mourning

Dr. Panajian will explore common defenses against mourning, including intellectualization and other obsessive means that patients and therapists both use to avoid the unknown and liminal dimensions of loss. He will also discuss the way that confronting the unknown can become a generative and creative process that fosters the development of new identifications and a healed relationship to what has been lost. As always, Dr. Panajian will rely on his ample clinical experience to provide heartfelt and meaningful stories from his life and work that will lend an emotional immediacy to the ideas he will share. We are sure that his visit will be another fascinating and meaningful journey into the human heart of psychoanalytic work, and we certainly hope you will join us for it.

Dr. O’Donnell Day, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology and Internship Director at The Seattle School, helps organize and host the event every year. “Dr. Panajian had a deep influence on me, especially in the area of listening to myself as I listen to my patient,” says Dr. Day. “He is someone who continues to work with himself as he works with severe psychopathology. For students and clinicians alike, exposure to the complexity of Dr. Panajian’s work is useful and accessible, which I appreciate about him.”

Registration
Registration includes 2 CEUs for Friday evening and 4 CEUs for Saturday and posted rates apply to full participation. Registration is available for those desiring to attend only Friday or Saturday. Visit the Center for Object Relations for pricing details and registration.

Fee includes:
CEUs
Friday night hors d’oeuvres
Saturday light breakfast and snacks