SASPS Events

There is no registration fee for the lecture. Continuing education credits are free for members of SASPS. There is a $10 administrative fee for participants who are not members of SASPS who wish to claim continuing education credits for attendance.

In this lecture, Dr. McWilliams will offer an overview of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, highlight the rationale for its development, and discuss its application in teaching, research, and clinical practice, with special emphasis on clinical applications.

“ The encyclopedia of mental disorders known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is built on a principle that many therapists find simplistic: that people's symptoms are the most reliable way to classify their mental troubles.

The manual, often called the D.S.M., does not speculate about internal thoughts or unconscious assumptions, which researchers say are all but impossible to scientifically standardize.”

“Now, in an effort to provide more of this context, a coalition of organizations representing psychoanalytically oriented therapists has produced a diagnostic manual of its own. Unlike most psychiatrists, psychoanalysts focus their efforts on understanding the meaning and the psychological roots of mental suffering, rather than on diagnosing mental disorders and treating them with drugs or less intensive methods of talk therapy.”

"It is meant to be complementary" to the psychiatric association's manual, said Dr. Stanley Greenspan, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University medical school in Washington, who proposed the new guide and coordinated the writing.

"We wanted to say to therapists: find out and discover the nature of the internal experience before you pigeonhole a person based on symptoms only," Dr. Greenspan said.

Once the personality patterns are understood, he added, "you would see if the person was interested in exploring broader goals for himself, looking at these patterns through therapy."

The D.S.M., he said, offers little that is relevant to guide such therapy.

The new manual also incorporates case histories into the description of personality patterns and symptoms

"Honestly," Dr. McWilliams said, "most of the people who come in for therapy do so for a kind of sickness of the soul, or for some interpersonal disaster. It's very artificial to chop them up into these symptom syndromes."

Nancy McWilliams, Ph.D., is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Flemington, New Jersey, and currently serves as President of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association.

Dr. McWilliams has presented to the San Antonio community on several previous occasions, teaching psychiatry and psychology residents on topics related to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She has been consistently and unfailingly gracious in offering her time as both a teacher and mentor. A distinguished writer and lecturer on a variety of topics in psychoanalysis, her contributions reflect both depth of understanding as well as a capacity to communicate the power and utility of psychoanalytic concepts to both specialists and non-specialists alike. She served as a major contributor to the new Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, and is the author of several other widely noted books. Psychoanalytic Case Formulation (New York: Guilford Press, 1999) received the Gradiva Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis as the best psychoanalytic clinical book, 1999. She is also the author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process (Guilford, 1995), and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, A Practitioner’s Guide (Guilford, 2004).

Donations are graciously accepted in support of this series, and may be made to the San Antonio Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. The Society is chartered as an affiliate of Division 39, Psychoanalysis, of the American Psychological Association. www.sasps.org

SASPS Reading Group meets every month except July and August in the summer months, and December for the year-end holidays. A senior SASPS member selects an article as a topic for discussion; readings are generally distributed to all members the week before the meeting. Readings are generally selected from current journals and focus on themes related to developments in both theory and practice in contemporary psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Psychology, social work, and LPC continuing education credits are available for participants in reading group meetings.

WHEN: Second Wednesday of each month, 7:30 PM-9:00 PM