Format: Audio MP3 file download

Presenter: Jeremy Safran, PhD

The Intersection of Hypnosis and Relational Psychoanalysis

In this plenary, I will trace the common origins of hypnosis and psychoanalysis as well as the historical and political factors that led classical analysts to distance psychoanalysis from these origins and emphasize the difference between treatments making use of hypnotic elements, and bonafide psychoanalysis. I will also discuss changes in contemporary relational psychoanalytic theory that establish a basis for a more thorough and fluid synthesis of psychoanalytic and hypnotic elements of treatment and help illuminate both common and specific mechanisms of change. Finally, I will explore various ways in which my own theoretical, clinical and empirical work on therapeutic impasses provide a valuable arena with which we can begin to further explore points of intersection between hypnosis, placebo and relational psychoanalysis.