Salman Akhtar

A Family of Shadows: Mothers, Fathers, Siblings, Grandparents, and Others in the Internal World
August 11-15

While the newborn infant is not a neuropsychological tabula-rasa, it is his relationship with the early caretakers which evokes potentials that contribute to the 'basic core' of his latter adult character. Before arriving to that relatively well-structured state, however, a large number of interactions with caretakers (and others in the interpersonal surround) have to be internalized and amalgamated into a harmonious gestalt. It is in this context that the role of mother and father acquires a profound significance. Contact with their bodies, fantasies about their bodies, real and imagined relations with them as individuals and as a couple (and defenses against all this) contribute to the evolving psychic structure. Patterns of attachment, degrees of separation, and scenarios of oedipal situations all come into play here. Siblings, grandparents, other relatives, and even caretakers, neighbors, clergy, and schoolteachers also impact upon personality development. At the same time, the internalization of these roles and interactions must pass through the crucible of constitution, drives, and culture. Layering of such internal objects and secondary revisions affect their representation in the adult mind as much as retrospective fantasies and distortions of memory do. Such considerations will form the focus of this course with illustrations from day-to-day life, movies, poetry, and fiction as well as from clinical experience with patients in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

Monday

Mother
Mother's body • Mother's presence • Mother's mind • Mother's relationships • Mother's role in pattering gender-identity and in separation-individuation • The oedipal and post-oedipal mother • Loss of Mother in childhood

Tuesday

Father
Father's body • Role in separation-individuation • Role in oedipus complex • Contribution to gender identity • Role during adolescence • The absent Father

Wednesday

Siblings
Factors governing the nature of sibling relationship • Birth order • Real and psychological twining • The impact of a sick or handicapped sibling • Same sex versus opposite sex siblings • Sibling versus oedipal triangles

Thursday

Grandparents and Others
Role played by grandparents • The grandparent syndrome • Nannies and housekeepers • Neighbors • Clergy • Schoolteachers

Friday

Synthesis and applications
Caveats • Formal aspects of internalization • Processes of internalization • Metabolism of introjects • Recreations in transference • Role responsiveness • Further technical implication

Salman Akhtar, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He is the author of Broken Structures (1992), Quest for Answers (1995), Inner Torment (1999), Immigration and Identity (1999), New Clinical Realms (2003), Objects of Our Desire (2005), and Regarding Others (2007). His more than 250 scientific presentations also include 25 edited volumes, prominent among which are Does God Help? (2001), Freud Along the Ganges (2005) and The Crescent and the Couch (2008). Dr. Akhtar is the recipient of the Best Paper of the Year Award from the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (1995), and Edith Sabshin Award (2000) from the same association, Kun Po Soo Award (2004), and Irma Bland Award (2005) from the American Psychiatric Association, and Sigmund Freud Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychoanalysis from the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians (2000). He has also published six volumes of poetry and is a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia.

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