Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

09/03/2026

GROUP SUPERVISION: “ANALYST AS INSTRUMENT”

10-week Virtual Live Training Course with Susan Kavaler-Adler, PhD, ABPP, NCPsyA
Thursdays, 4/9/26 – 6/12/26 (Thursdays, 7:15pm – 8:30pm EDT)
Find the registration link in the comments.

What can make group supervision feel different from anything you have experienced before?

In this short video, Susan Kavaler-Adler, PhD, ABPP, NCPsyA, DLitt, speaks about the distinctive approach she brings to her “Analyst as Instrument” Group Supervision Course at the Object Relations Institute.

For clinicians considering the course this fall, this is an opportunity to hear directly from Dr. Kavaler-Adler about the approach that has shaped her supervision groups at ORI.

Watch “Experiential Group Supervision: A Unique Role-Play Approach” and meet the course through the voice of its instructor.

In this video Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler describes her original role-p...

09/02/2026

CLIO’S PSYCHE: CURRENT CALLS FOR PAPERS
What can psychohistory and psychobiography reveal about friendship, the continuing value of psychoanalytic ideas, the transformative experience of depth therapy, and the rapidly changing relationships between human beings and artificial intelligence?
Clio’s Psyche, a peer-reviewed publication devoted to psychohistory, psychobiography, and psychologically informed explorations of history and human experience, invites articles for several forthcoming issues.

DUE SEPTEMBER 1, 2026:

REFLECTIONS ON HOW PSYCHOANALYSIS & OTHER DEPTH THERAPIES CHANGED YOUR LIFE
We welcome thoughtful personal, clinical, scholarly, and interdisciplinary reflections on how psychoanalysis or another depth therapy reshaped your understanding of yourself, your relationships, your work, or the meaning of your life. Reflection may include not only insight and transformation, but also rupture, disappointment, loss, and repair.
https://psychohistoryforum.com/clios-psyche-call-for-papers-reflections-on-how-psychoanalysis-other-depth-therapies-changed-your-life/

DUE OCTOBER 1, 2026:

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FRIENDSHIP: BONDS, LOSSES, BETRAYALS, AND PSYCHOBIOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS OF FAMOUS FRIENDSHIPS
Explore friendship across the lifespan; loyalty, intimacy, rivalry, estrangement, and mourning; or the psychologically consequential friendships of historical, literary, scientific, psychoanalytic, and public figures.
https://psychohistoryforum.com/psychology-of-friendship-bonds-losses-betrayals-and-psychobiographical-explorations-of-famous-friendships-cliospsyche-cfp-2026/

INTEGRATING PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPTS INTO MODERN PSYCHOHISTORICAL & PSYCHOBIOGRAPHICAL SCHOLARSHIP
How can psychoanalytic concepts deepen our understanding of historical figures, events, social movements, group processes, and collective life—without reducing complex subjects to diagnoses or imposing theory upon the evidence?
https://psychohistoryforum.com/integrating-psychoanalytic-concepts-into-modern-psychohistorical-psychobiographical-scholarship/

AI AND DIGITAL MEDIA: INTIMACY, IDENTITY, AND THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
How are AI and digital media transforming identity, intimacy, authorship, authority, attachment, trust, agency, and our experience of other people? We invite psychoanalytic, psychological, psychohistorical, cultural, and reflective perspectives on life in an increasingly mediated world.
https://psychohistoryforum.com/clios-psyche-call-for-papers-ai-and-digital-media-intimacy-identity-and-the-future-of-human-relationships/

ONGOING CALL:

PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY
We welcome psychologically informed studies of historical figures and other consequential lives — work grounded in evidence, attentive to development, and written with curiosity, empathy, and respect for the complexity of the subject.
https://psychohistoryforum.com/call-for-papers-psychobiography-fall-2024/
We invite submissions from psychohistorians, psychobiographers, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, historians, scholars, clinicians, writers, and reflective practitioners across disciplines.
Please read the individual Calls for Papers for themes, article lengths, submission requirements, and submission forms — and share them with colleagues whose work may contribute to these conversations.

09/02/2026

Today is the first day of “Fairbairn in the Consulting Room.”

This evening, David P. Celani, PhD begins ORI’s new 5-week live course exploring Ronald Fairbairn’s structural theory and its direct application to clinical work.

Fairbairn offers a distinct way of understanding patients whose inner worlds have been shaped by early relational trauma, dissociation, developmental failure, and unresolved dependency. Rather than approaching these difficulties primarily through classical drive theory, this course focuses on the internalized relationships and split-off structures that continue to organize experience in adulthood.

Across five sessions, Dr. Celani will examine the child’s dependency on the caregiver, the origins of splitting, the internal dynamics of Fairbairn’s structural model, the defenses that emerge from dissociated structures, and the construction of a clinical narrative that can guide treatment.

Each meeting combines one hour of lecture with one hour of group supervision, creating an opportunity to move between theory and the realities of the consulting room. Participants may bring clinical material for discussion and consider how Fairbairn’s concepts can illuminate complex patterns of attachment, resistance, differentiation, and the integration of good and bad object memories.

The course begins TODAY, September 2.

Fairbairn in the Consulting Room: Structural Theory, Clinical Formulation, and Masterclass Supervision
with David P. Celani, PhD

September 2–30, 2026
Wednesdays | 7:30–9:30 PM ET
Live on Zoom
14.50 CE hours available

If you have been considering joining us, there is still time to register for tonight’s opening session.

Learn more and register:
https://orinyc.org/fairbairn-in-the-consulting-room-structural-theory-clinical-formulation-and-masterclass-supervision-with-david-p-celani-phd/

09/01/2026

Why is Edith Jacobson so rarely discussed today?

Edith Jacobson (1897–1978) was one of the important psychoanalytic thinkers of the twentieth century. Her work on the self and object world, depression, psychosis, ego development, and self- and object-representations contributed to a line of thinking that would later become central to theories of borderline and narcissistic pathology, particularly in the work of Otto Kernberg. Yet Jacobson herself is now far less frequently taught than many of her contemporaries.

Her intellectual history was also inseparable from an extraordinary personal one. In N**i Germany, Jacobson was imprisoned by the Gestapo from 1935 to 1937 after refusing to provide information about a patient. Danielle Knafo’s new psychobiographical study examines how Jacobson later connected this experience with her thinking about depersonalization and ego resilience, and how biography may have entered the development of her psychoanalytic theory.

Jacobson’s clinical presence adds another dimension. Accounts gathered from former analysands, students, and colleagues describe a clinician who could be warm, engaged, and personally present—an intriguing contrast with the technical neutrality associated with the psychoanalytic institution in which she worked.

On September 6, Danielle Knafo, PhD, will bring Edith Jacobson back into focus in “Holding onto Reality: Edith Jacobson’s Life and Theory.” Drawing on archival research and interviews Knafo conducted in the 1990s with people who knew Jacobson personally, the meeting will explore both the woman and the theorist—and ask why a thinker whose ideas remain embedded in contemporary psychoanalysis has become comparatively absent from its teaching.

Sunday, September 6, 2026
10:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. EDT
Virtual live meeting on Zoom
Free to attend; RSVP required - https://psychohistoryforum.com/holding-onto-reality-edith-jacobson-life-and-theory-work-in-progress-danielle-knafo-september-6-2026/

This event offers an opportunity to reconsider Edith Jacobson not simply as a historical figure, but as an important link in the development of contemporary psychoanalytic thought.

09/01/2026

Fairbairn in the Consulting Room:
Structural Theory, Clinical Formulation, and Masterclass Supervision

5-week Virtual Live Course (on Zoom) with David P. Celani, PhD

September 2, 2026 – September 30, 2026 | Wednesdays | 7:30–9:30 PM ET
Each class includes a lecture and a group supervision component.

14.50 CE hours for NYS Psychologists, NYS Social Workers,
and the APA (covers most mental health professionals outside of NYS)

To Register for this course, please visit https://orinyc.org/fairbairn-in-the-consulting-room-structural-theory-clinical-formulation-and-masterclass-supervision-with-david-p-celani-phd/

Why do we remain attached to the very people who have hurt, rejected, or failed us?

For Fairbairn, this question begins with the child’s overwhelming dependency on the parent.
The child cannot simply give up the relationship because the parent is also frustrating, rejecting, unavailable, or frightening. Fairbairn’s structural theory attempts to explain how the psyche preserves that attachment through splitting, dissociated ego structures, and internalized representations of the parent.

David P. Celani, PhD, has spent decades interpreting, teaching, and clinically applying Fairbairn’s Object Relations theory.
Across his books and clinical writing, Celani has worked to make Fairbairn’s ideas usable in the consulting room, especially his concepts of attachment to “bad objects,” splitting, dissociation, differentiation, integration, and the persistence of early relational patterns in adult life.

STARTING SEPTEMBER 2:
In this five-week course, Dr. Celani will take participants through Fairbairn’s developmental and structural theory step by step.

The course begins with Fairbairn and Suttie and the overwhelming nature of the child’s dependency on the mother/caretaker; moves into the origins of splitting and Fairbairn’s structural theory; examines the internal dynamics and defenses of the dissociated structures; and concludes with the construction of a clinical narrative and the resistances that emerge from split-off structures.

Each two-hour session combines approximately one hour of lecture with one hour of group masterclass supervision, allowing participants to move directly from theory to clinical material.

08/31/2026

Fairbairn in the Consulting Room:
Structural Theory, Clinical Formulation, and Masterclass Supervision

5-week Virtual Live Course (on Zoom)
with David P. Celani, PhD
September 2, 2026 – September 30, 2026 | Wednesdays | 7:30–9:30 PM ET
Each class includes a lecture and a group supervision component.

Continuing Education: 14.50 CE hours for NYS Psychologists, NYS Social Workers,
and the APA (covers most mental health professionals outside of NYS)

To Register for this course, please visit https://orinyc.org/fairbairn-in-the-consulting-room-structural-theory-clinical-formulation-and-masterclass-supervision-with-david-p-celani-phd/

Many analysts were trained to think primarily in terms of drive, defenses, and Oedipal conflict. Fairbairn asked us to think differently — relationally.

Fairbairn placed the child-parent relationship at the center of psychic development. He asked what happens when the child is overwhelmingly dependent upon a parent who is also frustrating, rejecting, unavailable, or frightening — and how those early relationships become organized within the structure of the psyche.

His structural theory is compelling, but it is not always easy to make one’s own. The language of splitting, dissociated ego structures, internalized objects, differentiation, and integration requires a different way of conceptualizing personality development and psychopathology.

DAVID P. CELANI has spent decades interpreting, teaching, and clinically applying Fairbairn’s Object Relations theory. For many who have studied Fairbairn with Dr. Celani before, this course offers an opportunity to return to the model more systematically — to deepen what is already familiar, clarify what remains difficult, and bring Fairbairn’s structural theory more fully into one’s own clinical thinking.

STARTING THIS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

In this 5-week course, Dr. Celani will take participants through Fairbairn’s developmental and structural theory step by step and then apply it directly to clinical material through group masterclass supervision.

FIVE WEEKS OF FAIRBAIRNIAN THEORY AND CLINICAL APPLICATION

Week 1: Fairbairn, Suttie, and the overwhelming nature of the child’s dependency on the mother/caretaker

Week 2: The origins of Fairbairn’s structural theory and the necessity for the child to split his/her objects

Week 3: The internal dynamics of Fairbairn’s structural theory: Fairbairn’s formulation and Dr. Celani’s clinical perspective

Week 4: The three distinct and independent defenses that emerge from the dissociated structures

Week 5: Constructing a clinical narrative and tolerating the inevitable resistances from split-off structures

Each two-hour session includes approximately one hour of lecture and one hour of group masterclass supervision, allowing participants to move directly from theory to clinical material.

For those who have studied with Dr. Celani before, this is not simply a repetition of earlier material. It is an opportunity to revisit Fairbairn’s model as a coherent developmental and structural system — and to work with it closely enough that it becomes increasingly available in the consulting room.

Intended Audience

This course is intended for mental health clinicians and trainees working with patients whose early relational experiences continue to shape their inner world, relationships, and emotional development. The course may also be of interest to parent coaches and trauma-informed practitioners seeking a deeper understanding of chronic early relational trauma and its developmental consequences.

08/29/2026

What happens when an important psychoanalytic thinker remains deeply present in contemporary theory, while her own name gradually recedes from view?

On Sunday, September 6, the Psychohistory Forum invites you to a work-in-progress meeting with Danielle Knafo, PhD, devoted to the life and theoretical legacy of Edith Jacobson (1897–1978).

The story behind this paper is unusual. More than thirty years ago, Dr. Knafo began researching a psychobiography of Jacobson and interviewed her former analysands, students, and friends. The project was eventually set aside. Decades later, Knafo rediscovered the interview transcripts — testimony from people who, in most cases, are no longer alive — and returned to the project.

The resulting paper, “Holding onto Reality: Edith Jacobson’s Life and Theory,” brings biography and psychoanalytic theory into conversation.

It considers Jacobson’s imprisonment by the Gestapo and her later thinking about depersonalization and ego resilience; her theories of depression, self- and object-representations, and psychosis; and the striking contrast between descriptions of her warm, personally engaged clinical presence and the more neutral analytic technique associated with her institutional setting.

The paper also asks why Jacobson, whose structural thinking helped shape later theories of borderline and narcissistic pathology, is so rarely taught today.

This will not be a traditional lecture. Participants are asked to read Dr. Knafo’s 25-page paper in advance. After a brief presentation, the meeting will be devoted primarily to discussion — including questions about psychobiographical evidence, retrospective testimony, the relationship between life experience and theory, and the challenges of bringing private clinical histories into published scholarship.

Holding onto Reality: Edith Jacobson’s Life and Theory
Danielle Knafo, PhD

Sunday, September 6, 2026
10:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. EDT
Virtual live meeting on Zoom
Free to attend; RSVP required - https://psychohistoryforum.com/holding-onto-reality-edith-jacobson-life-and-theory-work-in-progress-danielle-knafo-september-6-2026/

The presentation draft is available on the event page so participants can read it before the meeting.

Join the Psychohistory Forum for a close reading and collegial discussion of Edith Jacobson — as a theorist, clinician, and person.

08/28/2026

REGISTER - https://orinyc.org/beholder-mind-trauma-childhood-adversity-personality-organization-aging-august29-2026-inna-rozentsvit/

08/28/2026

Register https://orinyc.org/fairbairn-in-the-consulting-room-structural-theory-clinical-formulation-and-masterclass-supervision-with-david-p-celani-phd/

08/27/2026

To Register for this seminar, please complete the Registration form - https://orinyc.org/beholder-mind-trauma-childhood-adversity-personality-organization-aging-august29-2026-inna-rozentsvit/