Exploring the Unconscious: Arts, Science and the Humanities
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Creativity and the Erotic Dimensions of the Analytic Field
Saturday, January 25, 2020 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Dr. Elise will present an overview and discussion of her book, Creativity and the Erotic Dimensions of the Analytic Field, where she puts forth the premise that psychoanalysis is an erotic project. She proposes that a creative aesthetic can provide a clinical container for the engagement and exploration of erotic life within the anlytic field of each treatment – linking the erotic dimensions of the psyche with the psychoanalytic process. An atmosphere of libidinal energy is seen as a crucial aspect in enlivening the intersubjective field. When fully articulated as an energy potential in both participants, analytic eroticism can offer libidinal engagement within an ethical frame as a stimulus to emotionally embodied thinking – linking – that can lead to transformation in many dimensions including the erotic. Maternal eroticism, as a libidinal vitality and investment that a mother brings to her fully embodied engagement with her child, is developed as a metaphor for clinical process: The analyst holds, contains, and stimulates; each of these capacities is mobilized in the service of the patient’s growth. An intertwining of the erotic and the creative in the embodied, affective interaction of the analytic dyad allows for deepening contact with an authentic sense of being. A Winnicottian field theory is conceptualized.
SPEAKER
![](https://berkpsych.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DianneElise.jpg)
Dianne Elise, Ph.D. is a Personal and Supervising Analyst and Faculty member of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, a Training Analyst member of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and she has served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the Americal Psychoanalytic Association and Studies in Gender and Sexuality. Her over 30 publications include wide-ranging papers on the subjects of gender, sexuality and erotic transference, appearing in the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Studies in Gender & Sexuality, and Psychoanalytic Inquiry. She has recently developed the concept of analytic eroticism to portray the role of libidinal vitality in treatment. Dr. Elise's book Creativity and the Erotic Dimensions of the Analytic Field (Routledge, 2019) expands her work in innovative ways and presents her contemporary thinking on erotic life in psychoanalysis. She is in private practice in Oakland, California.