The Clinical Choreography of Defense and Resistance

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Delivery Method: Synchronous Virtual Classroom via Zoom

Dates: Saturdays, April 15 - May 20, 2023 (6 week series)

Time: 9:30-11 a.m. ET

Program Cost: $225*

Continuing Education Credit: 9 CEUs (1.5 per session) 

The purpose of this series is to provide a brief overview of defense & resistance as it manifests within the clinical process.  We will explore this seminal aspect of clinical theory and practice in all of its dynamic complexity.  This class will focus on a contemporary examination of some of the bedrock motives for defense and resistance, and the mutuality of defense and resistance in the analytic process. 

We will examine several interrelated items: 1) the notion of intrapsychic danger in all of its complexities (e.g. defense and resistance come in many forms, defend against various painful contents, and serve many conflictual purposes); 2) why defense & resistance are an inevitable part of any treatment (and in the countertransference); 3) how working with defense & resistance is directly connected to gaining access to warded off feelings, thereby deepening the treatment; and 4) how working with defense & resistance creates the context for an emotionally transformative experience for everyone involved.

Mission: To gain a greater sense of clarity and confidence in working with this important and challenging aspect of the clinical process. 

Participants are strongly encouraged to bring clinical case examples from their own work, especially vignettes which feel challenging in some important way.

This workshop is appropriate for all levels of practitioners.

Program Schedule:

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this series, participants will be able to: 1) Recognize momentary and overarching defensive and resistant patterns in the clinical process, including its role in transitioning psychotherapy patients to psychoanalysis; 2) Formulate an intervention as well as to monitor and address its impact on the process; and 3) Identify these dynamics in the countertransference and the impact this has on the enactment process.

Presenter: Jill Ragozzino McElligott, MSS, LCSW, is a 1999 graduate of the Bryn Mawr College of Social Work & Social Research, where she was honored with the Pat McPherson Award for academic excellence.  She has presented in our GSSWR programs and was recently asked to teach and supervise in our psychodynamic certificate program.  For over 20 years, she has treated college students in psychotherapy, as part of the counseling centers at Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges, and she was asked to develop a psychodynamic training module as part of Bryn Mawr’s internship & post-master’s fellowship training program.  

She completed her post-graduate education at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where she graduated as a certified psychoanalyst in 2009.  She was recognized as the teacher of the year for her course on psychodynamic treatment with college students, as well as numerous awards for her course in handling defense and resistance in the clinical process. She also completed a Clinical Social Work Fellowship with the American Psychoanalytic Association, where she studied feminist revisions of female development, and she was also recognized with a Stephen Mitchell Scholarship, where she studied psychoanalytic diversity in treating inner conflict and trauma.

She also teaches psychodynamics in multiple contexts at various local medical residency programs, where she has received numerous volunteer teaching awards and has provided Grand Round presentations on the clinical process of psychoanalysis and treating self-defeating personalities.