Faculty Development with Lena Ehrlich, PsyD, FABP

Title: Is Teleanalysis a Compromised Treatment?

Given that most analysts practice teleanalytically for at least a portion of each work week, questions about how to practice and teach it effectively are more pressing than ever. As a framework for addressing these questions, this presentation suggests that the common views of teleanalysis as inherently inferior to in-office analysis undermines our therapeutic effectiveness because it allows analysts to avoid making analytic use of the disturbing feelings hiding within the experience of practicing teleanalysis. With three case examples, it shows that when analysts do not take our negative views of teleanalysis at face value but instead consider them as symbolic expressions of our and our patients’ anxieties, we can improve our understanding of our analytic functioning within the tele-setting and enhance our capacity to engage analytically effectively in any setting.  These considerations have important implications, not only for how experienced analysts practice, but also for how we treat and teach future analysts.

Objectives:

1. Identify two challenges to working teleanalytically effectively.
2. Identify two essential conditions for effective teleanalytic work.

Approximate Schedule

Location for faculty development will be decided based on number of confirmed attendees.

  10 am - 1 pm:     Paper presentation

  1 pm - 2 pm:       Lunch

   2pm - 4:30 pm:  Case discussion

Faculty Appreciation Dinner will be at Del Frisco's Grille, Cherry Creek

   6pm - 9pm:        Faculty Appreciation Dinner (free for faculty, fee for guests)

Bio:

Lena Theodorou Ehrlich is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and Visiting Faculty at the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Florida Psychoanalytic Center. In addition to her 35 years of clinical and supervisory practice in Ann Arbor, she is internationally recognized for her writing and teaching on various aspects of clinical theory and practice, including obstacles to beginning and deepening analysis, forming and nourishing an analytic identity and practice, supervisory countertransferences, and the psychoanalytic frame. Her paper “Teleanalysis: Slippery slope or rich opportunity?” won the 2019 Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Prize Award for excellence in psychoanalytic scholarship and distinguished contributions to the journal. In 2020, she published a book entitled Psychoanalysis from the Inside Out: Developing and Sustaining an Analytic Identity and Practice. Dr Ehrlich is the recipient of the 2024 ApsaA Candidates' Council Master Teacher Award. She is currently serving on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.