The Annual Psychoanalytic Couple
Psychotherapy Lecture 2022

In this presentation, Dr. Nathans will present her paper, “Oedipus for Everyone: Revitalizing the Model for LBGTQI Couples and Single Parent Families", where she makes the case that the misguided application of Oedipal theory has led to the pathologizing of those with different gender identities or sexual orientations. Despite this harm, Oedipal dynamics are often viewed as a central organizing schema for understanding the dynamics couples and families. In this presentation, Dr. Nathans will revitalize Oedipal theory, divorcing it from its historical heterosexist bias, and highlighting its relevance for working with all relationships, including LBGTQI couples and families. Rather than using classical Freudian Oedipal theory which situates Oedipus in the psychosexual development of children, a contemporary Kleinian/Bionian model will be used  to orient the discussion to the relevance of Oedipal issues in adult relationships.  Problematic Oedipal dynamics are not always present, but when they dominate or underlie adult relationships, they can be stifling, destabilizing, and destructive. This perspective emphasizes the importance of considering Oedipal triadic structures when working with diverse couples and families. Clinical vignettes will be used to demonstrate the application of this theoretical point of view.

Shelley Nathans, Ph.D. is on the faculties of The California Pacific Medical Center, The Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. She is the director and producer of the film, Robert Wallerstein: 65 Years at the Center of Psychoanalysis. She is on the international advisory board of the journal, Couple and Family Psychoanalysis and is President of the Board for the Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group.  Her publications include “Oedipus for Everyone: Revitalizing the Model for LBGTQ Couples and Single Parent Families'' (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2021); “45 Years” ( fort da, 2018); "Whose Disgust is it Anyway?: Projection and Projective Identification in the Couple Relationship, (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2016); and Infidelity as Manic Defence (Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, 2015).  She is co-editor (with Milton Schaefer) of Couples on the Couch: Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy and the Tavistock Model (Routledge, 2017) and the editor of the forthcoming book More About Couples on the Couch: Approaching Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy from an Expanded Perspective (in press, Routledge 2022).  She is in private practice in both San Francisco and Oakland, California.

Dr. Gary Grossman is a psychologist & psychoanalyst with over 40 years of experience working with gay and queer men as individuals and in couples. He is a Volunteer Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF and a Training & Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, where he also chairs the Psychoanalytic Education Division.  

Dr. Grossman was the Chair of the Committee on LGBT Issues (now known as the Committee on Gender & Sexuality) of the American Psychoanalytic Association from 2000-2005, and served on that committee through 2016.  He is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health and a Co-Editor of the Sex & Gender Section of Psychoanalytic Terms & Concepts (Auchincloss & Samberg, Eds.), published in 2012 by the American Psychoanalytic Association and Yale University Press.  He has taught and presented locally, nationally and internationally on psychoanalysis and psychotherapy with queer and gay men. He is in private practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy & consultation in San Francisco.