Continuing Education Course

This course offers an exploration of memoir writing as a therapeutic tool within prison settings.  Through writing exercises, guided reflection, and psychoanalytic insights, participants will examine themes of transformation, conscience, trauma, creativity, and social change.   Readings will include excerpts from "The House of the Dead" by Dostoevsky; "The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness" by Simon Wiesenthal; “The Man Died" by Wole Soyinka, "Orange is the New Black" by Piper Kerman; and "The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”  The course is structured to help participants gain a deeper understanding of the psychological and emotional impact of incarceration, as well as to create practical, therapeutic resources for use in jails and prisons.  Instructors and healthcare professionals will work collaboratively to develop a workbook that integrates prompts addressing themes such as internal conflict and enactment, the development of conscience and moral reckoning, drives and desires, insight and self-awareness, projective identification, and forgiveness and repair.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the role of memoir in prison settings, with a focus on the therapeutic potential of storytelling and self-reflection.
• Examine how writing can help individuals confront guilt, moral dilemmas, and past actions. This module would also involve healthcare professionals analyzing how these themes can be addressed through workbook materials
• Explain how the memoir process can help individuals access and process repressed trauma and memories from their past.

CME/CE Accreditation

CME Accreditation Statement

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and Western New England Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

AMA Credit Designation Statement

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 7.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure Statement

The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME's identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.

This program is being reviewed for Continuing Education Credit Hours by the National Association of Social Workers, CT. Once approved, it will meet the continuing education criteria for Social Work Licensure renewal, Marriage & Family Therapist Licensure renewal, Professional Counselor Licensure renewal and Licensed Psychologist Licensure renewal.