Ritvo Lecture
Saturday, October 25, 2025
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
255 Bradley Street
Event will also be available
via Zoom (link will be sent via email the day before the event)
New Haven, CT 06510
Countertransference: The Total Situation in Child Analysis
Speaker: Alan Sugarman, PhD
Discussant: Lisa Marcus, PhD
Moderator: Matthew Shaw, PhD
Non-WNEPS members
$25.00
WNEPS members, candidates and all students/trainees
$0.00
Registration Coming Soon
Using vivid clinical material, broad theoretical references, and his experiences as an analyst for decades, Dr. Sugarman will discuss the total situation in child analysis and why it tends to elicit particularly intense countertransference responses and often enactments. He defines transference and countertransference as the interpersonalization of mental structures and not only examines them in response to child patients and their caregivers but also teachers, drivers, and other seemingly peripheral figures. Dr. Sugarman’s approach is nuanced, clear, and clinically grounded, and he elucidates his ideas through varied clinical examples.
Learning Objectives
- Articulate the differences between a narrow and a broad definition and understanding of countertransference in child psychoanalysis.
- Define indirect countertransference in child psychoanalysis.
- Understand and apply the distinction between providing a corrective emotional experience and serving as a developmental object when analyzing children and adolescents.
Speaker: Alan Sugarman, PhD
Alan Sugarman, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist who practices in Solana Beach, CA. He is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst and a Supervising Child and Adolescent Psychoanalyst at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center. Dr. Sugarman is the former and inaugural Head of APsA’s Department of Psychoanalytic Education and the current and inaugural Head of its Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Department. He chaired the APsA Subcommittee on an Integrated Child/Adolescent/Adult Curriculum and served as member of the IPA Integrated Training Committee. Dr. Sugarman has published widely, applying developmental thinking to issues of technique and psychopathology. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and serves on the editorial boards of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly and Psychoanalytic Psychology.
Discussant: Lisa Marcus, PhD
Lisa Marcus, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and child/adolescent and adult psychoanalyst in practice in New Haven. She teaches on the faculty of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis and occasionally more broadly in the New Haven community. She is the Chair of Faculty in the child and adolescent training track.
Moderator: Matthew Shaw, PhD
Matthew Shaw, PhD, is a psychoanalyst for children, adolescents, and adults, teaches at the Yale School of Medicine, and is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis in New Haven, CT. He chairs the child and adolescent training program and has published broadly, most recently in JAPA and in a book on Hans Loewald. Dr. Shaw gave the Saltz Grand Rounds at Children’s National Hospital, the plenary at the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, and the Beata Rank Lecture at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He is on the editorial board for the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Psychoanalytic Quarterly.
CME/CE Accreditation
ACCME 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 2 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.
