Film Series: Mommie Dearest by Laura McMaster, LMFT

Joan’s Wire Hangers:

Reconciling that Recollection is the Best Fake We Have on Hand

Psychoanalysis and Cinema: Many psychotherapists struggle to reconstruct patients’ early life stories and parse external reality from unconscious phantasies. This challenge is further complicated by pervasive images, prejudices, and power dynamics that imbue even the most private traumas with cultural meanings. To bridge this gap, clinicians look to cinema and culture to see how macro-level dynamics reshape internal psychic reality. A psychoanalytic account of the authoritarian personality helps move beyond traditional intrapsychic models to understand how societal trauma intertwines with private trauma. This program helps practitioners develop clinical skills to deconstruct how these broader cultural narratives dictate what a patient remembers, represses, or replicates within the transference relationship.

Psychologists, Social Workers, and Licensed Professional Counselors may also receive continuing education credit for this activity if their accredited associations or boards recognize CME credits.

Screening begins at 2pm Central Time at NOBPC

Discussion begins at 4:30pm Central Time at NOBPC or Zoom

Mommie Dearest (1981), the outrageous and ill-fated biopic, takes a bold, haphazard stab at portraying the career and private life of Joan Crawford. Based on the Hollywood tell-all of the same name written by Joan’s reportedly abused eldest daughter Christina Crawford, viewers are concurrently introduced to a cinematic plot and a series of what we might gently call artistic misfires. Joan Crawford (1906—1977) likely had a lot to say about standing up to authoritarianism, having pushed ahead a career and a personal life when studio executives and McCarthy-era politics would have had it otherwise. Over the course of the biopic, we get a rare opportunity to examine a fundamentally interesting woman portrayed by an artistic team who might have loved and hated her at the same time, not so different from the author of the source material.

In Freud’s 1896 letter to Fleiss Freud wrote “Memory is present not once but several times over, that it is laid down in various kinds of indications,” a remark which builds the bridge to the film’s second life. Mommie Dearest entered the cultural lexicon of drag, and a love for Joan was re-born through the lens of gay male spectators, who portrayed the power and the persona of an actress, a mother, and a diva in clubs, on stage, and even recently in a drag musical. By re-working the film’s most memorable scenes, drag brings the viewer back to affection for this challenging story by turning the 1981 film into a point of reference, less of a perfectly reliable source of what really happened.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the psychotherapeutic dilemma of not being able to access the original truth of any report, despite a collective want to stand up to oppressive powers and to meet guidelines for ethical practice.
• Examine Brett Farmer’s remarks from Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorship in which the author explores pre-Oedipal states achieved from identifying with strong female movie stars
• Summarize how certain tropes and images transmute over time from real life to drag and what the art form has the potential to advance through spectacle

Laura McMaster, Msc, LMFT works as a psychotherapist for individuals and couples. She holds a Masters in Anthropology and has been a lifelong patron of the arts. She has appreciated developing personal interests in French culture and language for the past 10 years. Laura and her family have relocated to New Orleans where they have enjoyed a warm and vibrant welcome.

Attendance is free but pre-register HERE

Please click HERE for registration with CME credits. If you prefer to pay by check, please email nobpcenter@gmail.com.

Fee for 1.5 CME credits:

• NOBPC members $10
• Non-members $15

In-person space is limited so please register early.

If you wish to join only for the discussion, please watch the film prior to joining. If joining for the discussion only, please arrive at NOBPC by 4:20pm or join the Zoom link.

The film is available to rent on several streaming services.

Zoom registration ends 24 hours before the event and is only available for the discussion portion.

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 NOBPC. 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 1.5 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.

Optional Readings:

• Laufer, B. (2024). Shadow maternal subjectivities. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 21(3), 349–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/1551806X.2024.2375974
• Gherovici, P., & Steinkoler, M. (Eds.). (2023). Psychoanalysis, gender, and sexualities: From feminism to trans*. Routledge
• Leavitt, J. (2020). The bad enough mother. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 21(1), 58–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/15240657.2020.1721141