- This event has passed.
Film Series: The Piano Teacher presented by Helene Greece, LCSW & Paul Doyen, LMSW
November 19, 2023 @ 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm
2023-2024 Film Series: Psychoanalysis and Cinema: Horror, Pathology and Reframing Perversion
Our screening series will introduce mental health professionals to psychoanalytic concepts and research around sexuality, trauma, and uncanny experiences. Participants will watch psychosexually themed films and participate in professional-led discussions analyzing the material in terms of psychopathology and treatment.
Screening begins at 2pm Central Time at NOBPC
Discussion begins at 4:20pm Central Time at NOBPC or Zoom
“The Piano Teacher” presents us with a film that is a looking glass/perverse version of a classic Hollywood fairytale romance: the protagonist, Erika, is a repressed middle-aged woman trapped in a suffocating relationship with her mother. The young hero arrives on the scene, rescues Erika from her mother and brings her to erotic life so that love can triumph. Except that is not at all what happens.
Our discussion of the “The Piano Teacher” centers on Erika’s erotic perversion and the intra-psychic conflicts from which it springs. We will explore Erika’s perversion as both a compromise formation managing the conflict between id and superego demands and a result of the inescapable chains of maternal dominance and jouissance described by Lacan.
Participants will learn about Freud’s account of perversions as “abnormal” sexual impulses that escape repression and sublimation, transformations of Freud’s concept of perversion into an erotically gratifying defense, and Lacan’s developmental theory of perversion as an incomplete separation from the “mOther” aided by the absence of “father as Law.” Together we will consider the roles of fantasy, compromise formation, jouissance, desire and lack in the film and the actions of its central characters: Erika, the mother and Walter.
Learning Objectives:
• Summarize Freud’s theory of perversion as “the negative of neurosis”
• Describe revisions of Freud’s theory and the recasting of perversion as an erotically gratifying defense following sexual prohibition
• Describe Lacan’s concepts of jouissance, desire and lack and how they are represented within the film
• Assess Erika’s intrapsychic conflicts and perversion by applying both classical and Lacanian theories of the perverse
Helene Greece, LCSW, SEP is in private practice in New Orleans. She has completed the Studies in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program at NOBPC and is credentialed as a Somatic Experience Practitioner. She is excited to have begun learning about Lacan.
Paul Doyen, LMSW, is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in New Orleans. He has pursued psychoanalytic supervision and coursework at the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center and the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis.
**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 4:15pm or join the Zoom link.
The film is available on most streaming services.
Attendance is free but pre-register by emailing nobpcenter@gmail.com.
Zoom registration ends 24 hours before the event and is only available for the discussion portion.
1.5 CME credits is $10 for NOBPC members and $15 for non-members.
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.
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.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.
-Updated July 2021-
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.