Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program Virtual Open House and Informational Q&A
2026-02-26 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Virtual Event via Zoom, LA
We’re excited to welcome you to an engaging open house and discussion with the Chair of our Psychoanalytic Education Committee, Molly Rothenberg, PhD, about our upcoming Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program, launching in Fall 2026. The virtual event will take place on February 26, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. CST via Zoom,
An in-person event will take place at the Center on February 28, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. CST, lasting approximately 30–45 minutes.
Please click HERE for online registration.
The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program offers a rich learning experience for mental health professionals eager to deepen their understanding of psychoanalytic principles and elevate their skills in conducting intensive psychotherapy. The curriculum features 26 classes each academic year, including psychoanalytic/psychodynamic theory and clinical case presentations, meeting once a week in the evening. This is a stand-alone program and is not part of the training track for psychoanalytic candidates. Applications are due April 15, 2026, and full program details—including the application—are available on our website. Whether you are considering training now or in the future, all are welcome to attend.
We look forward to seeing you!

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program In-Person Open House and Informational Q&A
2026-02-28 10:00 - 10:45 | NOBPC, 3624 Coliseum Street, New Orleans, LA, 70115, United States

Rehabilitating the Heart: A Jungian Psychoanalytic Exploration of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tale The Snow Queen by Elizabeth Colistra, PhD
2026-02-28 11:00 - 12:30 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States
Psychoanalytic Explorations is a series in which faculty members and students of the NOBPC, as well as interested members of the community, present and discuss issues of current concern to them. The focus will be on clinical practice, theoretical challenges, and non-clinical applications of psychoanalytic theory; all presentations are intended to deepen attendees’ ability to think psychoanalytically. Each session will begin with a presentation followed by questions and answers and open discussion, with the intention of facilitating relaxed, informal peer exchange.
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.
Discussion begins at 11am Central Time at NOBPC or Zoom
According to Bruno Bettelheim, “Psychoanalysis was created to enable man to accept the problematic nature of life without being defeated by it, or giving in to escapism. Freud’s prescription is that only be struggling courageously against what seem like overwhelming odds can man succeed in wringing meaning out of his existence.” This is also the message that fairy tales deliver: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, archetypal, and an intrinsic part of human existence. However, if one engages consciously in the struggle, one may discover that it is a meaningful suffering, not simply a meaningless one.
Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Snow Queen, follows the story of a young girl and boy and the trouble they both get into regarding their hearts. It is the heart which allows us to experience feeling values of love, empathy, compassion, and relatedness. In Jungian psychology, is is the realm of the archetypal feminine principle. The Snow Queen teaches us the dangers of being too one-sided, either too naively in the heart, or too cooly in the mind. Separated and eventually conjoined, the heart and mind both require distillation and refinement. If we can submit to his process, not only does it lead to the rehabilitation of the heart, but a chance for love and insight to reign together equally and powerfully in the psyche of individuals and the larger collective consciousness
Elizabeth Colistra, PhD is a certified Jungian psychoanalyst in New Orleans who offers a unique perspective on psychoanalytic discourse given her Jungian training and clinical practice.
Learning Objectives:

Describe the clinical relevance for use of fairy tales in psychoanalytic practice
Demonstrate the ways in which fairy tales help make internal processes more comprehensible and meaningful by externalizing these processes in the figures of the story and its events
Describe the process of development out of an original undifferentiated state into one of integration of opposites within the personality through the use of the fairy tale

Please join us at NOBPC or via Zoom. Participation is open to all. In-person space is limited so please register early.
Please click HERE for online registration. If you prefer to pay by check, please email nobpcenter@gmail.com.
Fee for 1.5 CME credits:

NOBPC members $25
Non-members $35
Students $10

Zoom registration ends 24 hours before the event.
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.
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:

Cunha, I. (2021). The Jaguar, The Fire, The Man: A Jungian Interpretation of a Brazilian Indigenous Tale. Psychological Perspectives, Vol. 64, issue 3, (pp. 369-382).
Newton, L. (2019). Resolving a Split in Feminine Development: The Pretty and the Ugly Maidens. Psychological Perspectives, Vol. 62, issue 1, (pp. 79-88).
Takenaka, N. (2016). The Realization of Absolute Beauty: an interpretation of the fairytale Snow White. Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol 61, issue 4, (pp. 497-514).

Language Strangeness at the Core of Psychoanalysis: The Educator, The Artist, and The Hiker Scientific Conference In-person or Zoom by John Rosegrant, PhD
2026-03-21 10:30 - 12:30 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States
Language Strangeness at the Core of Psychoanalysis: The Educator, The Artist, and The Hiker
John Rosegrant, PhD
10:30am – 12:30pm Central Time
2 In-person Clinical continuing education credits available
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.
Participation is open to all. Attendees will receive a 2-hour CME certificate. This is a hybrid event. In-person space is limited so please register early and use the early registration discount through March 4.
The “talking” part of the talking cure is strange. Often we encounter patients who want to hear from us but don’t like what we say, or want us to stop talking when they seem most in need of our help. And often patients wish we would understand them but don’t want to say anything, or at least not anything about what they most want us to understand.
We will look at clinical material with the help of an imaginary educator, an imaginary artist, and an imaginary hiker, to explore how Freud, infant researchers, and Lacan understand this strangeness. We will identify a fundamental uneasiness and alienation between language and nonverbal parts of the mind, and think about how to address clinically the problems this creates.
Learning Objectives:

Examine the fears that make it difficult for patients to talk about what is most important to them
Examine what makes patients afraid to hear from their therapists about what is most important to them
Summarize how Freud, infant researchers, and Lacan understand these fears

John Rosegrant, Ph.D. trained in Adult and Child & Adolescent Psychoanalysis at the Contemporary Freudian Society in New York City and is on the Faculty and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center. He is a highly experienced clinician who has published and presented on psychoanalytic technique, psychoanalytic theory, play therapy, dreams, fairy tales, and fantasy literature, including a psychoanalytic investigation of the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien, “Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss”. Dr. Rosegrant is on the Editorial Boards of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Psychanalytic Psychology, and The Journal of Ursula K. LeGuin Studies, and is the Reviews Editor of Mythlore, a journal of fantasy literature.
Registration Information (includes 2 CME credits)
Advance registration is required. Please click HERE to register online. If you prefer to pay by check, please email nobpcenter@gmail.com.
VIRTUAL (ZOOM) REGISTRATION ENDS Friday, March 20 at Noon Central Time.
In person at NOBPC, 3624 Coliseum St , New Orleans, LA 70115
Early Registration Discount by March 4, 2026:
NOBPC Members: $40
Non-members: $85
Students (enrolled in a formal academic or training program) $25 (No CME)
AFTER March 4 and BEFORE March 14:
NOBPC Members: $55
Non-members: $100
Students (enrolled in a formal academic or training program) $25 (No CME)
Week of Registration Fees:
NOBPC Members: $70
Non-members: $115
Students (enrolled in a formal academic or training program) $25 (No CME)
Optional Readings:

Bucci, W. (2018) The Primary Process as a Transitional Concept: New Perspectives from Cognitive Psychology and Affective Neuroscience. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 38:198-209
Busch, F. (2016) Methods of Understanding: Revisions to a Freudian Method. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 36:548-557
Fink, B. (2019) On the value of the Lacanian approach to analytic practice. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 100:315-332

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 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
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.

Film Series: Phantom Thread by Jon Dimond, PhD
2026-06-27 14:00 - 18:00 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States
Maybe He’s the Most Demanding Man:
Authoritarian Ambivalence and The Wounded Patriarch
Psychoanalysis and Cinema: Many psychotherapists struggle to understand the dynamics of power and control that emerge with their obsessive clients. Other therapists recognize these dynamics but fail to see the defensive operations, destructive pleasures and hidden vulnerabilities within these complex games of control. A psychoanalytic account of the authoritarian personality can help clinicians understand both the conflicted minds of their patients and the pathologies of our political moment.
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
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread (2017) is a taught psychological drama surrounding a meticulous couturier, Reynolds Woodcock, whose need for absolute control over his life, art, and relationships is disrupted when Alma enters his world and refuses to follow the leader. Their relationship unfolds as a battle of power and dependency, with rituals, manipulation, and emotional bids used to secure dominance and intimacy. The film examines how control can be both thrilling and destructive, revealing the compromises and corrosive obsessions that sustain their singular bond.
Drawing from the works of Sigmund Freud (Civilization and its Discontents), Wilhelm Reich (The Mass Psychology of Fascism), David Shapiro (Neurotic Styles), and Ruth Ben-Ghiat (Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall), we will review Phantom Thread as an illustration of the confounding phenomenology of The Strongman. Through this discussion, participants will be invited to apply psychoanalytic principles to better understand how a character structure organized around obsessiveness, dominance, and relentless control can at the same time be so vulnerable, emotionally reactive, and prone to surrender. Utilizing this lens, the dramatic reversal depicted in the film’s finale may be more inevitable than shocking.
Learning Objectives:

Examine the power dynamics between Alma and Reynolds Woodcock utilizing Reich’s conceptualization of authoritarian character structure
Apply Freud’s concept of the Pleasure Principle to an enhanced understanding of the ambivalent unconscious psychodynamics of authoritarian character structure
Explain the allure of the Strongman and its relationship to the obsessive personality

Dr. Jon Dimond received his doctorate in clinical psychology from The New School for Social Research in New York City. Although his practice is broadly oriented toward general adult psychotherapy, he has specialized training in treatments for severe personality disorders and trauma. Dr. Dimond additionally has an extensive research and clinical background working with individuals who identify as transgender, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, and gender non-binary.
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:

Bergstein, A. (2016). Obsessionality. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 64(5), 969–996.
Funk, R. (2024) On the Psychodynamics of Right-Wing Populism: A Frommian Perspective. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 44:37-44
Rizzolo, G. (2023). Obsessions and compulsions: A lifespan perspective. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 71(3), 445–487

Film Series: Mommie Dearest by Laura McMaster, LMFT
2026-07-25 14:00 - 18:00 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States
More details coming soon!
Screening begins at 2pm Central Time at NOBPC Discussion begins at 4:30pm Central Time at NOBPC or Zoom

Film Series: The Lost Daughter by Liora Diamond, LPC
2026-08-29 14:00 - 18:00 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States

SAVE THE DATE - THE I IN YOU PART 2 by Jeffry Luria, Phd
2026-09-19 11:00 - 13:00 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States
More details coming soon

Psychoanalysis, Authoritarianism and the Arts - Symposium with Tulane University
2026-10-17 09:30 - 13:00 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States
Tentative discussion topic. More details coming soon.
