NOBPC | New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center

Nomen est Omen: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Names by Mikita Brottman, D.Phil
2026-07-11 11:00 - 12:30 UTC
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
Psychotherapists do not always consider the importance of names in their work. Yet a name can carry secret wishes, internal conflicts, transgenerational traumas, and hidden identifications.
Mikita Brottman, PhD, will present on her paper, “Nomen Est Omen: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Names.” She will discuss how personal names and naming are shaped by unconscious dynamics, implicit associations, cultural influences, and relationships to parents. Dr. Brottman will also analyze associations with certain names, names in relation to the structure of the ego, and the use of names in clinical practice.
Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the significance of names within psychoanalysis and in the inner lives of their patients.
Mikita Brottman is Professor of Literature at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She has a D.Phil from Oxford University in English Language and Literature and is an NAAP certified psychoanalyst. She performs forensic evaluations for the National Institute for the study, prevention and treatment of sexual trauma. She is also the author of 15 nonfiction books, the latest of which, Guilty Creatures (Simon & Schuster, 2024) was described by the New York Times as “an unputdownable read”.
Learning Objectives:

Describe the relevance and significance of naming in clinical practice
Analyze how personal naming choices and resistance to naming conventions can reflect unconscious conflicts, desires, and cultural identifications
Identify opportunities within clinical practice to explore naming as a symbolic act that reveals transgenerational themes, identity formation, and relational dynamics

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:

Knight, Z. G. (2018). “Speaking the names” of family as “speaking a place.” British Journal of Psychotherapy, 34(3), 428–442.
Yadin, Z. S. (2016). Analyzing the patient’s first name in the search for identity. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 52(4), 547–577.
Waska, R. (2025). Name it, claim it, tame it: Modern Kleinian therapy and the challenge of change. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85, 454–474.

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
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

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
The Lost Daughter :
If Autonomy Is Reactive, What Do We Do?
Psychoanalysis and Cinema: uses the immersive power of cinema to explore the complex interplay between internal psychic life and external social structures. Although patients routinely grapple with authoritarian social demands, theory alone can mistakenly reduce them to passive objects of social control. Cinema bridges this gap by bringing the intricate, messy realities of human agency to life. Through this cinematic lens, mental health professionals can better analyze the psychological underpinnings of aggression and control, helping us understand where true freedom and psychological traps reside within the unique particularities of a patient’s life.
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 4:20pm Central Time at NOBPC or Zoom
One of the main aims of psychoanalytic therapy is to help our clients achieve autonomy and self-determination. As clinicians we tend to be sensitive to the oppressive, even authoritarian, demands that constrain our patients’ lives. And yet, theories of social control can make our clients seem more passive and less complex than they are. Psychoanalytic theory reminds us that people can be oppressed by rigid social demands in one area, like mothering a child or navigating a career, while seeing threats to their autonomy where they are less likely to exist.
The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s 2021 directorial debut, depicts a few days in a woman’s vacation threaded with flashbacks to her earlier life as a mother of two young daughters. As we follow this character through a hazy, sometimes disturbing, sometimes amusing sequence of events, the director explores themes of aggression, maternal ambivalence, and transgressive acts.
The main character, Leda, defies categorization and seems to be morally ambiguous. Refusing to paint her as a victim or an aggressor, Gyllenhaal guides us toward the open-ended questions we might ask a new patient: In what context do her actions make sense? What is she evoking? What is she repeating? Where is her freedom? What are her traps?
Learning Objectives:

Discuss the psychological underpinnings of aggression, rebellion, control and nurturance from a psychodynamic perspective.
Apply sociopolitical context and theories about power, patriarchy, social roles and the rule of law.
Examine ideas related to subjugation, autonomy, reaction formation situated within the particularities of an individual’s unique life and choices .

Liora Diamond, M.S., LPC, works as a therapist for individuals and couples in New Orleans. Her professional interests include systems, the unconscious, and culture as related to the individual experience. She has loved high and low-brow films and TV for as long as she can remember.
Liora Diamond, M.S., LPC – No disclosures
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 4:10pm 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.
Optional Readings:

Fritsch, E. (2021) Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life. 2nd ed. By Daphne de Marneffe. New York: Scribner, 2019, xiv + 291 pp., $18.00 paperback.. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 69:1223-1228
Galioto, E. D. (2019) Maternal ambivalence in the novel and film We Need to Talk About Kevin. Psychoanalysis Culture and Society 24:132-150
Zuckerman, J. R. (2019) Nasty Women: Toward a New Narrative on Female Aggression. Contemporary Psychoanalysis 55:214-251

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center. The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Credits Available:

Physicians: 1.5 Credits
Psychologists: 1.5 Credits
Social Workers: 1.5 Credits
PAs: 1.5 Credits
Nurses & NPs: 1.5 Nursing Contact Hours
Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 1.5 Credits
Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
Interprofessional Continuing Education: 1.5 Credits

Other Profession Types
Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute hold the final say on which accredited activities they accept.
Disclosure Statement
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. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.
*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 December 2022

The I in You Part II Beyond Pathology: Clinical Practice and the Narcissism-Self Paradigm by Jeffry Luria, Phd
2026-09-19 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
We’ve discussed the Narcissistic-Self paradigm in our lives previously. Part II is designed to complement the gap between the previous talk’s emphasis on theory with an emphasis on clinical practice. The DSM-5 offers a constricted, pathology-based view of narcissism, while psychoanalytic practice reveals a far more nuanced reality.
We will cover the following questions: How do we use this new understanding to improve our work with patients? How does the Narcissistic-Self process create conflict-ridden quandaries in our patient’s lives and in the psychoanalytic treatment? Can we use this understanding in the framework of transference and countertransference?
These questions require us to move into the interior of the psychoanalytic experience, paying special attention to current language, specifically current semantics in psychoanalytic discourse. Through clinical examples, Dr Luria expands on the etiology of Narcissistic-Self drives and fantasies, exploring the delicate yin and yang of Self-Hatred and Self-Love. Recognizing these narcissistic ideals as operating in both the clinician and the patient, we hope to view these meanings differently, enabling us to reflect, inform, and offer openings to a deepening psychoanalytic process. Seeing conflict and interpersonal suffering through this lens can help us choose specific language and interventions to ameliorate them.
The goal is to attenuate Narcissism-Self; to shrink it. So “shrink”—used in the hitherto as an historical and defensive invective to describe psychoanalysis turns out to be both ironic and accurate.
Is the psychoanalytic relationship an intermittent but therapeutically necessary narcissistic-self fever dream transiently interrupted by awakenings of both patient and analyst? If so, is a successful analysis defined by more enduring awakenings?
Dr. Jeffry Luria, a clinical psychologist/psychoanalyst, began practicing in 1975. He trained as a psychoanalyst at the Post Graduate Center for Mental Health in New York City and later served as a supervising psychoanalyst at two training institutes there. He is a member of the faculty of the New Orleans Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center He is working on a book entitled The I in You, a slightly ego-centric stroll through Self and Narcissism in culture and clinical practice.
Jeffry Luria, PhD – No disclosures
Learning Objectives:

Examine Narcissism and Self processes and how it restricts human functioning and exacerbates conflicts in the psychoanalytic process .
Analyze, expand and refine the specific connotative and denotative language clinicians use interventions designed to interpret and clarify Self and Narcissistic processes emerging in psychoanalytic treatment.
Apply the framework of Narcissism and Self to broaden the clinician’s approach enabling a more open and deepening between them and their patients. Specifically, using the Narcissism-Self paradigm the transferential and counter-transferential process will be further explicated enabling a more deep and positive resolution of same.

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

Zoom registration ends 24 hours before the event.
Optional Readings:

Development of narcissism across the life span: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies. Orth, Ulrich , Krauss , Samantha , & Back, Mitja D. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 150(6), Jun 2024, 643-66.
Kesman, E., Masoumi, S., De Amicis, M., Mucci, C., & Scalabrini, A. (2026) . The vulnerability to shame for the narcissistic self. Psychoanalytic Psychology. Advance online publication. Journal Article #3.
The mediating role of maladaptive perfectionism between grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Reis, Lais Costa dos Santos Pereira , Rocha , Rafael Moreton Alves da , & Lim a-Costa, Ariela Raissa Personality and Individual Differences, Vol 248, Jan 2026, 1-7 Article 113487.

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center. The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Credits Available:

Physicians: 1.5 Credits
Psychologists: 1.5 Credits
Social Workers: 1.5 Credits
PAs: 1.5 Credits
Nurses & NPs: 1.5 Nursing Contact Hours
Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 1.5 Credits
Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
Interprofessional Continuing Education: 1.5 Credits

Other Profession Types
Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute hold the final say on which accredited activities they accept.
Disclosure Statement
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. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.
*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 December 2022

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.

SAVE THE DATE: Scientific Presentation -Tentative Topic Sexuality and Erotic Transference by J. Unterberg, PhD
2027-02-28 14:00 - 16:00 | NOBPC or Zoom, 3624 Coliseum St., New Orleans, 70115, United States
More details to follow.
