“Can’t go on. Will go on.” Learning From Therapeutic Failure (Online Presentation)

2 CE Credits for Psychoanalysts, Psychologists, and Social Workers

This presentation addresses an oft-experienced but less frequently discussed phenomenon in psychoanalysis: failure in clinical work.  Kaul will give a brief sketch of a therapeutic failure on her part.  Presenting such cases to peer groups is fraught with anxiety.  In such moments we look for secure spaces: supervision, writings by psychoanalytic ancestors.  Kaul will describe her search for just such ancestry.  She will discuss a paper by a compatriot Sailesh Kapadia, “The Use of Myths in Children,” about how the shadow of a forbidden truth falls on the analysis, which ends badly.

Nilofer Kaul, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst in Delhi and a member of the Indian Psychoanalytical Society. She won the Frances Tustin Prize for her paper on parasitism in 2018 and the Rozsika Parker Prize for her paper on casual violence in 2021. Her book Plato’s Ghost: Minus Links and Liminality in Psychoanalysis was published by Karnac (Phoenix Press) in 2021. She is on the editorial boards of The International Journal of Applied Psychoanalysis and The British Journal of Psychotherapy. Her monograph Consent: Fearful Asymmetry was recently published by Zubaan, an independent Delhi-based feminist press. She taught English literature to undergraduate students at Delhi University for twenty-five years.

Professionals and General Public:  $40

Students:  Free

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