Love and the Refusal to Love – integrating findings from neurobiology and psychoanalysis.
Facilitated by Kathy Harting, LMHC, Psychoanalyst
Cost to attend will be $32.50 (full-time student rate is $16.25 with discount code “STUDENT”). Price includes all credit card processing fees. 1.5 CEs are available.
This seminar integrates contemporary neurobiological and psychoanalytic perspectives on relational development, focusing on the capacity to engage in love versus patterns of refusal. Drawing on current scholarship and the work of Otto Kernberg on love and aggression, the course examines how these dynamics manifest in clinical practice.
Participants will explore how neurobiological processes and internal object relations contribute to these relational patterns and will apply this understanding to clinical formulation and intervention. Clinical examples will be used to facilitate discussion and deepen participants’ ability to work with patients in whom aggression, withdrawal, or refusal of love predominate.
Learning Objectives
1) Identify at least three psychological and relational characteristics associated with the capacity to use love versus the refusal to love.
2) Describe at least one neurobiological process relevant to relational engagement or avoidance.
3) Apply two psychoanalytically informed therapeutic interventions to clinical situations involving a predominant refusal to love.