Transitions and Identity: Who Am I Now?
Saturday, February 22, 2020
115 W 27th St., 4th Fl.
1PM-3PM
2 CEs Available for NYS Social Workers
Each transition in our lives changes our sense of who we are – sometimes in small ways and sometimes in huge ones. As therapists, people come to us to change, and we encourage them to explore different ways of being. But new behavior patterns, even when they are both positive and also greatly desired, can often be hard to maintain. In this presentation, we will look at some of the ways that the emergence of a new, unfamiliar sense of self can affect and be affected by a transition. Two clinical examples, briefly illuminated by ideas drawn from relational, attachment, affect-regulation, and neuropsychological theories, will help us think and talk about how we, as therapists, can work with shifting self-perceptions and self-definitions to best help our clients manage the changes that might have brought them into therapy, as well as the changes that therapy might cause.
F. Diane Barth, LCSW is in private practice in New York City where she works with individuals and couples (including adult child and parent couples) and runs private study and supervision groups. She also is now running distance consultation groups online. Her articles have been published in the Clinical Social Work Journal, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Psychoanalytic Psychology, Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, Journal of College Student Psychotherapy and other professional journals, and as chapters in numerous books. Her most recent books include Integrative Clinical Social Work: A Contemporary Perspective and I Know How You Feel: The Joys and Heartbreaks of Friendship in Women’s Lives. She also writes for several online magazines, including MSNBC and Quartz, and has a blog on Psychology Today, called “Off the Couch.”