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Christopher Bollas
Saturday, March 10, 2018, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM PDT
Category: Special Programs

The Psychoanalysis of Breakdown

with Christopher Bollas, PhD

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Lewis Clark College -- Council Chamber

This four hour workshop will discuss Christopher Bollas’ book Catch Them Before They Fall: The Psychoanalysis of Breakdown (Routledge, 2009).  All conference participants are asked to have read this book prior to attending.


Bollas will discuss the history of why and how he came to offer extended psychoanalytical sessions to people in either full analysis (four to five times a week) or in psychoanalytical psychotherapy.  He will discuss those clinical indications of when a non psychotic patient is having a breakdown, how it offers the possibility of a transformative breakthrough in their treatment, and what the clinician must do to stay ahead of the patient’s regression in the analysis. After a short break the conference will then consist of an open discussion with the group in which it is anticipated that those attending will ask a range of questions from quite practical details to questions ranging over theory.

Educational Objectives:  At the conclusion of this program participants will be able to:

  1. To identify and define the clinical picture that indicates when a patient is on the verge of having a non psychotic breakdown.
  2. To identify the steps that the clinician must take—from informing the patient of the proposed extension of ordinary sessions to indicating the collaboration with other treaters who are part of the ‘team’—before this treatment is put into effect.
  3. To identify the many dimensions of building an out-patient treatment team.
  4. To identify the stages of treatment during a patient’s breakdown.
  5. To identify how one assesses that a successful treatment has taken place.
  6. Discussion of the technical aspects of returning to ordinary sessions.

Christopher Bollas is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytical Studies.  He is an Honorary Member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York.

He has been in clinical practice for fifty years and received his clinical trainings in both the United States and Great Britain.  He was a graduate of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program at the University of Buffalo (1972), and received an MSW from Smith College in 1973.  He trained as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic in London and qualified in 1978.  He also trained as a psychoanalyst at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London and qualified in 1977.

He was the first non medical psychoanalyst to serve on the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis (1979-83); Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis at the Institute for Child Neuropsychiatry, University of Rome (1978-1998); Director of Education at the Austen Riggs Center (1985-87); Professor of English Literature at the University of Massachusetts (1983-87); and Vorhees Professor at the Menninger Clinic. 

He has lectured widely in Europe, the USA, South America, Australia, Japan, Israel, and Singapore and gave a keynote speech to the International Psychoanalytical Association in Boston in 2015. 

He has published numerous books, from The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known (1987) to When the Sun Burst: The Enigma of Schizophrenia (2016).

His books  have been translated into more than ten languages.

He is a citizen of both the USA and the UK.

He lives in Santa Barbara, California where he maintains his private practice.

9:00 am – 1:00 pm/ 4 cmes
Lewis and Clark College – Miller 105
$150 Non-Members / $135 Members/ $75 Residents-Interns
University Students can attend for free with a valid student ID on day of the event pending available seating. 

Register Here

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Oregon Psychoanalytic Center. 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 4 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.


Contact: [email protected]