PERTH: Nancy McWilliams and Michael Garrett

**** Ticket sales close 6th Feb ****

Psych Ascend is honoured to present as its inaugural event, a national series of live lectures with Dr Nancy McWilliams and Michael Garrett, MD in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. This will be Dr McWilliams’ and Dr Garrett’s final teaching tour within Australia, and the last opportunity to see them presenting live in Perth. 

We welcome colleagues from psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, many of whom are familiar with and whose practice has already been enriched by Dr McWilliams’ seminal writing and teachings on psychoanalytic diagnosis, and Dr Garrett’s innovative integration of CBT and psychodynamic psychotherapy for the treatment of psychosis. We warmly encourage early-career clinicians, students and those new to the work of Dr McWilliams and Dr Garrett to take advantage of this unique and invaluable learning opportunity. This is an event not to be missed!

Programme

14 February 2025 

9am – 10.30am Dr Nancy McWilliams

The Many Faces of Sorrow: Helping Patients with Grief, Depression, and Depressive Personality Styles 

11am – 12.30am Dr Nancy McWilliams

Case presentation of a long-term treatment of a self-defeating patient 

1.30 – 3.30pm Dr Michael Garrett

Psychotherapy for Psychosis: Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatment

4pm – 5pm Dr Nancy McWilliams & Dr Michael Garrett 

Live Consultation with audience case presentation

15 February 2025

 

9am – 10.30am Dr Michael Garrett

Psychotic Symptoms as Disguised Recollections of Trauma

11am – 12.30am Dr Michael Garrett

Making Complementary CBTp and Psychodynamic Formulations 

1.30 – 3.30pm Dr Nancy McWilliams

Ten Angles of Vision on Personality with Clinical Implications 

4pm – 5pm Dr Nancy McWilliams & Dr Michael Garrett 

Live Consultation with audience case presentation

Refreshments & Breaks 

Morning and Afternoon Tea served each day at 10.30am and 3.30pm. 

Lunch served each day at 12.30-1.30pm.

Early Bird Registration closes 30 November 2024

$415* Early Bird One Day Tickets 

$690* Early Bird Two Day Tickets (Both Days) 

$475* Standard One Day Tickets  

$790* Standard Two Day Tickets (Both Days)

* Prices above are exclusive of GST and Humanitix booking fees 

Early Career Psychologists (less than 5 years post graduation) 20% off - Limited tickets available - Promotional Code at checkout: EARLYCAREER

Current full-time Students 40%** off  - Limited tickets available (This discount is NOT available for psychiatry or psychology registrars, who should instead use the Early Career Code) - Email us at info@psychascend.au for your unique discount code, stating: your university, degree name and expected year of completion.  

 

Presenter Information

Nancy McWilliams is Visiting Professor Emerita at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology and has a private practice in Lambertville, NJ. She is author of Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (1994; rev. ed. 2011), Psychoanalytic Case Formulation (1999), Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2004), and Psychoanalytic Supervision (2021), all with Guilford Press. She has edited or contributed to several other books, and is Associate Editor of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (2006, Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2017). She is a former president of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association and is on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology. A graduate of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, Dr. McWilliams is also affiliated with the Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA. Dr. McWilliams specializes in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and supervision; the relationship between diagnosis and treatment; alternatives to DSM and ICD diagnostic conventions; integration of feminist theory and psychoanalytic knowledge; the application of psychoanalytic understanding to the problems of diverse clinical populations; altruism; narcissism; and trauma and dissociative disorders.

Lectures

The Many Faces of Sorrow: Helping Patients with Grief, Depression, and Depressive Personality Styles Therapists struggle to help patients for whom situational stresses interact with personality patterns in complicated combinations of grief, mourning, and depressive and masochistic dynamics. Because neither “Depressive Personality Disorder” nor “Self-Defeating Personality Disorder” is found in the DSM or ICD, official taxonomies offer little clinical help in distinguishing between different painful self-states and framing therapy accordingly. Dr. McWilliams will distinguish conceptually between depression and mourning, between anaclitic and introjective depression, between relational self-sabotage and “moral masochism,” and between depressive and self-defeating personality patterns. 

Case presentation of a long-term treatment of a self-defeating patient

Ten Angles of Vision on Personality, with Clinical Implications A vast empirical literature has established the importance of the therapist’s and client’s personality to treatment outcome. Dr. McWilliams will review ten different psychological lenses through which personality has been viewed (temperament, attachment, observed clinical pattern, defensive structure, affective organization, implicit cognition, drive tendencies, self-definition versus self-in-relation orientation, core relational theme, level of severity). She will mention the evidence base for each angle of vision, explore some therapeutic implications of each perspective, and give clinical examples. 

Presenter Information

Michael Garrett, MD is currently Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. He is also on the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York (PANY) affiliated with NYU Medical Center in New York City. He received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his residency training in Psychiatry at Bronx Municipal Hospital Center. He currently teaches and supervises clinicians doing psychotherapy for psychosis and is a consultant to several first-episode for psychosis teams in the United States and elsewhere. He has a particular interest in the integration of cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic treatment in the psychotherapy of psychosis, as detailed in a Chapter in Kaplan & Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry 11th Ed titled Individual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis, and in his recent book, Garrett, M. (2019) Psychotherapy for Psychosis: Integrating Cognitive Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatments. Guilford Press/New York. 

Lectures

Psychotherapy for Psychosis: Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatment Dr. Garrett will describe the utility of integrating cognitive-behavior therapy for psychosis (CBTp) and psychodynamic treatment in helping patients with psychotic conditions. CBTp can help patients consider the possibility that their delusional beliefs are literally false, while a psychodynamic approach can help them understand the figurative, metaphorical truth of their symptoms as authentic expressions of their state of mind and past history. Dr. Garrett will give a detailed presentation of the first 16 sessions in the successful therapy of a chronically psychotic woman, unresponsive to medication, who for 20 years believed she had a horrible smell. Dr. Garrett will include a video of the patient reflecting on her treatment.

Psychotic Symptoms as Disguised Recollections of Trauma Dr. Garrett will summarize research that bears on the question, “What mediates between trauma and psychosis?” Dr. Garrett will compare and contrast the phenotypic manifestations of PTSD and psychosis, respectively, presenting evidence for the view that psychotic symptoms constitute disguised recollections of trauma. Dr. Garrett will illustrate this idea in a detailed description of the successful psychotherapy of a chronically psychotic man, unresponsive to medication, who feared that he might be arrested, with a video clip of the patient reflecting on his treatment.

Making Complementary CBTp and Psychodynamic Formulations Dr. Garrett will suggest how clinicians can construct a CBTp formulation that directs cognitive-behavioral work and at the same time devise a psychodynamic formulation that may guide psychodynamic treatment. Dr. Garrett will illustrate this approach with two clinical examples: a woman who heard voices telling her that someone was about to die, and a man who murdered his parents, who claimed to have been hypnotically incited to do so by a church group.

Venue & Location

The Ritz Carlton, 1 Barrack Street, Perth, WA 6000

Elizabeth Quay Ballrooms 1 & 2

Nearby: 

• Elizabeth Quay Bus Station 
  
• Perth Station 
• Elizabeth Quay Train Station 

Parking Information

Limited onsite parking available for $70 per day. 

Accommodation Offer 

Limited rooms available at $380 per night for Deluxe King and Twin Rooms. Reservations must be made by 13 January 2025 using this Reservation Link:  Reservation Link

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Each day of lectures offers 6 professional development hours.

Enquiries 

For more information and enquiries about this event please contact s.may@psychascend.au

For more information about Psych Ascend visit us at http://www.psychascend.au