L'Origine du monde at the end of analysis
Treating a patient obsessed with pornography

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 at 8 PM

Columbia University Faculty House
64 Morningside Drive, north of 116th Street
or
Register via the button below to receive the Zoom link

Presenter: Elena Molinari, M.D.

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Elena Molinari as our International Scholar for 2023. Her presentation marks the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine’s first hybrid event since March 2020. This means the evening will be both in person at the Columbia University Faculty House and also will be available as a hybrid event for those who prefer to participate virtually.
 
Dr. Molinari’s presentation entitled “L'Origine du monde at the end of analysis Treating a patient obsessed with pornography” will explore a patient’s preoccupation with pornography, as represented by Courbet’s groundbreaking 1886 painting entitled “L’Origine du Monde.” Her talk will explore how an obsession with pornography and its hallmarks of disembodiment and alienated erotization, came to shed light on distortions in her patient’s early object relationships, eventually leading the way to an embodied link between the mind of the patient and that of the analyst.

Presenter:

Elena Molinari, M.D. is a child and adolescent psychoanalyst who began her career as a pediatrician. She a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI) where she is an executive board member in charge of scientific research.

Since 2004 she has been teaching child neuropsychiatry in the postgraduate program in art therapy at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milano.
 
She has authored a variety of papers and chapters, as well as a book that applies Bion's theories to child analysis, Field Theory in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Reacting to Unexpected, published by Routledge in 2017.

The International Psychoanalytic Scholar Invitational Lectureship

Every three years, a distinguished psychoanalytic scholar gives a formal lecture at the Faculty House of Columbia University, a seminar for candidates at the Center, and two or three seminars for APM members and faculty, over a period of several days. Past Scholars include Herbert Rosenfeld, Joyce McDougall, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, Betty Joseph, Andre Green, John Steiner, and Antonino Ferro.

1. Describe and explain how a Bionian field-theory approach can be applied to working with patients with sexual obsessions and compulsions.
2. Describe distorting factors in the development of the relationship to the primary object and how these can be ameliorated in the course of psychoanalytic treatment.