Upcoming Events
Cosponsored speaker series: Whose Your Daddy? The Primal Father on the Paternal Field
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6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Carlow University
A.J. Palumbo Hall of Science and Technology, Room 107
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Ken Corbett Professor New York University Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and Faculty, The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. He has authored numerous articles and two bestselling books. In Boy Hoods: Rethinking Masculinities, Dr. Corbett advocates for a new psychology of masculinity that moves beyond normative expectations, emphasizing that “no two boys, no two boyhoods are the same.” His book A Murder Over a Girl - named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice – is a story about a murdered girl, a murdering boy, community, families, friends and teachers that unfolds into a wrenching drama about the human psyche. He is a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities, and a consultant on the Showtime docu-series Couples Therapy.
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This talk focuses on how we theorize fathers—particularly what I term the primal father—and how psychoanalytic thinking both reflects and shapes men’s engagement with children and childcare.
We are called to bring the primal father into view: to see him engaged in childcare, body-to-mind; to see his provision and preoccupation inflected by the ordinary eros of daily caregiving; to see the heightened sensitivity that enables him to feel himself into his infant’s place; and to see him balancing containment with the inevitable failures that beset childrearing.
Drawing on my early work with a three-year-old boy—my first patient—I revisit the question that organized that encounter: Can one be primal and be someone other than a mother? I link this question to the field’s insufficient psychological theorizing of fathering and childcare. Casting men as living outside the primacy of infancy and early childhood perpetuates the belief that men do not know how to love children or care for them.
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Concepts in Everyday Life: One-YEAR LONGITUDINAL PROGRAM
End: April 20, 2026
PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPIES IN PRACTICE: TWO-YEAR LONGITUDINAL PROGRAM
End: June 2027
Our Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Practice two-year longitudinal program is organized around a professional development model that supports the multifaceted aspects of professional psychoanalytic practice in a variety of contexts.
Across the mental health fields—in our varied roles and practice settings—we have found that professional efficacy and work satisfaction correlates strongly with the integration of three components of professional development: theoretical and clinical immersion with the ongoing integration of theory into one’s practice, personal therapeutic work, and consultation with regard to ongoing cases.
This two-year educational series is designed to provide an immersive clinical experience that aims to deepen the practitioner’s capacity to work with the complexities of human experience and growth (normative, developmental, psychopathological, sociocultural) within a broader psychoanalytic framework. The realities of such social/cultural forces as racism, class, economic insecurity, gender, non-normative sexualities will be interwoven throughout the two years.
Continuing Education Credits: The Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
The Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies values cultural and social diversity. Full participation in the educational activities of the Community is available to any qualified individual regardless of age, race, creed, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnic background.
For additional information about our Continuing Education Policies and Accessibility Policies please see our Policy + Procedure section of our website. For additional information on the background and experience of faculty, please see our Faculty section of our website or email inquiries@wpacommunity.org for any additional information.
You may also write any questions to Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies, 145 44th Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201