Hybrid Clinical Conference – Trauma, Psychosis, and Psychotic Manifestations of Transference with Michael Garrett, MD

LOCATION
Hybrid Event
In person address: UT Health Discovery Building Room 1.208
1601 Trinity Street, Austin, TX

Zoom details will be sent on registration

Part 1 (90 minutes) Trauma and Psychosis
Dr. Michael Garrett will challenge the validity of the concept of “schizophrenia” as a genetically determined brain disease and review research suggesting that chronic psychosis is a trauma-related disorder best characterized as a particular phenotypic form of complex PTSD. He will review research showing that childhood trauma increases the risk of psychosis and that fragmented trauma memories are often embedded in the content of psychotic symptoms. Dr. Garrett will trace the developmental origin of psychotic symptoms from implicit behavioral knowing that in infancy provides a template for relationship with caregivers, through pre-verbal fantasy, to conscious and unconscious object-related fantasy, to the emergence of florid psychotic symptoms in adolescence.

Part 2 (90 minutes) Transference
Dr. Garrett will differentiate non-psychotic, near-psychotic, and psychotic manifestations of transference as seen from an object-related point of view, illustrating each form of transference with a brief clinical vignette and offer clinical suggestions about how to recognize and deal with a psychotic transference.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After attending the program in its entirety, attendees will be able to:

1. State at least one piece of evidence that argues against the validity of a diagnosis of “schizophrenia” as a genetically-determined brain disease.
2. Explain how childhood abuse leads to insecure attachments of child to caregiver, which results in persecutory internal objects.
3. Explain how all transference phenomena involve the projection of internal objects.
4. State at least one characteristic that differentiates a non-psychotic transference from a psychotic transference.
5. Explain how a therapist who works in a casual self-disclosing style may be able to forestall the development of a psychotic transference.

PRESENTER
Michael Garrett, MD is currently Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York and Voluntary Faculty at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, NY. 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.

REGISTER NOW

REFERENCES
Garrett, M. (2025). Psychoanalytic notes on psychosis, disturbances in perception, delusional narratives, and the Bayesian predictive processing model of the brain. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/07351690.2025.2501504

Garrett M. (2024) Individual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis. In Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 11th Edition.

Garrett M. (2023) Who Are You? Capgras Syndrome and Other Delusions of Misidentification. In: Decoding Delusions. A Clinician’s Guide to Working with Delusions and Other Extreme Beliefs, edited by K. V. Hardy and D. Turkington. American Psychiatric Press

Ridenour, J. M., & Garrett, M. (2022). Intent to understand the meaning of psychotic symptoms during Patient-Psychiatrist interactions. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 76(2), 57–61. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.20220034

Peach, N., Alvarez‐Jimenez, M., Cropper, S. J., Sun, P., Halpin, E., O’Connell, J., & Bendall, S. (2020). Trauma and the content of hallucinations and post‐traumatic intrusions in first‐episode psychosis. Psychology and Psychotherapy Theory Research and Practice, 94(S2), 223–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12273

DISCLOSURES
Division 39 is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Division 39 maintains responsibility for this program and its content.  Austin Psychoanalytic is approved by the Texas State Board of Social Workers Examiners (Provider # 5501) to provide continuing education for social workers and the Texas State Board of Examiners of Marriage and Family Therapists (Provider #1138). We also meet the requirements to provide continuing education for the Texas State Board of Examiners of Professional Counselors. This program, when attended in its entirety, is available for 3 continuing education credits. Division 39 is committed to accessibility and non-discrimination in its continuing education activities. Division 39 is also committed to conducting all activities in conformity with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles for Psychologists. Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. If participants have special needs, we will attempt to accommodate them. Please address questions, concerns and any complaints to info@austinpsychoanalytic.org. There is no commercial support for this program nor are there any relationships between the CE Sponsor, presenting organization, presenter, program content, research, grants, or other funding that could reasonably be construed as conflicts of interest. Participants will be informed of the utility/validity of the content/approach discussed (including the basis for the statements about validity/utility), as well as the limitations of the approach and most common (and severe) risks, if any, associated with the program’s content.