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