Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society (NPS)

NPS is a growing Psychoanalytic Society in Seattle, founded in 2001, and voted a full component society of the IPA at the Berlin Congress in 2007. Our psychoanalytic view follows that of the Contemporary British Object Relations which builds on the contributions of Klein, Bion, Rosenfeld, Segal and Joseph to mention a few.

The NPS psychoanalytic training program expands upon and deepens the understanding of the basic psychoanalytic principles, which have evolved over the history of the psychoanalytic movement. That within the many psychoanalytic points of view NPS offers a contemporary Kleinian-Bionian viewpoint that embraces four organizing principles:

• Deepening awareness of the multiple simultaneous levels of psychic reality and the task of focusing upon the relevant issue of the moment
• An appreciation of
  • the impact of the earliest emotional experiences, relationships and capacities upon subsequent experience
  • the relationship between sensory, concrete (unthinking, unthinkable) experience and more symbolic and thus thought-based functioning;
  • the spectrum of mental processes available at different levels of experience and relatedness
• The role of ever-present and evolving unconscious phantasy in organizing these aspects of experience into a myriad of internal object relationships which are then conveyed or 'transferred' into the experience of the present and may be apprehended and held in the analytic partnership.
• The nature of the ongoing struggle for and against emotional growth and understanding.

In addition to active regional scientific offerings, NPS sponsors an annual Evolving British Object Relations (EBOR) conference that draws local, national and international attendance.

Please visit the NPS website for detailed information about our training program, history, faculty and scientific events at www.nwpsy.org.