This eight-part advanced seminar series explores how therapists and patients engage with trauma in the therapy room. Trauma’s impact is not just about past events but the ongoing legacy carried by both therapist and patient. Drawing from the work of Davies & Frawley (1994) and Philip Bromberg, we will discuss relational psychodynamic thinking and its role in working with multiple self-states and relational matrices.

A key focus will be the eight relational positions within four relational matrices, which repeatedly emerge in psychoanalytic work with trauma survivors. This series goes beyond “what to do in the session” to explore what happens in the session, deepening your understanding of enactments, co-constructed dynamics, and the use of transference and countertransference in trauma work.

In this seminar series, the focus will be on developing clinical thinking and noticing what is happening in the therapy room, particularly the enactments that arise between therapist and patient. There will be no teaching of specific techniques; instead, the emphasis is on awareness, reflection, and understanding relational dynamics as they unfold.

Case discussions will provide opportunities to ground these ideas in practical examples, allowing participants to explore how relational positions, multiple self-states, and transference-countertransference dynamics appear in real clinical work. The aim is to strengthen your capacity to observe, reflect, and respond thoughtfully, rather than simply applying interventions.

Seminar Structure & Topics

Each session is 2.5 hours:

• 1.5 hours: Topic discussion

• 15-minute break

• 45–60 minutes: Case discussion (participants are encouraged to present cases for experiential learning)

We will meet every second and fourth Friday for eight sessions from 5:00 – 7:30 PM IST, starting in May 2025. Final dates will be confirmed soon. Notes, readings, and session recordings will be provided. For those who cannot attend Fridays, weekend sessions may be considered upon request.

Session Overview

Fundamentals

• Setting the Stage Part 1: Understanding the unformulated experience, differences between repression and dissociation, dissociation and self-states, inner child vs. dissociated child life

• Setting the Stage Part 2: The role of the therapist, analytic third and co-constructed relationship, reveries, splitting, enactments, projective identification, and the dilemma of the adult and child

Delving Deep into Multiple Self-States (Advanced): Introduction to the eight relational positions

• Matrix Position 1: Unseeing/uninvolved parent and the unseen/neglected child

• Matrix Position 2: Sadistic abuser and the helpless/enraged victim

• Matrix Position 3: Idealized/omnipotent rescuer and the entitled child

• Matrix Position 4: Seducer and the seduced

Holding Session

• For spillover material, questions and group discussion