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UPCOMING EVENTS
If you have any questions or concerns about upcoming events, please contact Membership & Events Coordinator Julia Seixas at [email protected].
Upcoming Events
NEW DATE: Sunday, March 1st, 2026
Time: 1:00 pm to 3:00 p.m.
Location: Rockland - East Fairmont Park
Join us at the Open House to:
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Learn about PCOP & our various programs.
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Speak to students, graduates, and faculty.
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Discover how psychoanalytic or psychodynamic training can enhance your skills and deepen your work.
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Socialize and enjoy snacks & refreshments in our historic Rockland office.
Presenters:
Ann Masten, PhD
Regents Professor, McKnight University Professor
University of Minnesota
Merav Roth, PhD
Training Analyst, Associate Professor
School of Therapy, Counseling, and Human Development
University of Haifa
Salem Eid S. Al Arjani, PhD
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Trauma Researcher &
Director of the Mental Health Program at Gaza Children Village
Date: Saturday, March 7, 2026
Time: 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM EST
Location: Virtual via Zoom
3.5 CE/CME's Available
- $140 for Non-Members Seeking CE Credit
- $70 for Non-Members not Seeking CE Credit
- FREE for Students & PCOP Members
This year, the Henri Parens Symposium will focus on resilience in the face of violence and war. Our speakers will be Ann Masten, PhD, LP, a distinguished researcher on resilience, and Merav Roth, PhD, Training Analyst and world-renowned trauma expert, and one of the organizers of the psychoanalytic on-the-ground response to the 10/7/23 attacks in Israel.
Dr. Masten calls resilience “ordinary magic”, a combination of a person’s own adaptive system and their supportive connections with others. In Dr. Masten's research, she has found that resilience is more common than we may think, even in response to violence and war.
Dr. Roth bears witness to the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit through her work with those who have endured profound trauma.
A case presentation will be made by Salem Eid S. Al Arjani, PhD, a Palestinian psychoanalytic psychotherapist, trauma researcher, and Director of the Mental Health Program at Gaza Children’s Village, illustrating resilience in the face of violence and war.
Updated Program Flyer – Click Here
Presenters:
Jack Drescher, MD
Willa N. France, JD
Jack Pula, MD
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2026
Time: 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM (EST)
Location: Virtual via Zoom
2.75 CE/CME's Available
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$110 for Non-Members Seeking CE Credit
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$55 for Non-Members not Seeking CE Credit
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FREE for Students & PCOP Members
Program Flyer – Click here to learn more about the program
Program Description
This program addresses the lived reality of contemporary analytic work, particularly when ideological preoccupation constrains clinical observation. Neutrality, ethical responsibility, and institutional allegiance acquire new meaning when working with transgender and nonbinary patients, trainees, and colleagues. Analysts increasingly confront a clinical dilemma: Is it psychoanalysis if I say something? Is it psychoanalysis if I don't? Legal, ideological, and institutional pressures increasingly enter the transference and countertransference and shape clinical decision-making. This panel looks directly at how contemporary politics affect technique, shape countertransference, and recruit psychoanalytic tradition as either refuge or burden.
The presenters bring complementary and intricate vantage points. Willa France, JD, transitioned at age 55 after a distinguished legal career and is now a psychoanalytic candidate at the William Alanson White Institute, grounding her clinical thinking in lived experience and relational/interpersonal theory. Jack Drescher, MD, is a senior psychoanalyst whose influence spans clinical practice, psychoanalytic education, and the formal conceptualization of gender within psychiatry and psychoanalysis, including leadership roles in DSM-5-TR, ICD-11, and national and international organizations. Jack Pula, MD, a New York-based psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, speaks from his position as a transgender man, clinician, and educator, integrating analytic work with the concrete effects of law and policy on clinical life.
The program presents multiple psychoanalytic perspectives and attends to clinical process as well as some policy positions. The goal is to allow participants to critically examine their own assumptions, beliefs and techniques. It is an experience-near, technically serious conversation about analytic work as it is being practiced now, and about what analysts risk losing if these aspects remain unspoken.
About the Speakers
Jack Drescher, MD, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City, is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University. He serves on faculties of William Alanson White Institute (also a Trustee), NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and Columbia’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He is Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Past President of APA’s New York County Psychiatric Society and Past President of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP). He received the 2022 Mary S. Sigourney Award for international work on gender and sexuality. He was Section Editor of the Gender Dysphoria chapter in APA’s DSM-5 Text Revision (DSM-5-TR). He served on the World Health Organization’s Working Group that revised sex and gender diagnoses in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). He is a member of APsA’s Committee on Gender & Sexuality and Emeritus Editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health.
Transwoman Willa N. France, JD, (she/her/hers) began her physical transition in 2004 at age 55. Her early careers were in naval architecture and marine engineering and then law. She is completing her candidacy at the William Alanson White Institute’s psychoanalytic training program. Willa was born in Wisconsin to parents who raised mink. At an early age, her family moved several times throughout the west before settling on the Oregon coast, their livelihood always based on mink ranching. She lives with her wife of almost 52 years, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, in East Harlem, New York.
Jack Pula, MD is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York, a graduate of Columbia’s Center for Psychoanalytic Research and Training and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry, Columbia. He works clinically with transgender people and those on the LGBTQ spectrum. He has published papers and spoken at national and international conferences. He serves on the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Committee of Gender and Sexuality and was the first openly trans candidate at an APsaA-affiliated institute. He belongs to the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry’s LGBTQ+ Committee and was part of the American Psychiatric Association’s Working Group for Gender Dysphoria.
Date: Saturday, April 25th, 2026
Time: 8:40 am to 1:00 pm EDT
Location: via Zoom (Zoom information will be included in your registration confirmation email)
4 CE/CME's Available
Click Here to Learn About The Program & Meet Our Outstanding Presenters, and Moderator!
Admission Rates:
Early Bird Rate Available Through April 1st:
Standard Rate After April 1st:
About the Symposium
The Mahler Symposium brings together researchers and clinicians whose work focuses on how to best facilitate early child development. Some of the matters to be addressed are how to best guide and foster successful early relationships, what beneficial developmental experiences may help protect against trauma and compromised development, and what therapeutic means can help to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Leaders in the field will present and compare the latest data on these subjects.
Presentations & Presenters
Daniel Schechter, MD – Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Child & Adolescent Psychiatry), Lausanne University Faculty of Biology and Medicine, Lausanne, Switzerland
Interrupting Passage of Traumatic Memories from One Generation to the Next in Early Childhood: Implications for Parent-Child Psychotherapy
Angela Narayan, PhD, LP – Associate Professor, Clinical Child Psychology Ph.D. Program, Department of Psychology, University of Denver
Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs) and Angels in the Nursery as Resilience Factors to Counteract Intergenerational Trauma
Claudia M. Gold, MD – Pediatrician, Early Relational Health Specialist
Inside Ordinary Moments of Meeting: Lessons in Early Relational Health from Infants and Caregivers
Discussants
Jack Novick, MA, PhD & Kerry Kelly Novick, FIPA – Authors of Freedom to Choose, Working With Parents Makes Therapy Work, and Good Goodbyes
Jordan Bate, PhD – Associate Professor, Adelphi University, New York; leads the Attachment & Psychotherapy Process Lab
Moderator
Lawrence D. Blum, MD – Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Adjunct in Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania; Faculty, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia
Upcoming 2026 Programs & Events
PCOP Faculty Party
Date: 03/28/26
Program: Psychotherapy Forum
Presenter(s): TBD
Date: 05/19/26
Program: Pearson Lecture
Presenter(s): William Singletary, MD
Date: 06/03/26
More information coming soon on these programs!
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact PCOP Membership & Events Coordinator, Julia Seixas, at [email protected] for questions or assistance with registration!
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