UPCOMING EVENTS

If you have any questions or concerns about upcoming events, please contact Membership & Events Coordinator Julia Seixas at [email protected].

Upcoming Events 

About the Program Stepparents & Their Children

In this presentation, Andrew I. Smolar, MD, will discuss the challenges and potential growth for stepfamilies. While reviewing the psychoanalytic literature on the subject, Dr. Smolar will describe the circumstances that lead to the formation of the stepfamily – such as parental death, alienation, or the most common, which is divorce – and then describe how the stepfamily’s development is experienced from the point of view of child, parent, family group and community. Dr. Smolar will then provide clinical examples of the impact of stepparents on various therapy processes, within psychoanalytic, couples, and group therapy settings. Psychoeducational and in-depth processes are described. Dr. Smolar will emphasize how the transference is handled, and how group attachment insecurity, for some patients, restricts their participation in groups. Dr. Smolar will note that internal object images of parents and stepparents may be in conflict, and this conflict may be experienced within the therapist and patient, thus complicating therapeutic process. Dr. Smolar will conclude with several technical recommendations for therapists working with patients who may struggle to appreciate the full impact of stepfamilies in their histories, and for therapists working with patients who may be struggling to help children adapt to these new family structures.

About the Speaker Andrew I. Smolar, MD

Andrew I. Smolar, MD is Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine. He has been in the private practice of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and group therapy in Wynnewood, PA since 1998. Dr. Smolar has served as President of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia from 2015-17; he also served there as Chairman of the Education Committee,  and Supervising Analyst Committee, Ethics Committee, co-Chair of the Supervision Study Group for Supervising Analysts, and is co-Director of the Developmental Pathway for recent graduates. Dr. Smolar has contributed to the academic literature by writing on the following subjects: analytic work with an immigrant analysand; group therapy in various clinical settings; combining analytic treatment with group therapy techniques; and most recently, psychotherapy during this era of political turmoil, contributions of group fragmentation toward national discord, the role of group identifications during normative development, and traumatic group identifications during adolescence with co-author Fred Baurer. He is co-editor of a book on marriage with Salman Akhtar and Ann Eichen, and is working with the same co-editors on a book on parenthood. He is co-investigator of research of American citizens suffering from conspiracy thinking. He has published op-eds on mental health subjects in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Stay tuned for our upcoming events—we have exciting updates coming soon!

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact PCOP Membership & Events Coordinator, Julia Seixas, at [email protected] for questions or assistance with registration!