IPA Journal Club with Deborah Cabaniss, M.D. and Shirin Ali, MD.

The IPA Journal Club (JC) is a project of the IPA Communications Committee. It meets 6 times per academic year (September-June) on Fridays at 4 PM (16:00-17:15) London time.

Each meeting, in webinar format, is in English and features a guest author who discusses with registrants an article or chapter they have published. The meetings are recorded and later posted online at the IPA website and on the IPA YouTube channel for viewing by the general public.

This JC, featuring Deborah Cabaniss, M.D., was on Friday, April 11th, 2025, at 4 p.m. London time.

Registration, which is free of charge, is open to IPA members and candidates, other interested mental health professionals, scholars and academics. A downloadable copy of the paper is available to registrants. Ideally, all registrants will have read the paper beforehand and have an opportunity to ask questions or make comments to the guest author.

Reading:

Psychodynamic Formulation Project (2022). Psychodynamic Formulation, 2nd Edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Chapter 20: The Effects of Culture and Society

Abstract

Traditionally, psychodynamic models of the mind have focused on the influence of the immediate environment (i.e., primary caregivers and family) on the development of a person’s conscious and unconscious mind. However, psychological development is also strongly influenced by the community environment and the society at large. The authors of Psychodynamic Formulation: An Expanded Approach sought to put this way of thinking about conscious and

unconscious development on par with other models of the mind in order to help inclusion of this perspective part of all psychodynamic formulations. They used the Ecological Systems Theory of Uri Bronfenbrenner, which suggests that human development is influenced by many different social environments, including the micro, meso and macrosystems, to help give shape to this model of the mind. This chapter focuses on the way that an individual’s positionality with regard to structural systems of privilege/advantage and oppression/disadvantage affects their psychological development, and potential mechanisms through which the influence culture and society affect patterns related to relationships, the self, and adapting.

Bio

Deborah L. Cabaniss, M.D. is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Associate Director of Residency Training in the Columbia Department of Psychiatry. She received her BA from Yale, her MD from Columbia, and completed her psychoanalytic training at Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. She has won numerous teaching awards and has over 60 publications related to psychotherapy education. In addition to her work in the US, Dr. Cabaniss has lectured and taught in Sweden, Norway, Japan, Korea and Canada, and her books, “Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual,” “Psychodynamic Formulation: An Expanded Approach,” and “Different Patients; Different Therapies” are used widely across the US and abroad.

Shirin Ali, MD is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons and an Associate Training Director at the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research. She enjoys supervising and teaching and has a private practice in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

The moderator of the Journal Club is Jack Drescher, MD

Bio

Jack Drescher, MD, a member of IPA’s Communications Committee, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City. A recipient of the 2022 Mary S. Sigourney Award for his international work on gender and sexuality, Dr. Drescher is on the faculties of the William Alanson White Institute, the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and the Florida Psychoanalytic Center. He is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia and a member of the Board of Trustees of the WA White Institute. He is an elected Director-at-Large of the American Psychoanalytic Association. His publications have been translated into numerous languages. He is author of Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man (Routledge) and Emeritus Editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health.


Save the Dates:

June 13, 2025: Diana Diamond, PhD and Frank Yeomens, MD discussing a chapter from their book, “Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference-Focused Psychotherapy”