Spotlight on CLAL

To access the Spotlight on CLAL Archives, click here.

Psychoanalytic Perspectives publishes moving roundtable discussion featuring Shoah child survivors who are now psychoanalysts

By Aliza Kaplan

The enthusiastically received and innovative journal, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, has published a deeply moving roundtable discussion, featuring four child survivors who are now psychoanalysts.

In 2007 CLAL co-sponsored another provocative roundtable, entitled “Spirituality vs. Psychoanalysis: Can They Co-Exist,” that brought together a group of esteemed psychoanalysts with a strong religious commitment. While traditionally religion and psychoanalysis have been at odds, new appreciation for how the two realms can better interact has grown, with analysts from many perspectives having reconsidered the role spirituality plays in mental health.

The new publication, “Last Witnesses: Child Survivors of the Holocaust Roundtable” available in DVD form with accompanying journal articles and discussions, centers around the child survivor/analysts’ personal narratives. Their experience during and after Nazi occupation, and continuing on into their professional experience, provides a stirring look at how each survivor has drawn on his or her own traumas, personal resilience and private analyses to treat other traumatized patients. Appearing in Vol. 4 no. 2 and Vol. 5 no. 1 of Perspectives, this piece includes a transcript of the videotaped roundtable followed by written discussions. DVD’s are also available.

The Panelists:
Eva Metzger Brown, PhD, Author, “A Child Survivor Comes Out of Hiding: A Story of Two Traumas,” the paper, (published in same issue), which inspired and led to conceptualization of the Roundtable; Dori Laub, MD, Associate Clinical Professor, Psychiatry, Yale University, School of Medicine and Education, Advisor to the Fortunoff Video Archives for Holocaust Testimonies; Clemens Loew, PhD, Board of Directors, National Institute for the Psychotherapies Training Institute, Author, “The Apron,” (published in “Private Lives” section of same issue); Sophia Richman, PhD, Author, “The Wolf in the Attic: the Legacy of the Hidden Child of the Holocaust,” Supervisor, NYU Post-Doctoral Program and the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy.

The Discussants:
Eva Fogelman, PhD, Co-Director of Psychotherapy with the Generations of the Holocaust, Training Institute for Mental Health Practitioners, Author, “Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust”; Robert Krell, MD, Founder, Vancouver Holocaust Center Society for Education and Remembrance and Coeditor, “And Life Is Changed Forever: Holocaust Childhoods Remembered”; Anna Ornstein, MD, Professor, Psychiatry, Harvard University, Author, “My Mother’s Eyes: Holocaust Memories of a Young Girl”; Peggy Ruebens, LCSW, Clinical Director, Trauma and EMDR Treatment Service , National Institute for the Psychotherapies Training Institute.

If you would like to purchase the Child Survivor Roundtable issues of Perspectives and DVD or would like more information about content or cost, please contact Kathleen Amshoff at info@psychperspectives.com.

To return to the home page, click here.