Saturday, October 3, 2026, 9AM - 3PM (PST)

Annual Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Lecture of 2026

Too Close, Yet Too Far: Working Therapeutically with Couples

Caught in Claustra-Agoraphobic Dilemmas

Join PCPG for our Annual Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Lecture in-person at the Brower Center in Berkeley, CA, (available online as well), as we host Kate Thompson, M.A. to present her paper "Too Close, Yet Too Far: Working Therapeutically with Couples Caught in Claustra-Agoraphobic Dilemmas" with discussant, Paula Mandel, Ph.D.

Couples can become preoccupied with the perpetual back and forth between fears of losing their identity within merger versus disintegration through abandonment. This often leads to a familiar psychic retreat that is near impossible to escape. Kate Thompson will explore how to work therapeutically with such couples to free them from rigid projective identification. She will explain how to manage the constant and inevitable tension between each partner’s legitimate separate needs and the needs of their couple relationship - and how to help couples tolerate the reality of being separate individuals within an intimate partnership, which involves mourning what has been lost.

Kate Thompson, M.A., is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with 27 years of experience working with couples and individuals. As Senior Staff at Tavistock Relationships (TR) for 15 years, Kate worked within government funded projects for adoptive couples, high conflict couples and a parenting group intervention. Kate adapted the integrated Couple Therapy for Depression (CTfD) model to work within perinatal services and for couples where there is substance misuse, having led TR’s CTfD training within the National Health Service for over 12 years. Kate is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis. She co-edited and co-authored ‘Couples as Parents’ (Routledge 2024); ‘Engaging Couples: New Directions in Therapeutic Work with Families’, (Routledge, 2018) and special editions of the journal on divorce and parenting. Kate writes for a variety of publications, lectures in the UK and abroad, is registered with British Psychoanalytic Council (BCP) and the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy (BACP), and has a private practice in South West London.

Paula Mandel, Ph.D., is a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) and a Personal Analyst at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. She is on the teaching faculty at PINC, at PCPG, and at The Psychotherapy Institute in Berkeley. She was the North American winner of the Tyson Prize in 2017 for her paper, “Time and the Body; Managing Longing Through the Manipulation of Time”. Her paper, “Humor in Psychoanalysis; A Royal Road?”, which she will be presenting at the PINC Symposium on November 21, is currently in press at Psychoanalytic Dialogues. She has previously discussed papers by Jonathan Sklar and Amita Sehgal at PINC and PCPG Annual Events. She has a private practice in Oakland in which she sees adults and couples.

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Moreover, PCPG is actively focusing on incorporating equity into policies, processes, and procedures and its organizational structure.



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Learning Objectives:

Based on the content of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Define "claustro-agoraphobic dilemma" and describe how it can present clinically.

2. Explain how flight from claustro- and agora-phobic anxieties can contribute to a psychic retreat

3. Give one example of a loss that needs to be mourned in the working through of a psychic retreat.

4. Define projective gridlock and explain how it can present clinically.

5. Describe a clinical approach that helps move couples out of a claustro-agoraphobic dilemma.

Registration / CE Information:
5 CE's are included with the cost of admission to the lecture.

We accept registrations for in-person attendance through the day of the event (October 3, 2026) unless we hit the maximum capacity for the Brower Center of 178 attendees. Lunch cannot be guaranteed for in-person registrations made after September 23, 2026.

Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Group (PCPG) is approved by the California Psychological Association (CPA) to provide continuing professional education for psychologists. The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts continuing education credit granted by CPA or by any of its Approved Providers for its licensees. PCPG maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Cancellation / Refund Policy:

Registrants who cancel prior to September 23, 2026, will receive a refund minus a $25 administrative charge. Cancellations after September 23, 2026, will be allowed, but with a $50 administrative charge.

Transfer of registrations is not allowed.