When the Container Fails. Psychoanalytic Witnessing: Professional...

“When the Container Fails. Psychoanalytic Witnessing:  Professional Obligation or Moral Imperative?”

Ghislaine Boulanger, Ph.D

Friday, October 17, 2025

6:30PM – 8:30PM (EDT)

PPSC

Live Webinar on Zoom

$60 Regular Admission and $40 Student

*This talk provides 2 hours of continuing education credits for LCSWs, LMSWs, LPs, LMHCs, LCATs, LMFTs, and licensed psychologists.

This presentation will begin with an account of an interview Dr. Ghislaine Boulanger was asked to undertake by a human rights organization.  The interviewee is a young woman who barely escaped a genocide and was seeking asylum in the United States.  Against the background of her painful account, Dr. Boulanger explores what it means to be a psychoanalytic witness.  Is psychoanalytic witnessing a professional obligation or a moral imperative?  Who is the witness? The person giving the account or the person listening? What are the psychological consequences for each of them?  Dr. Boulanger shall propose that as clinicians, we must distinguish between witnessing and recognition. And further, that the costs of being a witness are considerable and must be taken into account in doing this work.

Ghislaine Boulanger is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City, a member of the Relational faculty at New York University's Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and on the faculty of Adelphi University’s Specialization in Trauma Studies. She is on the editorial boards of the Division/Review and the International Journal for Applied Psychoanalytic Studies.  Since the publication of Wounded by Reality: Understanding and Treating Adult-Onset Trauma, Dr. Boulanger has taught and published extensively both in the United States and abroad on the psychodynamic dilemmas facing adults who have survived violent and life-threatening events, and the clinicians who work with them.

Learning Objectives

After attending this presentation, participants will be able to:

• distinguish between witnessing as a professional obligation and witnessing as a moral imperative.
• describe how the Israeli philosopher, Avishai Margalit, defines a moral witness, and how that can be understood in terms of psychoanalytic witnessing.
• specify what is meant by the costs of being an analytic witness and how to work with those costs.

Agenda

6:30 – 7:00: Discussion and explanation of how to differentiate between witnessing as a professional obligation and witnessing as a moral imperative. (LO#1)

7:00 – 7:30: Description of how the Israeli philosopher, Avishai Margalit, defines a moral witness, and how that can be understood in terms of psychoanalytic witnessing. (LO#2)

7:30 – 8:00: Discussion of how we understand what is meant by the costs of being an analytic witness and how to work with those costs. (LO#3)

8:00 – 8:30: Q & A.

*For a refund to a PPSC Annex event, we must receive a cancellation notice 24 hours prior to the event. Please contact annex-ops@ppsc.org if you want to cancel within this timeframe or if you have any other questions or concerns.

*Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0040, licensed mental health counselors #MHC-0166, licensed creative arts therapists #CAT-0083, and licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0119. We are recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0054 and by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0118. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center maintains responsibility for its programs and its content.

*PPSC does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, sexual preference, gender, gender identity, marital status, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its admissions and educational policies.