Download Author: Scharff, Jill Savege, M.D.

Dr. Jill Savege Scharff is an internationally known psychoanalyst for children and adults, couples and families.  She is the co-founder and formerly co-director of the International Psychotherapy Institute (www.theipi.org) where she is now a board member emeritus and frequent contributor to the blog. She was the founding Chair of the International Institute for Psychoanalytic Training, the analytic training program at the International Psychotherapy Institute, where she also developed an analytic supervision training program, a child therapy and child analytic curriculum. She is a teaching analyst at the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. Her private practice is in Chevy Chase, MD.

Jill Scharff is the author ofProjective and Introjective Identification and the Use of the Therapist’s Self (1992), and senior co-author with David E. Scharff of The Primer of Object Relations: Second Edition (2005), Tuning the Therapeutic Instrument:  Affective Learning of Psychotherapy (2000),Object Relations Individual Therapy (1998),Object Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma (1996), With David Scharff as the senior author, Jill Scharff co-wrote many books on object relations Object Relations Family Therapy (1987), Object Relations Couple Therapy (1991), and The Interpersonal Unconscious (2012). Colleagues praised these books: “Jill and David Scharff bring object relations theory alive” (2000) — Otto Kernberg; “A masterful integration of theory and practice” (1991) –Thomas Ogden, “a modern classic” (1987) — Alan Gurman.

As an editor, Jill Scharff was delighted to compile the work of her mentor John D. Sutherland in The Autonomous Self: The Work of John D. Sutherland (1994) and The Psychodynamic Image: John D. Sutherland on Self and Society (2007).  For her family therapy colleagues she edited Foundations of Object Relations Family Therapy (1992) and with David Scharff, she co-edited New Paradigms in Treating Relationships(2006) and Psychoanalytic Couple Therapy (2014).  For individual therapists at the International Psychotherapy Institute, she edited Clinical Supervision of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (2014) and with Stan Tsigounis Self Hatred in Psychoanalysis (2003).

She is co-series editor with David Scharff of the Library of Object Relations at Jason Aronson (now at Rowman and Littlefield) and series editor of the Library of Technology and Mental Health at Karnac. Jill takes great pleasure in helping colleagues, especially those for whom English is a second language, find their voice and get their ideas published. Psychoanalysis Online (2013), Psychoanalysis Online 2 (2015) both published by Karnac are Jill Scharff’s newest edited books: “The most important book of its era on the many dimensions of teleanalysis” (2013) and “Jill Savege Scharff and the other contributors to this book advance the depth potential of psychoanalysis and are, fortunately, not above controversy in doing so” (2015)  — Christopher Bollas.

Jill’s interest in object relations extends to include chaos theory and link theory to broaden and deepen understanding of individual, family and society, and she is bringing this expanded knowledge through secure video connection to therapists where there is no analytic training. With them she is studying the practice of teleanalysis, its similarities and differences from traditional psychoanalysis, its indications and contraindications, and its clinical effectiveness, with particular emphasis on developing all channels of perception to develop deep unconscious communication that allows for work in the transference.

25 eBooks available.

Object Relations Individual Therapy

Emphasizing the transformational possibilities that grow out of their relational model of therapy, David E. and Jill Savege Scharff invite us into the territory of interactive journeys with individual patients. A contemporary classic.

 

Part history, part review of theory, part casebook, this masterful work will long stand as the definitive text on object relations and its role in mental health and mental illness. An invaluable contribution to our understanding of the theory and its use in clinical practice, Object Relations Individual Therapy is one of those rare finds―a volume that belongs in every practitioner’s library. — Theodore J. Jacobs, M.D., New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute

Arguably the finest contemporary teachers of object relations theory, Drs. Jill and David Scharff have put their teaching in writing in what must certainly be the most comprehensive text to date. It is thoughtfully organized and strikes a fine balance between theory and practice; readers can trust the Scharffs’ accounts of others’ work. Perhaps the heart of the book is a chapter on chaos theory and ‘fractals’―yep, fractals―that is deeply interesting and suggestive. The book’s unparalleled accomplishment, however, lies in the quality of the clinical writing, especially in these authors’ accounts of their own passing states of mind―or countertransferences―in work with their patients. A truly fine book. — Christopher Bollas, PhD, British Psychoanalytical Society

The Autonomous Self: The work of John D. Sutherland

A collection of the brilliant papers of John D. Sutherland, this volume gives the reader a unique education in the development of the self. Noted psychoanalyst, theoretician, and editor, J. D. Sutherland was best known as editor of the International Psychoanalytic Library and as the Director of the Tavistock Clinic, where he secured an environment for colleagues like Wilfred Bion, John Bowlby, and Eric Trist to create and distribute their valuable ideas. Now, for the first time, here is a collection of the works of John D. Sutherland. The papers are stunning in their clarity and in the scope of their vision.

The book’s three sections reflect Sutherland’s major interests: object relations theory, its application to groups and institutions, and the development of the self. As he was fond of saying, object relations was “not so much a theory as a way of working” and he puts this idea into practice–from understanding his individual patients to developing a blueprint for community mental health. His papers on psychoanalytic theory reveal an erudite grasp of theory building. Those on application show his profound concern for the human condition. Deriving partly from his self-analysis after the age of 70, his later papers take him beyond object relations theory to a theory of the self. No psychoanalytic thinker has such a capacity for tolerating complexity. No one else has shown a similar ability to relate personal, individual depth psychology to social psychology. Collected together in this volume, John D. Sutherland’s papers present a remarkable appreciation for the needs of the individual and the community.

This book is both classic and contemporary. It will appeal to individual and group psychotherapists of any discipline, psychoanalysts, pastoral counselors, social workers, and community development workers. A masterpiece of care, concern, clinical acumen and vision, this book is a major contribution to human understanding.

Review

“This outstanding collection of the contribution of John Sutherland fills an important void in psychoanalytic thinking. Throughout this work, Sutherland emerges as a major theoretician whose formulations on object relations theory bridge the schools of Melanie Klein, Fairbairn, and Winnicott with the advances of ego psychology in this country and abroad. In the process, he develops a theory of the structure and functioning of the self that, in turn, links psychodynamic thinking with the interrelationship of individual and sociocultural factors.

This volume will be of great interest not only to the psychoanalyst and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist, but to all those in leadership functions in the field of mental health dealing with the utilization of group methods, institutional analysis and policy shaping for institutional change, as well as to the mental health professional interested in sophisticated, contemporary formulations of the origin, structure, and functions in daily life of the creative self.”

– Otto F. Kernberg, MD

Self Hatred in Psychoanalysis

How can psychological therapies help to deal with persecutory states of mind?

The persecutory object is the element of the personality which attacks your confidence, productivity, and acceptance of reality to the point of no return. Persecuted patients torture themselves, hurt their loved ones, and torment their therapists.

In this book the authors integrate object relations and Kleinian theories in their way of working with tenacious persecutory objects and persecutory states of mind. This is vividly illustrated in a variety of situations, including:

  • individual, couple, and group therapy
  • serious pediatric illness
  • working with persecutory aspects of family business

It is argued that the persecutory object can be contained, modified, and in many cases detoxified by the process of skillful intensive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

Self Hatred in Psychoanalysis: Detoxifying the Persecutory Object will be invaluable to a variety of practitioners including psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, social workers, psychiatrists, and mental health counselors.

Drama in Mental Health

Dr. Scharff explains how drama and role-playing can be utilized both by medical and mental health practitioners in training, and by patients in the therapy setting. Medical students and therapists can engage in role-play with actors playing the part of patients with medical conditions to be assessed, in this way developing diagnostic acuity and clinical presence for the day when they will be allowed to work with patients. Drama helps patients in therapy encounter their difficulties in an “as if” setting where it is safe to learn from mistakes, explore conflict, and learn from the point of view of others. Drama prepares us to adapt to social change and empowers disadvantaged communities to represent themselves and fight for better conditions. Creative drama in particular affords industrious and imaginate experience that facilitates personal development such that men and women can fulfill their potential for spontaneous and creative living.

 

New Paradigms for Treating Relationships

New Paradigms for Treating Relationships is a contemporary international perspective on the theory and practice of analytic couple and family therapy. It summarizes theory, sets it in context, and illustrates the concepts with clinical illustrations. This clearly written and engaging volume is essential for tracking couple and family therapists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and teachers of psychotherapy, as well as students of psychoanalysis and philosophy.

Group affective learning in training for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis

This paper describes The Group Affective Model, a method for teaching psychoanalytic concepts and their clinical application, using multi-channel teaching, process and review in group settings, learning from experience in an open systems learning community for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.  This innovation arose in response to criticism of existing methods in psychoanalytic education that have subordinated the primary educational task to that of the training analysis.  Noticing this split between education and training analysis, between cognition and affect, and between concepts of individual and group unconscious processes, we developed the Group Affective Model for teaching and learning psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in an open psychological space in which individual and group processes of digestion, assimilation, and internalization are experienced, consensually validated, described and evaluated by students and faculty.

We discuss our beliefs and our educational stance.  We describe our institution and our participants.  We give examples of teaching situations that we have studied to provide some insight about assimilation and internalization of the concepts and clinical approaches being taught.  We discuss the transferability of the Group Affective Model to other teaching settings and psychoanalytic training institutions.

Tuning the Therapeutic Instrument: Affective Learning of Psychotherapy

This book shows how the therapist’s use of the self, the key ingredient of successful treatment, can be developed into a sensitive instrument for therapy. With firsthand accounts of experiencing affective learning, the Scharff’s take us through their work with clinicians studying dynamic psychotherapy in a group setting. They demonstrate how the group process brings a depth and richness to the clinical material and transforms the therapist’s way of thinking and working with emotional experience. Intellectual understanding and emotional responses to clinical material are integrated and this enhanced learning is brought into clinical practice. The internal object relations of patient and therapist are clarified through the transference; the same awareness occurs as therapists learn together in the affective learning group. This here-and-now examination of object relationships is highly effective and growth enhancing. Relevant to mental health professionals at all levels of expertise, this book is written for therapists invested in their own learning, teaching, and practice. Only by being open to ourselves, the Scharff’s show, can we truly be responsive to our patients.

Our relationship to the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology and Tavistock Relationships

Describes the relationship between the Tavistock Institute and The International Psychotherapy Institute founded by David E. Scharff and Jill Savege Scharff.

 

Republished in ebook form with permission from Phoenix Publishing House firingthemind.com

Savege Scharff, Jill & Scharff, David E. (2020). Our relationship to the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology and Tavistock Relationships. Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, 10, 186–190. doi: 10.33212/cfp.v10n2.2020.186

The nature, structure and experience of an experimental distance learning psychoanalytic center for training

An introduction to the International Institute of Psychoanalytic Training (IIPT), an experimental psychoanalytic institute that grew out of, and remains embedded within, the International Psychotherapy Institute, including: the historico-political context and factors that led to its formation, relationships to established professional associations, and its organization and functioning in national and international dimensions.