This online seminar explores our tendencies to take too much responsibility for others’ happiness and wellbeing, noting the guild and shame that inevitably follow when we cannot succeed. Anger over our ongoing self-sacrifice leads to oversolicitous behavior and a need to be the “perfect mother.” Our fear of doing harm is almost always exaggerated, having been born out of blaming ourselves when we could not save our family members. And we routinely deny the many gratifications that occur in our daily practice for fear of being seen as self-indulgent. In recent years the analytic literature has become more diverse, but also filled with vagaries and references to unconscious and mysterious processes that rely on intuition. Having rebelled against a perceived authoritarian and often dehumanizing classical analysis, are we now somewhat lost in developing new ideas and technique, having failed to examine why and how we do this work?

Karen J. Maroda, Ph.D., ABBP, is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Medical College of Wisconsin and in private practice in Milwaukee, WI. She is board certified in psychoanalysis by the American Board of Professional Psychology, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis. The author of four books, The Power of Countertransference, Seduction, Surrender and Transformation, Psychodynamic Techniques, and The Analyst’s Vulnerability, as well as numerous journal articles and book reviews. She also sits on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Psychology and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She gives lectures and workshops both nationally and internationally.