Danielle Knafo - From Breakthrough: Psychoanalytic Treatment of Psychosis

Please note: the entrance to the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis is on Livingston St. Upon arrival please ring "3rd Floor Reception" for entry and head up via elevator to the 3rd floor.

Dr. Knafo, who has worked with psychosis in a variety of settings for over 40 years, will describe the reasons why she believes most psychoanalysts have veered away from the treatment of psychosis in recent decades. She will then present her approach to meeting the challenges of working with individuals undergoing extreme states. Her approach focuses primarily on providing safety, forging a working alliance by meeting the patient where they are and allotting them maximum personal agency, understanding their symptoms as attempts at adaptation and restoration of the self, coping with loneliness, and working with the transference and countertransference. She works with a patient's strengths as well as weaknesses. Most importantly, Dr. Knafo's approach to therapy involves viewing the patient as a whole person rather than a collection of symptoms, prioritizing subjective experience and affect, and seeing the patient as a true collaborator in their own treatment. Clinical examples will illustrate her points.

Dr. Danielle Knafo is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst with expertise in the treatment of psychosis. During her tenure as professor at L.I.U.’s Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program for 22 years, she trained doctoral students on how to work therapeutically and psychodynamically with serious mental illness. She received the prestigious Barbro Sandin award for this work. Currently, she is faculty and supervisor at Adelphi’s Postgraduate Programs and NYU’s Postdoctoral Program for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She has written and lectured extensively on the topics of art and creativity, psychoanalysis, trauma and psychosis, sexuality and technology. From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Psychoanalytic Treatment of Psychosis is her tenth book. Dr. Knafo has worked psychodynamically with psychosis for 40 years, and she maintains a private practice in Manhattan and Great Neck, NY.

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Psychosis in the City is a series curated by Dr. Christopher Landry, a psychiatrist, psychoanalytic candidate at Columbia University, and a Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis Community Psychoanalysis Grant Recipient. He is the Associate Medical Director at Fountain House, a therapeutic community supporting recovery for people with Serious Mental Illness, and co-founder of the Constellation Program, a psychoanalytically-informed treatment program for young adults experiencing psychosis and extreme states.

With the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis Chris is working on three interrelated endeavors. The Foundation supports the Constellation Program as a space for 1:1 therapy as well as group work facilitated by Isaiah Madison. Chris also organizes the Working Group for Community Mental Health Workers and he leads the speaker series Psychosis in the City, produced in collaboration with the Greene Clinic Speaker Series, hosted at the Foundation space.

Host or Publisher The Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis