Freud’s ideas suggest that, in symptom formation, the drive and the conflicts surrounding the drive are primary, ultimately taking the form of a symptom. Later generations of analysts questioned the primacy of the drive and shifted the focus toward the study of early attachment relationships.
Do we regard these concepts as competing with one another? No. We see them as complementary, since drives clearly emerge and unfold within the context of object relationships.
Today, drawing on the latest discoveries in neuroscience, we know far more about how the brain functions, the roles of cortical and subcortical structures, and our affective and intellectual life. But how can all of this be brought together into a coherent conceptual framework?
Otto Kernberg has a remarkable ability. He not only engages with the latest ideas from a wide range of disciplines—medicine, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and religion—but is also able to assemble this enormous Lego construction into coherent and comprehensible theories that are practically oriented and applicable to our everyday clinical work as psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists.
This is the principle underlying all of his seminars, including those you will have the opportunity to attend this autumn—September 26, October 24, and November 21.
NEW CLINICAL SEMINAR SERIES
Love, Sex and Aggression: From Normality to Pathology
Faculty — Otto F. Kernberg, M.D.
September 26 — The First Seminar in the Series
Program:
September 26, 2026 - Pathology of sexual functioning, homosexuality, narcissism, perversion. In particular, the seminar will address the following topics:
- The continuum of sexual pathology — from the neurotic level to the borderline level with the co-optation of sexuality by aggression
- The impact of identity diffusion on sexual pathology
- The psychodynamics of abandonment anxiety
- Differentiating polymorphous-perverse sexuality from genuine perversions
- A structural approach to perversions: distinguishing neurotic perversions (as a defense against castration anxiety) from severe perversions within borderline personality organization
- Aggression in perversions
- Sexuality in the service of aggression
- The specificity of narcissistic sexuality
- The pathological grandiose self in narcissism as a structural basis for disturbances in love
- Narcissistic sexuality: the role of unconscious envy and mechanisms of devaluation
- The narcissistic fantasy of “bisexuality” and the choice of a partner as a “mirror twin”
- Narcissistic fixation on partial objects
- Malignant narcissism and the infiltration of sexuality by aggression
- Narcissism and the erosion of boundaries
- The eroticization of pain and hatred
- Homosexuality in normal development
- Homosexuality across the continuum of structural organization: neurotic level, borderline level, narcissistic spectrum
- A psychodynamic perspective on polyamory, polygamy, open relationships, swinging, and related phenomena
October 24, 2026 - Severe sexual inhibition in men and women, sexual promiscuity. Among the topics of the seminar:
- Primary sexual inhibition
- Secondary sexual inhibition
- Fear of annihilation in the context of sexuality
- Dissociation between tenderness and eroticism
- Radical splitting
- Sexual inhibition — a continuum from neurotic to borderline levels
- Reduced or absent sexual desire; sexual aversion disorder
- Delay or blockage of stages of arousal
- Difficulties achieving orgasm or absence of orgasm
- Sexual avoidance and phobic reactions
- Syndromes of male sexual inhibition (erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, absence of ejaculation, anorgasmia)
- Syndromes of female sexual inhibition (arousal disorder, sexual unresponsiveness, delayed orgasm, anorgasmia, dyspareunia, vaginismus)
- Severe sexual inhibition
- Asexuality — a norm or a consequence of sexual inhibition?
- Compulsive masturbation
- Promiscuity in men and women — psychodynamic origins
- The nature of sexual promiscuity in narcissism
- The dynamics of Don Juanism
November 21, 2026 - Therapeutic challenges in the treatment of love and aggression. The workshop will focus on the following topics:
- Assessment of the prognosis for couple therapy
- Erotic and eroticized transference and countertransference
- Specific features of narcissistic transference
- The syndrome of arrogance
- Negative therapeutic reaction
- Management of affective storms
- Management of countertransference
- Bringing sexual enactments into the analytic space
- Strategy of interpretation
- Indicators of structural change
- Integration of love, sexuality, and aggression
Time:
from 1:40-8:00 PM (London time)
from 8:40AM-3:00PM (New York time)
FORMAT & LANGUAGE
Online education in English
With simultaneous Ukrainian interpretation available on a dedicated audio channel.
What does the training participant package include?
Participants receive:
- Online Zoom seminar participation
- Handouts for Clinical Case Analysis
- 12-month access to the webinar recordings
- A personalized electronic certificate of participation for each module, and, upon completion of all four modules, a comprehensive program completion certificate.
We encourage you to register for a training that will enhance the effectiveness of psychotherapy in your clinical work.
September 26 — The First Seminar in the Series