Dear Colleagues,
Last Saturday, December 20, 2025, TFP-Group Ukraine and Ukrainian Institute for Personality Disorders Studies held the second workshop of Module I of the one-year training program:
Love and Aggression: From Norm to Pathology
Trainer: Dr. Otto Kernberg, M.D.
We invite you to review the range of topics and discussions that unfolded during the workshop and to join the program in order to engage directly, at the next meeting, with the depth of thought and distinctive teaching style of Dr. Otto Kernberg.
The central theme of the Saturday workshop was:
Classical Psychoanalytic Theory and Contemporary Object Relations Theory
Although this topic may appear challenging for therapists without a psychoanalytic background—particularly if one asks whether it is possible to provide a meaningful overview of classical psychoanalytic theory within a single workshop—Dr. Kernberg presented the material in a way that clearly conveyed the internal logic and historical development of psychoanalysis over time.
He outlined the evolution of psychoanalytic thought and introduced the core concepts and perspectives of Freud, Klein, ego psychology, the British school of object relations, Winnicott, Bion, relational psychoanalysis, as well as the integration of Jaak Panksepp’s discoveries in the field of primary affective systems with both classical and contemporary psychoanalytic theory.
The workshop was conducted in several formats: two lecture-based segments, a public clinical supervision featuring a new clinical case (narcissistic personality disorder within a love triangle), and a question-and-answer session. Each format contributed in its own way to a deeper exploration of the central theme. Below, we offer a more detailed overview of each of these components.
Lecture Component
The lecture portion consisted of two theoretical blocks, tracing a coherent trajectory from the origins of psychoanalytic thought to contemporary integrative models. The following themes were addressed:
- Classical Psychoanalytic Theory
- Sigmund Freud’s classical theory as the foundation of psychoanalytic thinking
- Unconscious mental conflict between libido (drives toward life, love, and creativity) and mortido (drives toward destruction and death)
- Psychic agencies and basic personality structure: id, ego, and superego
- Ego defense mechanisms
- The role of social and cultural context in shaping the superego, norms, and internal prohibitions
- The basic organization of self–other relationships within classical psychoanalysis
- Three primary sources of aggression in psychoanalytic theory
- Development and Critique of Classical Psychoanalysis
- Melanie Klein’s perspective and her radical reworking of Freud’s ideas
- Early developmental stages and the predominance of primitive defenses
- Ronald Fairbairn’s Perspective: motivation through relationships as an alternative to drive theory; the concept of multiple internal representations of the self and objects.
- Contemporary Object Relations Theory
- Stages of object relations development and the formation of a cohesive, integrated self
- The transition from part-objects to whole objects in the internal world
- The significance of early interactions with primary objects
- Bion’s theoretical contributions
- Fred Busch’s perspective in contemporary psychoanalysis
- Jaak Panksepp’s affective neuroscience theory
- Basic emotional systems of the brain as an evolutionary foundation of the psyche
- The seven primary affective systems
- Mark Solms’s neuropsychoanalysis:
- Integration of psychoanalytic theory with contemporary neuroscience
- The primary role of affect and the Id as the foundation of conscious experience
- Transference-Focused Psychotherapy and object relations theory
These topics—returning to classical theories and moving toward contemporary integrative perspectives—enable psychotherapists to develop more precise clinical thinking. They also support a deeper understanding of complex affective processes in clinical work and help clinicians formulate and select interventions that are appropriate to the therapeutic task.
Public Clinical Supervision was devoted to a new clinical case involving a patient with narcissistic personality disorder, presenting with symptoms of anxiety and depression, compulsive shopping, and burnout.
Particular attention was given to the patient’s complaints of dissatisfaction with work and with life more broadly—presentations that psychotherapists encounter very frequently in clinical practice.
Dr. Otto Kernberg’s interventions in this segment made it possible to view the clinical picture from a new perspective, moving beyond surface-level complaints and accessing the patient’s deeper internal conflicts. He demonstrated how familiar formulations such as “dissatisfaction with life” may conceal far more complex and profound intrapsychic dynamics.
This supervision segment offered a close engagement with everyday therapeutic work and helped identify new clinical reference points in situations that previously felt stagnant or unclear.
Q&A session was the concluding segment of the workshop, during which participants had the chance to ask Dr. Otto Kernberg their questions in real time.
During the Q&A session, the following topics were discussed:
- Why is envy such a difficult affect for some individuals to tolerate? While some people seem able to acknowledge envy with relatively little defensiveness, others appear to require devaluation or attack of the envied object. What accounts for these differences in tolerance, and how do they relate to personality organization or early object relations?
- How do you regard Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotions, which describes emotions as brain-constructed and questions the idea of innate basic emotions?
- How can alexithymia be explained in the context of affects? (The inability to recognize/feel emotions)
- Нow you conceptualize the differences between what are currently described as personality pathology and complex PTSD at three levels:
1) Intrapsychic and structural organization (e.g., identity integration, object relations, defensive operations)
2) Diagnostic differentiation, particularly where there is significant developmental trauma and symptom overlap
3) Therapeutic implications, including treatment focus, technique, and prognosis
How you would distinguish whether chronic affect dysregulation, relational instability, and identity disturbance reflect a trauma-based condition versus a personality organization, and whether you see complex PTSD as structurally distinct from, overlapping with, or subsumable under personality pathology.
- You mentioned the difficulties in translating the German term Das Ich. In English, it is rendered as ego, but Freud meant self. Today, self and ego are sometimes used as synonyms and sometimes distinguished. Do you use these terms as synonyms for one structure, or do you still use them to denote different concepts?
- Could you please tell a bit more about how the therapist can facilitate the integration of the split Self into the Ideal and the Persecutory parts?
- In my patients with narcissistic features, I often observe a persistent sense of inner unrest. There seems to be a constant need to do, achieve, or acquire, which makes it very difficult for them to simply be and experience satisfaction. Is this a common phenomenon in narcissistic pathology? If so, how do you conceptualize this dynamic, and how would you approach addressing or treating it clinically so that patients can develop a greater sense of fulfillment?
- Can a TFP therapist treat a husband and wife simultaneously—that is, can a couple have the same therapist while being seen in separate sessions for their own intrapsychic issues, or is this prohibited?
- and other.
There were many questions. Some of the responses effectively became short lectures in their own right; however, it was precisely these extended answers that deepened the understanding of the topic and helped participants engage more thoughtfully with the material.
We sincerely hope that this brief overview of the key moments from the Second Workshop will encourage you to continue exploring new dimensions of psychotherapeutic work. We invite you to join our in-depth and contemporary training program:
Love and Aggression: From Norm to Pathology
Trainer: Dr. Otto Kernberg, MD
Within this program, you will deepen your professional understanding of aggression, love, sexuality, and personality development, while also engaging with questions that frequently arise in clinical practice—and, at times, in one’s own personal relationships and lived experience.
Best regards,
TFP-Group Ukraine
Ukrainian Institute for Personality Disorders Studies