Dear Colleagues,
Can kindness, experience, wisdom, and quiet professional confidence be conveyed in a seminar?
After the workshop held on February 21 — the first in Module II of the program “Love and Aggression: From Normality to Pathology” — many participants would answer: yes.
Otto Kernberg conveyed these qualities to us together with his fundamental knowledge.
Module II consists of three six-hour workshops:
February 21, 2026 — Clinical Manifestations of Aggression and Their Treatment
March 21, 2026 — Aggression in Love and Conflicts in the Couple
April 18, 2026 — Aggression in Groups, Organizations, and the Political Sphere
Already the first workshop became a profound beginning of the clinical part of the program — living clinical work grounded in more than 60 years of practice.
After this meeting, we received many sincere and thoughtful reflections, which we included at the end of the newsletter. One message resonated throughout: this was not merely theory — it was the transmission of Otto Kernberg’s thinking. The transmission of stance. The transmission of experience.
No vagueness or generalities. Clarity. Intellectual courage. An energy that holds your attention and does not let go.
Below are the key content highlights of the workshop.
The Saturday workshop consisted of three main parts:
• Two lectures
• A public clinical supervision
• A Q&A session
Lecture Component Covered:
• Theory of Aggression: a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective
• The place of Aggression in normal psychic functioning
• Pathology of Aggression: forms, mechanisms, and clinical manifestations
• Clinical conditions characterized by dominant Aggression
• Mental conditions and states: differential diagnosis of aggressive manifestations
• Treatment of patients with intense or threatening Aggression in sessions: general clinical issues
• Practical aspects of psychotherapeutic work with Aggression
• Therapy of self-destructive and self-sabotaging tendencies
• Compulsive behaviors in the context of Aggression
• Sadism and masochism from a clinical perspective
• The affective attachment system and its relationship to Aggression
• Paraphilias and perverse tendencies
• Psychotherapeutic treatment strategies when Aggression predominates
• Assessment and use of countertransference in work with highly aggressive patients
• Unconscious guilt as a factor in the dynamics of Aggression
• Negative therapeutic reaction: unconscious guilt, envy, and destruction of good object relations
• Severe depression and suicidal tendencies: clinical differentiation
• Patients’ fantasy life within the structure of Aggression
• Sexualized seduction as a form of Aggression
• Paranoid transference: differential diagnosis
• Psychotherapeutic work with patients with paranoid organization
• Requirements for therapeutic conditions and treatment boundaries
• Legal and ethical aspects of psychotherapeutic practice
• Specifics of working with patients with a criminal history
• The relief stage in therapy: clinical risks and process dynamics
Practical Component
The public clinical supervision became a separate intensive block. Otto Kernberg presented his view on the frequency of therapy and its significance, and demonstrated how to think and act in situations where the therapeutic process reaches a “dead end” and requires structural reconsideration.
Q&A Session Focused On Complex Clinical Questions, Including:
• Does the dominance of Aggression as a biological characteristic increase in generations born and raised in conditions of war?
• How to work with narcissistic patients who are educated and intellectually developed, yet feel no interest in profession or hobbies and come with the request to “find what truly interests me”?
• What exactly do patients project when they devalue themselves, hate themselves, and feel inferior to others? Is it a splitting off of a positive self-representation?
• Why do patients with pronounced self-aggression not move toward suicide, but instead continue to harm themselves in dangerous ways? What is the psychodynamic logic of such behavior?
• Which clinical strategies are effective in working with patients exhibiting intense auto-aggressive behavior? Which interventions produce therapeutic results?
and other.
Overall, the First Workshop of Module II demonstrated the essential point: the topic of Aggression requires depth, endurance, and professional honesty. It does not allow simplifications and leaves no space for formal solutions. That is why such an encounter with Otto Kernberg’s thinking is not merely education, but an opportunity to expand one’s own clinical boundaries.
Ahead lies the continuation of this work — more complex questions, clinical case discussions, and professional challenges.
The program “Love and Aggression: From Normality to Pathology” is a space for deep clinical work under the guidance of Otto Kernberg.
If it is important for you not to simplify the complex, to tolerate the tension of the therapeutic process, and to work with intense states at a high professional level — we will be glad to see you among the participants.
Feedback from our fellow participants:
Natalia Yegorova: Today’s topic at the seminar with Otto Kernberg was “Clinical manifestations of aggression and working with aggression.”
It seems to me that at the fourth seminar, Kernberg revealed a bit more of himself as a person. And, my God, what a broad thinker, what a brave and honest man. Brave with a capital B. The way he spoke about suicide, the way he shared clinical cases from his practice… today I felt as if I were absorbing something very alive and real with every cell of my body. I will watch it again. Not only to take notes, but to let myself go through this experience once more.
An astonishing seminar today. I am deeply impressed. There was something so powerful, sad, and profoundly real about it. I don’t quite know how to put it into words. Some kind of revelation happened. Something more than just a lecture. The way he did it… I froze in front of the screen. You know that feeling when you try to breathe more quietly so as not to disturb something fragile. And it happens.
Huge gratitude!
Maksym Romenskyi: Learning from the best is always a way out of the illusion that “I already know enough.” For me, it is an encounter with the scale of thinking, with conceptual discipline, with a depth that does not simplify but instead complicates and structures.
Right now, such a step for me is the year-long course “Love and Aggression” with one of the most outstanding psychoanalysts in the world — Otto Kernberg.
The first lesson for me personally is a lesson in optimism. Dr. Kernberg is 98 years old. Just imagine: at this age, he takes on a year-long course and teaches it brilliantly. I haven’t invested myself in studying like this for a long time! A role model for life!
No “inspirational marathons,” no pop psychology. No discounts.
This is:
- rigorous object relations theory
- precise work with the concept of aggression
- analysis of narcissistic and borderline structures
- integration of love and destructive force within a single model
It’s challenging because it demands clinical thinking and requires revisiting everything I once knew — and urgently acquiring what is still missing.
Structured, because Kernberg thinks systemically and hierarchically.
Useful, because it provides a language for describing the most important dynamics of power, dependency, and intimacy.
Learning from the best means voluntarily entering a zone of intellectual rigor.
And each such stage is not just new knowledge, but a serious restructuring of one’s professional lens.
The break is over — back to work.
Katarzyna Devies: Therapy isn't just the hour in the room.
Today I attended 6.5h lectures with Otto Kernberg, part of a year-long programme I started four months ago: Love and Aggression, treatment of personality disorders. I'm only a third of the way in and already it has challenged me in ways I didn't fully anticipate.
So humbled about learning from someone who has spent over half a century sitting with the most complex presentations in our field, theorising about them, treating them, supervising them, and continuing to refine his thinking into his 90s, yes he is 98 this year can you believe this ?
Today I was left with Kernberg's commitment to clarity. Clear diagnosis. Clear communication. Naming things directly with the client, early, without softening the truth into something unrecognisable. Some might call that confrontational. I'm starting to think it might be one of the most respectful things we can offer.
In a field that has moved toward increasing sensitivity and careful language on a one hand and a clients who are highly educated and use psychological language on a regular basis, there is so much courage in saying: I see you clearly. I'm not afraid of what I see. And I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
What stays with me most is the privilege of live supervision, the attentiveness in which he is answering the questions and curiosity in which we think about the client material.
This is what continuing development looks like for me, being in the room and being challenged.
Our clients deserve therapists who never stop learning. And honestly so do we.
I also extend huge gratitude to @Oleksii Lemeshchuk from Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy who created a safe space in a time of war that we can come together.
And Mark L. Ruffalo for the recommendation.
Mirela Antonesky: Nu există iubire fără agresivitate și nu există agresivitate care să nu conțină, pe undeva, o formă de iubire; cele două forțe nu sunt opuse, ci expresii inseparabile ale aceleiași dinamici pulsionale. Tendința noastră de a le separa pornește din dorința de a proteja obiectul iubit de ambivalență: ne dorim să păstrăm iubirea „curată” și să exilăm agresivitatea în zona rușinii, a vinovăției sau a negării; însă atunci când una dintre ele este clivată și proiectată, cealaltă invadează relația într-o formă distorsionată.
Iubirea fără agresivitate devine posesivă (pentru că tensiunea neasumată caută o cale de control asupra obiectului), iar agresivitatea fără iubire devine distructivă (pentru că nu mai are funcție delimitativă sau diferențiatoare). Grija se confundă atunci cu controlul, pasiunea alunecă în tensiune, iar apropierea începe să fie trăită ca amenințare, pentru că relația nu mai poate conține simultan atât impulsul de a păstra, cât și impulsul de a ataca.
În cabinet, provocarea esențială nu constă în conținutul manifest al conflictului, ci în capacitatea de a rămâne conectat la nivelul unde se desfășoară drama structurală, și anume conflictul dintre nevoia de a iubi și frica de a fi distrus de iubire. Aici se decide posibilitatea integrării. Intimitatea nu apare prin eliminarea agresivității, ci prin capacitatea de a o conține fără a distruge iubirea.
Doar în măsura în care subiectul poate tolera coexistența acestor două forțe fără a recurge la clivaj sau proiecție se constituie o capacitate autentică de intimitate, pentru că intimitatea începe acolo unde iubirea și agresivitatea pot exista împreună fără a se anula reciproc.
Love and Aggression: From Normality to Pathology – Otto Kernberg, MD
Inna Yakovenko: I have the opportunity to listen to lectures by Otto Kernberg — a man who shaped the modern understanding of borderline personality organization and Transference-Focused Psychotherapy.
I admire him.
At 97 years old, this man maintains clarity of thought and conveys profound ideas with such structure, as if they were lying on the surface — though for ordinary perception they often remain unnoticed.
Speaking about the current political leader of his country, Otto points to manifestations of grandiosity, impulsivity in decision-making — when one thing is proclaimed today and something entirely different tomorrow, without signs of integrating previous decisions — as well as antisocial traits in his behavioral style.
It was interesting to hear his thoughts on what personality traits people may display when they emerge from war either with the status of victor or without it.
This topic is deeply relevant to me.
His knowledge is not merely educational material.
It is a different way of thinking.
I am grateful for this experience.
Because even alongside war, one can hold an internal frame.
Not lose clarity.
Not descend into chaos. Analyze the system without moralizing. Speak one’s opinion openly.
And remain an adult — in one’s position, in one’s thinking, in one’s life.
The world on the other side of the screen does not allow splitting, even when reality itself is at war.
TFP-Group Ukraine
Ukrainian Institute for Personality Disorders Studies