“Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Trauma: On the Fragmentation and Restoration of the Human Soul,” is being sponsored by the Graduation School of Education.

Friday, April 21
8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
McNally Amphitheatre
140 West 62nd St, Lincoln Center Campus

Amelio D’Onofrio, Ph.D., clinical professor and founding director of the Psychological Services Institute at Fordham at GSE, said the conference’s presenters will talk about how relational trauma in particular, shatters our “souls” and uncovers a history we have often concealed from ourselves.

If, for example, a person grew up in a family with substance abuse, or one of their parents was unable to give proper care because of mental illness, the trauma from that experience might make it more difficult to recover from later-life traumas.

“Many of my patients come in, and early on they’ll say ‘I had a perfect childhood; everything was great!’ But as the work continues, we’ll start to entangle traumatic experiences that they may have had, and that are now reactivated by the breakup of a relationship, for example,” he said.

Topics being presented include “Psychotherapy’s Epic Journey: Descent, Dismemberment, and Remembrance;” “Built On A Lie”: Perversion in an Everyday Subject and Donald Trump;” and “Conversion Disorder: Colonial Trauma and the “Souls” of the Barrio.”

D’Onofrio will present one session, “Desire, Despair, and the Presence of an Absence: Relational Trauma and Therapeutic (Re-)Enactments.” He said the thesis of his presentation is that early life traumatic patterns can play actually out in the relationship between patient and therapist. A patient who has never been on the receiving end of an empathetic gesture might not be able to respond to one when a therapist is there for them. This, he said, can sometimes trigger a negative therapeutic reaction.

Presenters were chosen because they represent a diversity of ideas, he said.

“Betsy Hall, a professor and assistant dean of counseling and family therapy at Regis University, is a Jungian who deals with psychoanalysis, myth, stories, and literature. Patricia Gherovici, who is a psychoanalyst and co-founder and director of the Philadelphia Lacan Group, works with poor Hispanic populations in Philadelphia and comes from a Lacanian perspective. Ed Robbins, a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and clinical director of Dr. Robins & Associates Trauma & Treatment Center, is a Freudian and works with the trauma of violence,” he said.

“Having different theoretical orientations and different voices in the conference will make it a richer experience for the audience.”

For more information, visit the conference webpage.

But what if the trauma is not a one-time event? What if a person’s entire world is filled with adversity, flooding her with constant stress and anxiety and preventing her brain from ever recovering?

This the challenge that underlies the treatment of complex, or chronic, trauma, says Amelio D’Onofrio, Ph.D., a clinical professor and director of the Psychological Services Institute in the Graduate School of Education (GSE).

In general, a traumatic experience is one that is so distressing that it overwhelms the brain’s ability to process the event and triggers a set of survival-oriented physiological and psychological responses. Acute trauma refers to a singular event such as a car accident, an assault, or a natural disaster. Complex trauma, though, is more pervasive.

“For instance, if a parent chronically abuses substances and cannot meet a child’s basic needs, that is a traumatic environment for the child. Or if there is violence in the home or in the neighborhood and kids are constantly trying to protect themselves, that is traumatic,” said D’Onofrio, who is also a practicing psychotherapist.

“We expect kids to focus on doing schoolwork and solving complex problems, but they’re so worried about self-protection that their nervous systems have been activated to the point that they can’t focus.”

This year D’Onofrio received a $311,000 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to design an intervention program for inner-city students who have experienced complex trauma and who otherwise would not be able to receive specialized psychological services.

The grant-funded program, which was implemented in two Bronx middle schools this fall, is divided into ten-week increments over the course of two years. For each set of ten weeks, doctoral students from GSE’s counseling and counseling psychology program run structured group treatment with at-risk students. The team also meets with each student individually at least twice and meets with parents to educate them on the effects of trauma and how it impacts their children.

The goal is to help students start to understand the impact of stressful and traumatic environments and to teach them healthy coping skills so that they will be less likely to turn to gangs or drugs.

“We worked closely with GSE’s Center for Educational Partnerships to select the two schools. One of the schools is serving many recent immigrants from all over the world, and the other school recently had a gang-related stabbing,” D’Onofrio said, referring to an incident this summer in which a 14-year-old student stabbed and killed another student outside their middle school.

D’Onofrio hopes to later develop internships and externships in the schools so that Fordham counseling students can continue working with the middle school students once their ten sessions come to an end.

“I think this a powerful interface between a Jesuit university and the community, a way of giving back and working toward social justice,” he said.

Virginia Wise Berninger, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, offered the keynote address, “Assessment-Instruction Links within Interdisciplinary Frameworks.”

Widely published on writing-related disabilities, Berninger told participants that many children who struggle with some area of writing are diagnosed incorrectly as learning disabled because educators miss the nuance of their problem. In fact, their so-called learning disabilities may stem from a number of issues, including genetic abnormalities, environmental factors, or even cultural differences.

“Because we’ve had too much emphasis on symptoms outside of a profile, we’re missing what’s really going on in too many cases,” said Berninger, who was presented with the Alan S. Kaufman Excellence in Assessment Award earlier that morning.

The reasons for a disability involving writing vary, Berninger said. The problem may be related to a fine motor deficit, which could be corrected by physical and occupational therapy. Or, a child may have an underlying medical issue, for example, a brain injury or seizure disorder. Alternatively, learning disabilities may be purely environmental, for instance, caused by poverty, language or cultural differences, or family stressors.

Since the causes of disabilities are complex, not all children will benefit from the same remedial or special education curriculum. Thus, it is critical to conduct developmental, academic, and genetic assessments to correctly identify what is affecting a child’s ability to learn and tailor a therapy accordingly.

“No single commercially available evidence-based writing assessment or instructional tool will work for all students with learning disabilities or learning differences,” Berninger said. “We need to consider individual developmental differences and socio-contextual (such as family and school systems) and cultural factors in identifying effective instructional approaches.”

The conference also featured Scott Decker, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at the University of South Carolina, who presented, “Writing Assessment and Intervention: A Neuro-Cognitive Perspective,” and Dawn P. Flanagan, Ph.D., professor of psychology at St. John’s University, who presented, “Cross-Battery Assessment of and Interventions for Written Language Disorder Subtypes.”

The annual conference is named for the late Elizabeth “Betty” Ann Finn, Ph.D., former clinical associate professor in GSE.