Editorial

We have the honor of dedicating a two-part special issue of Smith College Studies in Social Work focused on selected peer-reviewed papers based on the proceedings of the biannual conference hosted by the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW). This issue, 86(1), represents Part II of this special issue.

The conference was held in Durham, North Carolina, between March 12 and 15, 2015, with the program titled, “The Art of Listening: Psychoanalytic Transformations.” Many members of the organization, presenters, coordinators, and participants contributed to the success of this event, yet I would like to specifically express my gratitude to several individuals. Many thanks go to Penny Rosen, who, as the conference chair, distinguished herself as thoughtful, disciplined, and very patient in the planning and implementation phases. I also extend my gratitude to William Myer, conference consultant; Cathy Siebold, program consultant; Karen Baker and Kim Sarasohn, cochairs of the call for papers; Nancy Perault, hospitality chair; and Glomar Simpson, chair of the Diversity and Otherness Committee (and committee members).

We would also like to acknowledge the significant contributions made by Dr. Jean Sanville, an outstanding practitioner-scholar in clinical social work and psychoanalysis. Throughout the years she provided an anchoring influence for AAPCSW. In this issue, Karen Redding writes a poignant tribute to her teacher, mentor, and friend that captures vividly Jean Sanville’s deep conviction to clinical social work practice, education and facilitating the well-being of those in her care. Ten years ago, she initiated a program that promoted the exchange of scholarship and clinical dialogue between the Smith College School for Social Work, her alma mater, and the Sanville Institute, a PhD-granting institute in clinical social work, where she was the founding dean.

Dr. Sanville hoped that the faculty and PhD students from both programs would participate in teaching exchanges where the SCSSW students would participate in the educational workshops at the Sanville Institute in January and the Sanville PhD interns would participate in our PhD academic program during the summer. For 9 years, an intellectually rich and evocative scholarly exchange was crafted between the two PhD programs, supported and sponsored by Dr. Sanville. Prior to her death in November 2013, she made plans to provide continuing financial grants to help offset the costs of clinical consultation incurred by our PhD students. We remain very grateful to Dr. Sanville for her exemplary leadership and steadfast support of our PhD and MSW programs at the SCSSW.

We would also like to honor one other exceptional clinical social worker, Dr. Sally Davis Comer, who contributed to the planning and implementation of the AAPCSW conference held in Durham in 2013. She was also instrumental in planning this most recent AAPCSW conference held in March 2015 but sadly passed away in September 2014 (Fletcher, Comer & Dunlap, 2014). Kathryn Basham has written a tribute in part drawn from comments expressed by colleagues and by Dr. Jay Williams, who presented a tribute to Dr. Comer at the recent AAPCSW conference (Williams, 2015b). Please refer to pages 78–79.

With “listening” in psychoanalytically informed clinical social work practice as the overarching theme for this conference, several presenters focused on case analyses and clinical case vignettes grounded in a synthesis of psychological and social theories. The authors of these five articles provide in-depth exploration of complex therapeutic processes and practice-informed research. The range of these articles represents more diversity in style compared with other articles typically published in the Studies. They vary from traditional scholarly manuscripts to essays and narratives that reflect both professional and personal perspectives. In the spirit of Helen Wittmer, the director of research at the SCSSW in the 1930s and the first editor of the Smith College Studies in Social Work, the journal was originally designed to showcase the noteworthy scholarship of our MSW students who engaged in research with their thesis projects. Throughout the decades, each editor of the Studies has supported the commitment to highlighting the significant research projects crafted by our MSW and PhD students along with junior and senior faculty within our school, as well as from graduate-level social work institutions, national and international. These articles also reflect the core principles that undergird our clinical social work practice specialization at the SCSSW—a relationship-oriented, culturally responsive, theoretically based, and research-informed approach that is grounded in an antiracism commitment.

In the first article, “Listening with Your Gut: The Role of Intuition in Boundary Judgments,” Margaret Arnd-Caddigan discusses a review of the research and clinical literature on boundary crossings and boundary violations. She asserts the reality that many ethical decisions are based on an immediate response—or intuition that is association with unconscious communication. The author explores the notions of boundary crossings and violations through a contemporary psychoanalytic relational lens and various models of intuition (psychoanalytic, social-cognitive, heuristic, and learning/experiential). This latter learning approach overlaps with the focus on relational knowing as affective and interactional amplified in the research of the Boston Change Process Study Group (BCPSG, 2010). A case illustration reveals a snap judgment made by a clinician when faced with a challenge to the therapeutic boundaries.

Ashley Warner has written the second article, “Listening to All of You with All of Me: The Arts, Empathy, and the Analyst.” This clinical social worker/psychoanalyst addresses empathy as a tool to understand the inner life of another and provide a guide for intervention. Grounded in a self-psychology framework, the author draws parallels between the dynamics of an artistic process with the in-depth explorations of psychoanalysis. Art-making reveals itself as a parallel process that involves empathic attunement as well as structured attunement and interpretation. Unlike the notions of “following” and “leading” in dance, she cites a renowned dance teacher who introduced the terms “interpreter” and the “tracker,” suggesting a more proactive attuned stance (Powers, 2010). In both dance and in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, it is important to avoid assumptions and pay attention, listen, and be prepared for surprises and reconsiderations. Through her case example of the dance of salsa, she suggests that dance and other creative arts may be restorative (i.e., creativity is a transformation of narcissism) (Kohut, 1966). She asserts that art-making may, in fact, have generative effects on the clinician as well.

In the third article, Barbara Berger, an experienced practitioner-scholar and educator, focuses on the complex process of separation-individuation as it evolves within our social contexts with young adult and middle adult stages of life. At times, the developmental challenges facing these different age cohorts stimulate conflicts as well as satisfaction, irony, and humorous growing pains for everyone. These interpersonal dynamics are illustrated through the use of familiar and poignant clinical vignettes based on case composites and analyzed with attention paid to a sociocultural critique.

The fourth article features the use of narrative medicine to facilitate awareness and connection in growth and support groups for women struggling with chronic illness and providers and administrators at a nursing home serving individuals facing dementia. Lynn Lawrence, the author of “The Group, the Photograph, the Wound and the Writing: How a Social Worker Uses Narrative Medicine to Facilitate Groups,” captures the intensity of the shared group narrative experience as well as the forcefulness of mutual aid and affiliation. The foundational constructs of “attention, representation, and affiliation” provide a metaphoric conceptual tripod or scaffolding for a “narrative medicine” method. Although this intervention does not aim to remediate symptoms or problems, the narrative group method serves as a forum for participants to express thoughts and feelings associated with their health conditions with goals of making-meaning and building connections with others. Here, the clinical social worker provides a “growth” group that promotes mutual aid. (Gitterman, 2005).

Teresa Méndez, who works at the Retreat at Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore, Maryland, has written the fifth article, “‘No End or Return’: Thematics of Impasse,” approaching the study of therapeutic impasse through the theoretical lenses of relational theory and infant research. As she broadens the definition of impasse to include any time when a clinician and/or client feels stuck, Ms. Méndez also introduces the roles of enactment, nonverbal implicit communications, and rupture and repair. Her primary clinical vignette, based on a case composite, reveals the complexity of unexamined enactments on the part of two junior clinicians cofacilitating a psychotherapy group in an intensive outpatient program. An identified client, “Bee,” presented in group with a demeanor that alternately conveyed her aggression and vulnerabilities, mirroring the sting and sweetness associated with this seriously traumatized woman, who both sought and feared being in a relationship. Students in clinical social work and allied disciplines, along with junior clinicians, will resonate with the blindsiding effects of unexamined enactments coupled with the fulfillment derived from a retrospective analysis of unpacking the persistent impasse.

We hope that this collection of articles has encouraged you to think about the complexities of clinical social work practice, education, and research. I would like you, as our readers, to know that I have completed my role as the editor of the journal as of the end of last year, 2015. After 9 years of thought-provoking and fulfilling collaborations with you, I thank you very much for your contributions. I would especially like to extend my gratitude to Gerry Schamess, who has provided his astute consultation throughout the years, along with Roger Miller, Dean Marianne Yoshioka, and Dean Carolyn Jacobs for their steadfast scholarly and administrative support. I am grateful to our book review editor, Ramona Allagia, associate faculty member at the University of Toronto, for her excellent editing skills, and my colleagues at Taylor & Francis, in particular John Beeler, our production editor, who has generously shared his keen editorial acumen. As we finish a chapter of our work together through the past several years, I extend a debt of gratitude to Doreen Underdue, our editorial assistant, for her unwavering and disciplined professionalism, grace, and patience, even during pressing deadlines! I hand over the reins of this position to Professor Dennis Miehls, chair of the Human Behavior in the Social Environment sequence at the SCSSW, who has extensive experience with writing and editorial work and a distinguished record of publications.

We look forward to receiving your manuscripts that address topics pertaining to current issues in clinical social work practice, theory, research, and social policy.