Introduction to Honoring Anni Bergman

ABSTRACT

This section honors Anni Bergman as a pioneer in theory, research, and clinical work across the lifespan. The papers were selected because they demonstrated deep understanding of the developmental process as applied to clinical work, in ways that reflect Dr. Bergman’s own practice. Singletary elaborates on Bergman’s later writing on rapprochement, seeing it as a lifelong process of dealing with the inevitable pains of life and its limitations, not just an early phase of development. Diamond et al. bring a developmental perspective to separation anxiety, its transformations, and links to later pathology/normality. Gold’s research-informed work in parent infant treatment emphasizes hearing the voice of the baby and creating a play space for listening as key in emphasizing mismatch and repair. Blom’s complex case presentation emphasizes the maternal in the treatment of a traumatized mother as she seeks safety as a parent wrestling with the ghosts of her nursery, and the traumatizing social systems in which she exists. Belinson et al. present an approach to supporting the most marginalized and vulnerable children, in families suffering from poverty, social marginalization, and intergenerational trauma. Throughout, there is insistence on creating space for multiple developmental processes including finding ways to be together. Lastly, Harrison presents a single case in which she shows the microanalytic process of working with a neurodiverse boy, using methods of building narratives that are outside language and symbolic play.

KEYWORDS:

• Neurodiverse
• rapprochement
• separation anxiety
• transgenerational trauma
• microanalysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wendy Olesker

Wendy Olesker, Ph.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and on the Faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She is Senior Editor of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. She is Director of the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. For the past ten years she has been Director of the Follow-up Study of the Margaret Mahler Foundation.

Inga Blom

Inga Blom, Ph.D., PMH-C, is a clinical psychologist based in New York City. She obtained her Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research, where she was mentored by Anni Bergman and Miriam Steele on follow-up research with the original subjects of Separation-Individuation Theory. For many years, she worked as Anni Bergman’s assistant. Currently, she is a training director and program director of a reproductive mental health program in an urban hospital. She also works in private practice and teaches undergraduate courses.