• 212.924.7440
  • 40 West 13th St. New York, NY 10011
  • September 7, 2025
  • 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM ET
  • 2 CE Hours

Live Online via Zoom
Registration is required to receive the Zoom link.

Registration closes on Friday, September 5th, at 1:00 PM (ET).
Zoom access details will be sent between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM on the same day.

Click here to RSVP

NPAP Fall Continuing Education PROGRAM

The Relational Approach as a Sensibility

Presenter

Aner Govrin, Phd

Moderator

Penny Rosen, MSW, LCSW-R, BCD-P

Description

This presentation offers an original conceptualization of psychoanalytic history through three distinct epochs: the Golden Age (Freud’s foundational work), the Silver Age (the formation of major schools from 1939-1970s), and the Age of Sensibilities (1980s-present). The relational approach emerges as the most significant sensibility in this third epoch, not as a clinical technique but as a philosophical orientation. Unlike previous psychoanalytic revolutions that emerged from clinical observations, the relational approach originated from external philosophical and cultural shifts, transforming how therapists and patients relate to each other by emphasizing the intersubjective nature of truth and the importance of therapist subjectivity. This framework helps us understand why relational ideas have permeated even non-relational clinical practices.

About the presenter

Aner Govrin, PhD Director of Doctoral Track “Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics” in The Program for Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Editor of the book series “Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis,” London: Routledge (31 books in the series). Author, How Philosophy Changed Psychoanalysis: From Naïve Realism to Postmodernism; Ethics and Attachment: How We Make Moral Judgments; Conservative and Radical Perspectives in Psychoanalysis: The Fascinated and the Disenchanted. Practice, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Learning Objectives

After attending the presentation, participants will be able to:

  • Distinguish between psychoanalytic “schools” and “sensibilities.”
  • Explain how the relational approach functions as a sensibility that originated outside clinical observation.
  • Describe how the relational approach transformed psychoanalytic practice through its emphasis on intersubjectivity, therapist subjectivity, and the socially constructed nature of therapeutic truth.

Open to

NPAP Member

$25

Other Professionals

$40

Candidates / Students

$15

Contribution

Encouraged

CE Credits

2 CE contact hours will be granted to participants with documented attendance and complete evaluation form. It is the responsibility of the participants seeking CE credits to comply with these requirements. Upon completion, a Certificate of Attendance will be emailed to all participants.

  • National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0139.
  • National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts. #P-0010.
  • The National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0137.
  • National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0093.