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Title: Large group identities, ruptures, and repairs, and DSPP membership

Presenter: Melissa Wallace, MD and Melissa Black, PhD

Date/Time: October 18, 2023; 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM CST

Location: The Center for Integrative Counseling and Psychology

Credit Hours: 1.5 CME/CE credit hours

Description: 

As we begin to repair the ruptures precipitated by the pandemic, DSPP plans to convene a Large Group. The Large Group provides a safe place for concerns to be expressed that otherwise might not emerge in the more structured programs of DSPP. This allows our organization to better meet the needs of the membership. What has been working for us? What might need to be changed? This year's program plans to focus on rupture and repair. Ruptures in the psychoanalytic world have been frequent and traumatic; repairs have been harder to come by. The containment that Large Groups offer can provide an opportunity to explore the ruptures and repairs in the organizational life of DSPP as well as any other issues that would benefit from examination and dialogue. Melissa Wallace, MD and Dale Godby, PhD will convene a Large Group to provide a space to explore these issues. 

Learning Objectives:

1. The primary task of this Large Group will be to provide a safe place to give voice to the thoughts, feelings, and associations of the membership in service of communal dialogue. 

2. Identify and name 3 ways in which ruptures related to the pandemic have impacted clinical work.

3. Vogel (2016) describes 5 levels of membership with increasing member experience and depth of service as “visitor, novice, member, senior member, and principal elder.” Within DSPP how do these subgroups relate to one another?

4. Describe functional and dysfunctional subgrouping and ways in which dysfunctional subgrouping creates ruptures and ways in which these can be repaired. 

5. A basic learning objective of this large group will be to increase our understanding of societal, systemic, and subgroup dynamics related to Large Group identities, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, social class, religion, sexual orientation, and identity, age, ability, and professional status. 

Reference:

Deutsch, R. A. (2014). Traumatic ruptures: Abandonment and betrayal in the analytic relationship. New York and London: Routledge.

Dluhy, M., et al. (2019). The large group experience: Affiliation in a learning community. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 69, 287-307.

Grundy, D. (2020). Large group: A brief historical and personal account. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 70, 117-138.

Pena, C. (2023). From crowd psychology to the dynamics of large groups: Historical, theoretical, and practical considerations. London and New York: Routledge. 

Vogl, C. (2016). The Art of community: Seven principles for belonging. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Presenters:

Melissa Wallace, MD graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Physiology and Developmental Biology, followed by Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. During medical school she volunteered in community outreach programs and was inducted into the Golden Humanism Honor Society. She continued her training with a psychiatric residency at UT Southwestern in Dallas. While 

there, she taught a course on psychiatry and pop culture to the UTSW medical students, chaired the literature and psychiatry committee and received the John F. Hickman award for outstanding resident. After completing residency in 2019, she joined the Group Analytic Practice of Dallas as an associate member and became a partner in 2023. She currently conducts T-groups for the psychiatry residents at UTSW and co-convenes the all resident large group. She primarily treats adults with anxiety and depression through a combination of medication management, individual therapy, and group therapy. 

Dale C. Godby, PhD. CGP, ABPP, LFAGPA is a member of the Group Analytic Practice of Dallas and was the fourth president of DSPP. He is Volunteer Faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas where he is the three-time award winner of the Outstanding Clinical Teaching Award by the Psychiatry Residents Organization and is the recent recipient of the Paul C. Mohl Award for Excellence and Dedication in Psychotherapy Supervision. He has been a frequent co-host of the Workshop Reflective Citizens Koinonia by Koinonia-Art Belgrade, Serbia. He and Melissa Wallace, MD will conduct a workshop this August with GAPDallas colleagues for the Group Analytic Society International Symposium in Belgrade: When Divided Worlds Meet: Confluences of Identity, Culture, Continuity and Change entitled "Martin Luther King: Talking about Race "