2026 Visiting Professor: Lynne Zeavin, Psy.D.

2026 Visiting Professor: Lynne Zeavin, Psy.D.

Saturday, March 21, 2026

The Trauma of a Flawed World: Thoughts on Imperfection, Depressive Anxieties and the Difficulty Bearing Conflict

Discussant: Joshua Ehrlich, Ph.D.

2:00 – 4:00 pm

About the presenter and discussant:

Dr. Lynne Zeavin is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in full-time practice in New York City, and a training and supervising analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute, where she chairs the Curriculum. She is an Associate Editor at JAPA and has published on idealization, the status of the object, neutrality, interpretation and various aspects of Kleinian theory. She supervises widely from a contemporary Kleinian perspective. She is co-founder of the Rita Frankiel Memorial Fellowship funded by the Melanie Klein Trust and is a founder of Second Story, a non-institutional psychoanalytic space in New York City. A member of Green Gang, she participates on the IPA Climate Committee that studies aspects of the climate emergency. Dr. Zeavin is co-editor Hating, Abhorring and Wishing to Destroy: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Contemporary Moment and With Climate in Mind: Psychoanalysts on Climate Breakdown (2025), and currently co-editing a new collection on the abortion debate in the US and globally.

Joshua Ehrlich, Ph.D., is on the Faculty of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, where he teaches and also is Chair of the Faculty Development Committee. Dr. Ehrlich has a practice in Ann Arbor, where he sees adolescents and adults in psychotherapy and adults in psychoanalysis. He also teaches and supervises psychiatry residents at the University of Michigan. Dr. Ehrlich’s 2014 book on divorce was described by a reviewer as “invaluable” for clinicians seeking a comprehensive text on working with families dealing with divorce. In 2025, he won the 8th Annual Deanna Holtzman Interdisciplinary/Applied Psychoanalysis Essay Contest for a paper on consent, which he will present at MPI in April.

Practice Gap/Need and Course Description:

Many clinicians struggle to conceptualize and work effectively with patients who cannot tolerate imperfection in themselves or others and who rely on idealization to ward off psychic pain. These states often interfere with the patient’s capacity to hear interpretations, bear depressive affects, and face guilt, resulting in stalled psychic change. This activity will increase learner’s clinical competence by deepening their understanding of Kleinian theories of imperfection, idealization, unstable internal objects, and depressive anxiety. Through theoretical discussion and two clinical cases, participants will learn to recognize when guilt cannot be faced and how this limits reparative capacity and psychic change. This presentation offers clinicians a Kleinian theory of mind that shapes our understanding of how to reach patients whose excessive use of idealization, as a defense against aggression, thwarts their progress as they turn away from facing imperfection in themselves and their objects.

After attending this presentation, participants will be able to:

1.    Describe Kleinian concepts of unstable internal objects, early phantasies, and idealization, and their role in the patient’s difficulty tolerating imperfection, depressive affects, and guilt.

2.    Analyze clinical situations in which warding off guilt interferes with reparative processes and psychic change, using case material to identify conditions that limit psychic change and integration.

CONTINUING MEDICAL EDUCATION

ACCME Accreditation Statement

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and Michigan Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

AMA Credit Designation Statement

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure Statement

The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME’s identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.

CONTINUING EDUCATION FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS

The Michigan Psychoanalytic Society is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Michigan Psychoanalytic Society maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

CONTINUING EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL WORK

This training/event has been approved by the NASW-Michigan Chapter for 2.0 CE credits.

The views of the speakers do not necessarily represent the views of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Society.

Please call or email Monica Evans at 248-851-3380, mevans@mpi-mps.org for additional information