About This Event
Dean’s Distinguished Speakers Series
Facing Our Age: Thinking about Retirement.
Virtual Course
This group will create a space for clinicians who practice from a psychodynamic perspective who are:
• Contemplating retirement
• Transitioning towards retirement
• Concerned about their age and feasibility of continuing to practice
To discuss, share, read about, explore the many issues related to this professional stage, including
• Where are you in the retirement process?
• Identifying and addressing sources of resistance and ambivalence.
• Assessing your needs and readiness for change (now and in the past).
• Options, pace and timing as considerations when approaching retirement.
• What becomes of professional/personal identity in retirement?
• Reality check: The nuts and bolts of the process.
Our primary aim is to support and help participants make sense of the retirement or contemplative process.
Presenters:
Amy Eldridge, PhD is Immediate Past President of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and Dean Emerita of the Institute for Clinical Social Work. She has a psychotherapy practice with adults, adolescents, and couples in downtown Chicago. She also consults on clinical practice, training and leadership issues. Dr. Eldridge is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, is the author of numerous published papers on clinical practice and has been a frequent presenter at professional conferences. Most recently, Dr. Eldridge is teaching psychoanalytic practice and theory to professionals in China.
Dr. Eldridge has recently participated as a respondent to a presentation by Dr. Sarah Goldberg on her research into aging psychoanalysts. This event was co-sponsored by the Institute for Clinical Social Work and the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. She and Dr. Goldberg are co-presenters in a workshop on issues facing aging psychotherapists in the annual conference of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology this October. Always interested in development and its relation to psychodynamic clinical work, Dr. Eldridge is now drawn to issues related to aging as she approaches the retirement phase. Her personal and professional experience of aging and retirement provide a foundation for co-leading this consultation group.
Freda [Freddi] Friedman, PhD is a licensed clinical social worker who has worn many hats during her career in social work, as a clinician, educator, supervisor, consultant, author, lecturer.
Her interest in the topic of preparing for retirement has been growing over the past few years, as she and many of her colleagues and friends pass into the "Golden Years." She has participated in presentations, clinical consultation discussions and authored articles on clinical work and aging. Currently, she is a clinician and supervisor in her private practice in Chicago, where she works with adults, couples, families and groups.
Freddi has been involve with the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago on many levels--as chair of the Board of Trustees, now emerita, as a faculty member working with doctoral and master's students on their clinical work and dissertations. She received her PhD in psychodynamic clinical social work from ICSW and an MS in social work from Columbia University, MY. She has taught courses on working with older adults, trauma,neurological underpinnings of mental health issues, grief, loss, attachment disorders, and severe personality disorders. Her group experiences includes leading groups for people with relationship difficulties, dysfunctional coping styles and for families who are trying to survive and thrive despite family dynamics impacted by mental health issues. She has presented widely at numerous conferences and workshops, and has published articles and several books on a range of topics including emotion dysregulation, relationship difficulties, clinical work with the elderly and trauma-related issues.
She and Dr. Eldridge have collaborated on several successful projects over the past two decades and are excited to work together on developing and implementing this group.
Dates: Thursdays, January 22, February 5, 19, March 5, 19, April 2, 2026
Time: 2:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. CDT
CEs: 9
Fees: $420
Questions: Contact Elree Smith at esmith@icsw.edu
Program Question: Contact Dean Denise Tsioles at dduval@icsw.edu
Registration and attendance at, or participation in, ICSW classes, meetings and other activities constitutes an agreement by the registrant to ICSW's use and distribution (both now and in the future) of the registrant or attendee's image or voice in photographs, videotapes, electronic reproductions, and audiotapes of such events and activities.
About This Event
Dean’s Distinguished Speakers Series
Facing Our Age: Thinking about Retirement.
Virtual Course
This group will create a space for clinicians who practice from a psychodynamic perspective who are:
• Contemplating retirement
• Transitioning towards retirement
• Concerned about their age and feasibility of continuing to practice
To discuss, share, read about, explore the many issues related to this professional stage, including
• Where are you in the retirement process?
• Identifying and addressing sources of resistance and ambivalence.
• Assessing your needs and readiness for change (now and in the past).
• Options, pace and timing as considerations when approaching retirement.
• What becomes of professional/personal identity in retirement?
• Reality check: The nuts and bolts of the process.
Our primary aim is to support and help participants make sense of the retirement or contemplative process.
Presenters:
Amy Eldridge, PhD is Immediate Past President of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and Dean Emerita of the Institute for Clinical Social Work. She has a psychotherapy practice with adults, adolescents, and couples in downtown Chicago. She also consults on clinical practice, training and leadership issues. Dr. Eldridge is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, is the author of numerous published papers on clinical practice and has been a frequent presenter at professional conferences. Most recently, Dr. Eldridge is teaching psychoanalytic practice and theory to professionals in China.
Dr. Eldridge has recently participated as a respondent to a presentation by Dr. Sarah Goldberg on her research into aging psychoanalysts. This event was co-sponsored by the Institute for Clinical Social Work and the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. She and Dr. Goldberg are co-presenters in a workshop on issues facing aging psychotherapists in the annual conference of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology this October. Always interested in development and its relation to psychodynamic clinical work, Dr. Eldridge is now drawn to issues related to aging as she approaches the retirement phase. Her personal and professional experience of aging and retirement provide a foundation for co-leading this consultation group.
Freda [Freddi] Friedman, PhD is a licensed clinical social worker who has worn many hats during her career in social work, as a clinician, educator, supervisor, consultant, author, lecturer.
Her interest in the topic of preparing for retirement has been growing over the past few years, as she and many of her colleagues and friends pass into the "Golden Years." She has participated in presentations, clinical consultation discussions and authored articles on clinical work and aging. Currently, she is a clinician and supervisor in her private practice in Chicago, where she works with adults, couples, families and groups.
Freddi has been involve with the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago on many levels--as chair of the Board of Trustees, now emerita, as a faculty member working with doctoral and master's students on their clinical work and dissertations. She received her PhD in psychodynamic clinical social work from ICSW and an MS in social work from Columbia University, MY. She has taught courses on working with older adults, trauma,neurological underpinnings of mental health issues, grief, loss, attachment disorders, and severe personality disorders. Her group experiences includes leading groups for people with relationship difficulties, dysfunctional coping styles and for families who are trying to survive and thrive despite family dynamics impacted by mental health issues. She has presented widely at numerous conferences and workshops, and has published articles and several books on a range of topics including emotion dysregulation, relationship difficulties, clinical work with the elderly and trauma-related issues.
She and Dr. Eldridge have collaborated on several successful projects over the past two decades and are excited to work together on developing and implementing this group.
Dates: Thursdays, January 22, February 5, 19, March 5, 19, April 2, 2026
Time: 2:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. CDT
CEs: 9
Fees: $420
Questions: Contact Elree Smith at esmith@icsw.edu
Program Question: Contact Dean Denise Tsioles at dduval@icsw.edu
Registration and attendance at, or participation in, ICSW classes, meetings and other activities constitutes an agreement by the registrant to ICSW's use and distribution (both now and in the future) of the registrant or attendee's image or voice in photographs, videotapes, electronic reproductions, and audiotapes of such events and activities.