MINDING AND MENDING DIALECTICAL MISATTUNEMENT: ....

The Institute for Clinical Social Work

MINDING AND MENDING DIALECTICAL MISATTUNEMENT: An integration of psychoanalytic and neuroscientific explorations of neurodiversity 

Friday, October 30, 2026 - VIA Zoom

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Central Time

COURSE DISCRIPTION

This seminar will seek to bridge psychoanalytic insights and neuroscientific perspectives to deepen our understanding of neurodiversity and consider implications for clinical practice. From a predictive processing perspective, we will explore how we all develop and continuously update a predictive model of the world as we learn to optimally meet our bodily and emotional needs. However, when there are significant differences in the predictive models between two people -- therapist and patient, parent and child, or romantic partners, for example -- and those differences are not recognized, there is a high risk for cumulative, dialectical misattunement (Bolis, 2017) and an increasing gap in understanding between individuals. This dynamic has direct relevance to psychoanalytic and psychodynamic work: clinicians of all neurotypes meet clients of all neurotypes, yet those individual differences are not typically part of our clinical thinking. We will explore how openness to examining, updating, and expanding the predictive models that shape our clinical thinking creates space for the emergence of True Self experience (Winnicott, 1965) for all neurotypes, but especially for those whom our traditional theories and practice have overlooked. 

PRESENTERS: 

Michelle van den Engh, MD, FRCPC, FIPA, is of Dutch and Chinese heritage, grew up in Switzerland, and transited through Australia, the United States, and back to Switzerland before landing as a settler in Canada. She is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Additionally, Michelle is an avid Clinical Fellow of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. She maintains a private practice with a focus on psychotherapy, teaches as a faculty member at UBC and at the Western Canada Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (WCPSI), and serves in the role of Vancouver Island Site Director for Psychotherapy Training in the UBC Department of Psychiatry Postgraduate Education Program. 

Christina Peters, PhD, LCSW, is a Core Faculty member at the Institute for Clinical Social Work where she teaches psychoanalytic theory and methods. She has presented internationally at psychoanalytic conferences and published on topics related to individual, neuropsychological differences and the impact on treatment process, formulation, and broadening our understanding of subjective experience. She is in private practice in the Chicago area and a member of IAPSP, NPSA, AAPCSW, and IARPP.

2 CEs: $50 - General Public

$20 - Students from other institutions (No CEs)

ICSW Students Free (No CEs)

(contact Elree C. Smith, esmith@icsw.edu for student registration link)

**ICSW offers CE’s for LSW/LCSW, LCP/LCPC, MFT/LMFT, Clinical Psychologists, PEL
 
The Institute for Clinical Social Work - 2242, is approved by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. 

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