In this webinar, Dr Darren Haber, PsyD, discusses the notion of language games, Ludwig Wittgenstein's term for our context-dependent ways of employing words and phrases.  Wittgenstein also believed we are fallible in our tendency to become bewitched by language by means of our intelligence—meaning that what both participants say is often less transparent or obvious than they are prone to believe. (For instance the significance and not just the mere naming of affect.)  This can lead to all manner of intersubjective detouring around painful or traumatic affect hiding in plain sight. 

In cases of addiction or other compulsive numbing, language becomes a 'silent partner' in the robbery of subjective meaning from therapeutic dialogue. Patients may be looking for concepts where therapists look for personal meaning—both empty signifiers in such disjunction.  Here language becomes disembodied, enervated, even when taking the form of a 'wall of words'—highlighting the temptation for the enlivening pursuit of compulsive, including on the part of the clinician.  In this way the addictive seeking of answers or 'truths', a sanitizing of therapeutic inquiry, contra subjective vulnerability, manifests before participants' eyes, and reveals the therapist's vulnerability as well. This dilemma belies the 'relatively simple' dialogue many therapists envision—the sharing of feelings—which patients find foreign, emotionality lost in translation, for those who have lived with dissociation, enactment, and aversion as an entrenched mother tongue.  

Learning objectives:

Describe Wittgenstein's notion of language games and its relevance to therapeutic dialogue.  

Identify the difficulty of translating the value and significance of affectivity for dissociated, addicted or otherwise highly defended patients. 

Formulate and describe ways in which therapists and patients can become 'bewitched' or compulsively attached to words and concepts, and the potential 'real time' insights such subtle enervations can produce.  

Reflect and discuss Jung's comment that each patient requires a new language.  

Venue: Live Webinar. Includes access to recording for 30 days.

Date: Saturday, 29th March, 2024

Time: 10:00am to 12:00pm (Sydney/Melbourne/Canberra Time)

Price: 79.99

CPD Certificate: 2 hours

About Dr Daren Haber PsyD:  Dr Darren Haber is a psychoanalyst practicing in west Los Angeles.  He specializes in treating childhood trauma, addiction (including children/partners of alcoholics) and anxiety/depression.  He has published online at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Psyche magazine and the APA blog site.  He has appeared numerous times in the journal Psychoanalysis, Self and Context.   He frequently guest-teaches psychoanalytical classes and  seminars.  His book “Circles Without a Center” was published by Routledge in 2022. 

About eiseEducation: eiseEducation delivers exceptional webinars, short courses, and professional development training to the mental health, social services & community services sector across Australia & New Zealand. Findout more at eiseeducation.com

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