Susann Wolff, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Louvain, Belgium

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
7:00 pm
The Tucson Jewish Community Center

In collaboration with:

• The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies
• Arizona Center for Psychoanalytic Studies (ACPS)
• Southwest Psychoanalytic Society (SPS)
• Tucson Jewish Community Center (JCC)

For almost forty-five years, the experiences of children hidden during World War II were considered to be of  little importance, particularly in contrast to children’s experiences in concentration camps. Their very history was ignored. It was only at the end of the 1980s that these experiences began to be thought of as potentially traumatic. In 1991, the first international gathering of sixteen hundred Jewish adults who had been in hiding as children during the war, was held.  Dr. Wolff interviewed sixty of these adults extensively, in order to study this important dimension of Holocaust. Dr. Wolff, who has special training in psychoanalytic groups, worked in even more depth with a group of ten of these individuals.  In this presentation, Dr. Wolff will discuss the pervasive misunderstandings about trauma and hiding, and will illuminate the effects of the hiding experience on adult life.  The French psychoanalyst, La Planche, used an analogy of a time-bomb in the development of trauma, and Dr. Wolff will be using this analogy to talk about how initial memories are like a time bomb that is set off by a “delayed action machine”.  Dr. Wolff will elaborate this “time bomb” and “delayed action machine” analogy both in her research and in its implications for treatment.

About the Presenter: Dr. Wolff received her doctorate at Educational Sciences and Psychology in 1986. She studied in Jerusalem, Frankfort, and Paris. As a graduate student her interest in trauma and the Holocaust deepened, and she immersed herself in studies in this area.  She publishes frequently in French, German, and English.  Dr. Wolff is a training analyst at the Belgian Society of Psychoanalysis and Professor of Clinical Psychology at both the University of Louvain and the Free University of Brussels. She is also in private practice in Belgium.
 
Contact Person:  Syd Arkowitz Ph.D. Director of Training and Education, Arizona
Center for Psychoanalytic Studies   (email arkowitz@msn.com or call 327-0755)

There is no charge for this event. This program offers 2.0  hours of Category 1 credits

Location:  Tucson Jewish Community Center, 3800 E. River Road (Off of Dodge between Alvernon Way  and River Road)