A CEU-Approved Online Workshop
The International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) is pleased to highlight an upcoming online workshop presented by the Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy:
Intergenerational Trauma in Clinical Practice: Individuals and Couples
Saturday, March 21, 2026
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM EST (Zoom)
Presented by Vivian Eskin, Ph.D. and Debra Gill, LCSW, this CEU-approved workshop offers clinicians an in-depth exploration of how trauma is transmitted across generations and how it manifests within individuals and intimate partnerships.
Understanding Trauma Across Generations
Contemporary psychoanalytic thought recognises that trauma does not pass solely through explicit narrative or biological inheritance. Rather, it is often conveyed through silence, repetition, narcissistic identification, and embodied emotional communication.
Inherited trauma shapes the internal object world and influences the formation of the “internal couple,” which is then carried into adult partnerships. Unconscious ties to prior generations—particularly to unprocessed suffering—may impede psychic separateness and identity formation. As Marianne Hirsch’s work on postmemory suggests, second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors can remain bound to traumatic histories that preceded and exceeded their own lived experience.
This workshop will examine how unmetabolised trauma becomes the psychic inheritance of subsequent generations, drawing on clinical case material and relevant psychoanalytic theory.
The Analytic Frame and Therapeutic Containment
In the treatment situation, the analytic frame plays a crucial therapeutic role. Drawing on José Bleger’s conceptualisation of the frame as a structure of constancy, the presenters will consider how the analyst provides a steady backdrop capable of holding unprocessed trauma until inevitable disruptions occur.
These disruptions—often revealing dissociated or psychotic aspects of personality organisation—are not merely obstacles but essential clinical moments. When what has been hidden or silently carried becomes available for analytic work, therapeutic witnessing and containment enable gradual metabolisation of previously unprocessed psychic experience.
Over time, analytic patients may come to recognise and reflect upon inherited trauma. This reflective capacity opens the possibility of a “third position”—and in couple work, the emergence of a couple state of mind. Within this space, transformation becomes possible through mourning, symbolisation, and the creation of new relational life.
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- Identify multiple pathways of intergenerational trauma transmission, including biological, narrative, identificatory, and embodied modes.
- Recognise the clinical function of silence, repetition, and projective identification as carriers of inherited suffering.
- Apply concepts of containment, metabolisation, and the third position in clinical work with individuals and couples.
- Utilise the analytic frame as a therapeutic instrument providing constancy while remaining responsive to disruptions that reveal dissociated or psychotic personality organisation shaped by intergenerational trauma.
Presenters
VIVIAN ESKIN, Ph.D. Certificate in Psychoanalysis, New York Freudian Society, Graduate of NYFS/IPTAR Anni Bergman Parent-Infant Program. Qualifying Diploma in Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Tavistock Relationships, London, UK. Faculty and Supervisor: The Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Adult Program. Training and Supervisory Analyst: Contemporary Freudian Society. Member: NY Freudian Society, American Psychoanalytic Association, International Psychoanalytical Association, CIPS, NASW, IPTAR.
DEBRA GILL, LCSW Certificate in Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the Contemporary Freudian Society. Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Faculty and Supervisor: Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Adult Program. Faculty, Training and Supervising Analyst: Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the Contemporary Freudian Society. Fellow: International Psychoanalytical Association. Member: Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies; American Psychoanalytic Association.
Professional Accreditation
This online workshop has been approved by the New York State Education Department for 2 contact hours (CEUs) for LMSWs, LCSWs, LMHCs, LPs, LMFTs, and Licensed Psychologists. Certificates will be issued to participants who attend the full session and complete the evaluation process.
Registration Details
- Registration Deadline: March 19, 2026
- Fee: $60 ($40 for students with proof of status)
- No fee for MCMH staff therapists
- Zoom instructions and meeting link will be emailed prior to the workshop.
To register:
https://www.mitpp.org/events/
An IPA Perspective
Intergenerational trauma remains a central concern of psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly in the context of war, displacement, collective catastrophe, and unspoken family histories. The IPA continues to support clinical and theoretical initiatives that deepen our understanding of how trauma lives on within psychic structure and relational life.
This workshop offers clinicians an opportunity to engage rigorously with contemporary psychoanalytic thinking while grounding theory in lived clinical experience. We warmly encourage colleagues interested in trauma, couple work, and the evolving analytic frame to consider participating.