Susan Kavaler-Adler

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Susan Kavaler-Adler

Susan Kavaler-Adler (Ph.D., ABPP, NCPsyA, D.Litt.) is an American clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and author. She is best known for her work in object relations theory, her psychoanalytic writing on mourning and creativity, and for founding the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in New York City.

Biography

Susan Kavaler-Adler was born in the United States and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in Psychology and Literature from Syracuse University in 1970. Her honors thesis focused on “French Positivism, Psychological Utopianism, and the Romantic Opposition in English and American Literature.” She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Adelphi University’s Gordon F. Derner Institute in 1974, with a dissertation titled “Dance Therapy with Mentally Retarded Children."

Her post-graduate clinical training included an internship at New York Medical College and seminars at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health and with Professor Martin Bergman. She became a licensed psychologist in New York State in 1975 and later received a Certificate in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Supervision from the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP), as well as board certification from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) in 2002.

Professional Affiliations

Kavaler-Adler is a Diplomate and Fellow of the American Board of Professional Psychology. She has held leadership roles in Division 39 of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society, and the New York State Psychological Association. She is also a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and has been an active participant in their conferences and scholarly forums.

Career

Dr. Kavaler-Adler began her clinical practice in 1974, and has worked for over four decades as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, supervisor, and training analyst. Her career integrates scholarship, clinical work, and teaching in equal measure.

In 1991, she founded the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in New York City, a NYS Board of Regents chartered institution. She continues to serve as its Executive Director, Senior Supervisor, and Training Analyst. The institute is dedicated to the post-graduate training of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in the tradition of British and American object relations theory.

Dr. Kavaler-Adler has also held faculty positions at numerous academic and clinical institutions, including:

• Adelphi University, Gordon Derner Institute (2002)
• Postgraduate Center for Mental Health (1980–1991)
• National Institute for the Psychotherapies (1985–1992)
• Fordham University (1991)
• The New School for Social Research
• Manhattan Psychiatric Children’s Center (1979–1981)
• New York Medical College (1973–1974)

She has served as a reviewer and editorial board member for peer-reviewed journals in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychology, and women’s studies. Dr. Kavaler-Adler has presented over 150 lectures, seminars, and workshops at major psychoanalytic institutes and conferences across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and her work has been featured in numerous continuing education programs.

Awards and Honors

Dr. Kavaler-Adler’s scholarly contributions have earned her several national honors:

• Gradiva® Award (2004) from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis for Mourning, Spirituality and Psychic Change
• Arlene Wohlberg Honorary Awards (1991, 1993, 1996) for Best Papers on Adult Psychoanalysis
• Author’s Recognition Awards (2000, 2001) from the National Institute for the Psychotherapies

In recognition of her lifetime contribution to psychoanalysis and literature, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from the International School for Mental Health Practitioners.

Publications

Kavaler-Adler is the author of six influential psychoanalytic books and over 70 published articles and book chapters on clinical psychoanalysis, creativity, psychic regression, mourning, female development, and erotic transference.

Books:

• The Compulsion to Create: Women Writers and Their Demon Lovers
• The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoe Frenzy to Love and Creativity
• Mourning Spirituality and Psychic Change: A New Object Relations View of Psychoanalysis
• Anatomy of Regret: From Death Instinct to Reparation and Symbolization Through Vivid Clinical Cases
• The Klein-Winnicott Dialectic: Transformative New Metapsychology and Interactive Clinical Theory
• Selected Papers by Susan Kavaler-Adler, Volume 1: Developmental Mourning, Erotic Transference, and Object Relations Psychoanalysis
• Saturday Nights at Lafayette Grill: True Tales & Gossips of NY City Argentine Tango Scene

Selected Papers:

• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2023). Klein and Winnicott: Contrasting mothers, contrasting theories. MindConsiliums, 23(7), 1-7.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2023). Music as resistance and connection: Dance therapy and Argentine Tango. Clio's Psyche, 29(3), 342-347.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2022). Envy and gluttony: Covert and overt forms of insatiability. MindConsiliums, 22(2), 1-25.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2022). Emotional engagement with media: An object relations perspective. Clio's Psyche, 29(1), 48-53.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2021). Tale of two women in Blue Jasmine and The Invisible Woman: An object relations perspective. Clio's Psyche, 27(3), 378-383.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2020). COVID-19 and the internal persecutory object. MindConsiliums, 20(4), 6-8.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2020). Unsilenced: The Seduction And Betrayal Of A Psychoanalyst, Personal Saga. Other/Wise, Spring 2020, Issue 1.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2020). The culture of the mourning group in a culture that often fails to mourn: Evolution of themes of psychic anorexia and self-deprivation. MindConsiliums, 20(8), 1-15.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2020). Countertransference, regret, and aggression: Dramas and free associations in an object relations group environment. MindConsiliums, 20(6), 1-14.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2020). Trump in us: The president as a psychic container for all our internal demons. Clio's Psyche, 26(3), 318-320.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2020). Men's envy, women's seduction, and self-destructive zero tolerance democrats. Clio's Psyche, 26(2), 218-221.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2019). The psychoanalysis of writing blocks: Resolving repression/ dissociation of trauma. MindConsiliums, 19(3), 1-19.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2019). Anatomy of regret and reparation: Resolution of transference resistances through the combined use of the creative process and the mourning regrets groups. MindConsiliums, 19(1), 1-26.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2018). The beginning of heartache in character disorders: On the way to relatedness and intimacy through primal affects and symbolization. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 27(4), 207-218. DOI: 10.1080/0803706X.2016.1270468
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2018). Klein and Winnicott: Contrasting mothers, contrasting theories. Clio's Psyche, 24(2), 154-162.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2017). The dark side of creativity: Compulsions, blocks, and creations. MindConsiliums, 17(4), 1-29.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2016). The historical reasons for the failure of Anne Sexton's 1950s psychotherapy. MindConsiliums, 16(7), 1-15.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2016). Swallowed up by terror: The image of birds in Virginia Woolf and echoing images of terror in the internal world of patients: dissociated links to childhood. MindConsiliums, 16(6), 1-14.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2015). An object relations approach to dreams: From protosymbolic to symbolic – in dream content and within the therapeutic object relationship. MindConsiliums, 15(11), 1-27.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2014). Erotic transference: A journey to passion and symbolization. MindConsiliums, 14(1), 19-43.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2014). Psychic structure and the capacity to mourn: Why narcissists cannot mourn. MindConsiliums, 14(1), 1-17.
• Kavaler–Adler, S. (2014). The Klein-Winnicott dialectic: New transformative metapsychology and interactive clinical theory. London, UK: Karnac/Routledge
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2014).  The creative mystique: From red shoes frenzy to love and creativity. New York, NY: ORI Academic Press.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2013). Dialectics of mortality and immortality: Time as an internal and transitional object experience and time as a persecutory vs. a holding object. MindConsiliums, 13(12), 1-32.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2013). The anatomy of regret: from death instinct to reparation and symbolization in vivid case studies.  London, UK: Karnac/Routledge.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2013).  The compulsion to create: women writers and their demon lovers. New York, NY: ORI Academic Press.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2010).  Seduction, date rape, and aborted surrender. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 19, 15-26.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2009).  Object relations perspectives on "Phantom of the Opera" and its demon lover theme: The modern film. American Journal of Psychoanalysis 69, 150-166.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2007). Pivotal moments of surrender to mourning the parental internal objects.  Psychoanalytic Review, 94, 763-789.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2006). From neurotic guilt to existential guilt as grief: The road to interiority, agency, and compassion through mourning. Part II. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 66, 333-350.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2006). From neurotic guilt to existential guilt as grief: the road to interiority, agency, and compassion through mourning. Part I. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 66, 239-260.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2006). "My graduation is my mother's funeral": Transformation from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position in fear of success, and the role of the internal saboteur. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 15, 117-130.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2005). The case of David: On the couch for sixty minutes, nine years of once-a-week treatment. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 65 (2), 102-134.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2003). Mourning, spirituality and psychic change: a new object relations view of psychoanalysis. London, UK: Brunner-Routledge.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (June 2001). Anatomy of surrender. Reportango, No. 31. 27-29.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2000). The divine, the deviant, and the diabolical: A journey through an artists' paintings during participation in a creative process group; an evolution of "developmental mourning." International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 9, 97-111.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (2000). The compulsion to create: women writers and their demon lovers. New York: Other Press.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1999). Interview with Frank Summers. Division Review (The Newsletter of Division 39). Washington, DC: The American Psychological Association.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1998). Vaginal core or vampire mouth: The visceral level of envy in women; the protosymbolic politics of object relations. In N. Burke, Gender and Envy (pp. 221-240). London, UK: Routledge.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1996). Response to review of The Compulsion To Create: A Psychoanalytic Study Of Women Artists. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 77, 825.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1996a). The creative mystique: From red shoes frenzy to love and creativity. New York & London: Routledge. Republished by ORI Academic Press (2014).
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1995). Women, the instinctual self, and the demon lover. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 55(1), 74-81.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1995). Opening up blocked mourning in the preoedipal character. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 55 (2), 145-168.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1993). The conflict and process theory of Melanie Klein. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 53(3), 187-204.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1993). Object relations issues in the treatment of the preoedipal character. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 53 (1), 19-34.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1993). The compulsion to create: A psychoanalytic study of women artists, New York and London: Routledge. Republished as The compulsion to create: Women writers and their demon lovers by Other Press (2000) and by ORI Academic Press (2013).
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1992). Anais Nin and the developmental use of the creative process. Psychoanalytic Review, 79(1), 73-88.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1992). An object relations view of creative process and group process. Group, 16, 47-58.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1992). Mourning and erotic transference. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 73 (3), 527-539. Reprinted in J. Schaverien (Ed.), Gender, countertransference, and erotic transference (pp. 104-122). London: Routledge, 2006.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1991). Some More Speculations on Anna O. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 51(2), 161-171.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1991). Emily Dickinson and the subject of seclusion. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 51(1), 21-38.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1990). Charlotte Bronte and the feminine self. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 50, 37-43.
• Kavaler, S. (1989). Discussion of "Perspectives on transference." Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, 7, 80-84.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1989). Anne Sexton and the daemon lover. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 49(4), 105–114.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1988). Nightmares and object relations theory. In H. Kellerman, Nightmares: Biological and psychological foundations. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1986). Lord of the mirrors and the demon lover. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 48(4), 366–370.Kavaler-Adler, S. (1988). Diane Arbus and the demon lover. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 48(4), 366–370.
• Kavaler-Adler, S. (1985). Mirror mirror on the wall ... Journal of Comprehensive Psychotherapy, 5, 1-38.

References

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