Annual Research Conference of the
Consortium for Psychoanalytic Research

presents "Capturing Clinical Knowledge: Transforming therapist experience into scientific evidence"

On March 6, 2006, Sheila Hafter Gray, MD of Washington, DC and Lee David Brauer, MD of Hartford, Connecticut will be featured speakers at the 12th annual conference of the Consortium for Psychoanalytic Research. The conference will be held at the Ernst Auditorium of Sibley Hospital in the District of Columbia. It will begin with registration and a continental breakfast at 9:30 AM and conclude at 4:00 PM. The breakfast and box lunch are included in the $50 registration fee. The registration fee for full time students is $25. The conference will offer 5 CEU's for physicians, psychologists and social workers.

The Consortium represents thirteen Baltimore-Washington area organizations interested in building a bridge between clinicians and clinically relevant research. To this end it sponsors yearly conferences that bring researchers and clinicians together to share data and ideas.

The evidence-based mental health movement poses a serious challenge to clinicians who use interventions that have not been established in large clinical trials. It has spawned an evidence industry that places a premium on elaborate studies, such as randomized controlled trials, of a sort that have little immediate relevance to daily clinical practice. These experts tend to devalue what ordinary good clinicians know and do; and the accumulated clinical intelligence of generations of dedicated psychotherapists is approaching the status of an endangered species.

Drs. Hafter Gray and Brauer, both clinicians, will present their conceptualization and implementation of their study of Factors Affecting Outcome of Psychoanalysis. Their work used an instrument available in any clinician's office: the GAF scale. They will give information about length of treatment, frequency of sessions, and demographic data about therapists to arrive at some surprising answers to questions about what makes for a good therapeutic outcome. Part II will consist of two training sessions: (1) how to do comprehensive and reliable Axis V scores and to use these to track outcome. This session will be led by Kristie D. Mitchell, MD; and (2) how to design a study one can do in one's own practice or with colleagues. The presenters will emphasize how to preserve privacy and confidentiality of the individual patient/client. After the presentation, discussants Elizabeth H. Thomas, Ph.D. and Richard C. Fritsch, Ph.D. both clinicians will comment and involve the audience in the discussion.

For information call: Diane Choate (IRSJA Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts) at tel. 202-364-2992 or E-mail  dianechoate@earthlink.net