Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society

Saturday, February 22, 2025

1:30 pm- 4:30 pm EDT

Speaker: Timothy H. Rayner, M.D.

“Toward a Musical Psychoanalytic Listening Stance”

In their book, Here I’m Alive, the Spirit of Music in Psychoanalysis (2023), Adam Blum, Peter Goldberg, and Michael Levin assert that psychoanalysis is essentially musical, having rhythm, tempo, tone, and harmony, grounded in the living analytic frame. They cite the growing number of patients seeking psychoanalytic treatment who are “outside of music,” which means to be dead, in a way, and that for these patients, a major objective of analysis is to “induct them into the weave” of the world, drawing upon the analyst’s own musical attunement with the world and the patient. In his paper, Dr. Rayner will develop and illustrate the clinical utility of these concepts. Through a musical stance of listening and attunement, analysts can get a “feel” for the nature or absence of the patient’s temporality, rhythmicity, and musicality at many different levels of spatiotemporal abstraction, from the liminal and subliminal microprocess of the analytic dyad to the overall arc of the patient’s life narrative.

Learning Objectives

1. List the 4 properties of music that are also inherent to psychoanalytic process.

2. Identify the musical aspects of any clinical psychoanalytic material.

3. Adopt a psychoanalytic listening stance that is attuned to the musical features and

intervene/participate from that stance.

4. Recognize disharmony and amusia in a patient’s life and in psychoanalytic material.

Timothy Rayner, M.D., is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and received M.D. and MPH degrees from Tulane University School of Medicine. Following residency at the Naval Medical Center San Diego, he entered psychoanalytic training at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, from which he graduated while on deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he led a Combat Stress Platoon. After leaving the Navy, he opened a private practice in psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Dr. Rayner has served on both the Board of Directors and the Education Committee of SDPC, as well in the leadership positions of the American Psychoanalytic Association, including as the first Lead Director on the Board of Directors of APsaA and Chair of the Governance Committee. He chaired the Expanded Membership Task Force, which produced a Bylaws Amendment approved by a supermajority of the Membership of APsaA in February 2022.  Dr. Rayner has recently completed a paper, “Standing in the Spaces between Loewald and Bromberg: Comparison and Extension of Thoughts on Mental Functioning and Therapeutic Action.”

Reference: Ogden, T. H. (2019). Ontological Psychoanalysis or “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 88:661-684.

3 CME’S

LOCATION: Virtual - Zoom

CHARGE: Members get up to 21 CMEs/CEUs for free per year.

Non-members pay $25 to attend a 3 hour speaker program meeting and an additional $20 for CEUs for a total of $45 (or $15/CEU).

Register Online: https://tbps.wildapricot.org/

ACCME Accreditation Statement

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

AMA Credit Designation Statement

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 3 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME,s identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.