CRISIS CENTRE Presents 2008 Nina Coltart Memorial Lecture Tuesday 8 July 2008 Wa given by: Dr Michael Sinason Psychoanalyst - British Psychoanalytical Society “The Alter Ego: Does It Have a Mind of Its Own?” This was preceded by the Book launch for Centers of Power by Joseph Berke and Stanley Schneider

The Arbours Crisis Centre was established in 1973, to provide personal psychotherapeutic care for individuals, couples and families in emotional and psychological distress. It is currently situated in a large Edwardian house in Crouch End, London and offers intensive and high quality care within a community environment by a group of experienced and skilled psychotherapists. The programme of psychotherapeutic care includes personal psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, art and movement therapies as well as a range of creative and social activities shared with and provided by resident therapists.

The late Dr. Nina Coltart was a Psychoanalyst well known for her specialisation in consultations for diagnosis and assessment leading to referral. She read Modern Languages at Oxford before training in medicine and psychiatry, and was the Director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis for many years. Her publications include “Slouching towards Bethlehem: And Further Psychoanalytic Explorations” (1992), “How to Survive as a Psychotherapist” (1993) and “The Baby and The Bathwater” (1996). Dr. Coltart was a friend and supporter of the Arbours, and her paper ‘Attention’ was published in “Sanctuary: The Arbours Experience of Alternative Community Care” (1995).

Centers of Power: The Convergence of Psychoanalysis and Kabbalah
By Joseph H. Berkeand Stanley R. Schneider

"Drs. Berke and Schneider have managed to show convincingly how basic concepts of psychoanalysis and Kabbalistic thinking overlap and deal--within different theoretical perspectives, with fundamental problems of the human psyche, in health and illness.

While scholarly reviewing central aspects of both disciplines in close comparative analyses, they are able to provide the psychoanalyst with a clear and comprehensive understanding of the Kabbalah for the modern mind. By the same token, they convey a clear and profound summary of contemporary psychoanalytic understanding to the expert in the Kabbalah.

By the same process, the educated layman may acquire an intelligent, thoughtful introduction to the relationship between psychotherapeutic thinking and the spiritual dimension of an important field of Jewish religion. It is an important, thought-provoking contribution to the very actual discussion of the encounter of religion and psychological science in the light of our present knowledge of the unconscious determinants of behavior."—Otto F. Kernberg, M.D.,