2025 - 2026 Dialogues in Contemporary Psychoanalysis
| Program Title: | Malignant Nostalgia: the impulse to eradicate “the bitter experience of life.” Donald Moss, MD in Conversation with Mitchell Wilson, MD |
| Date: | Saturday, December 6, 2025 |
| Time: | 09:30am – 12:30pm PT |
| Presenter: | Donald Moss, MD |
| In Conversation With: | Mitchell Wilson, MD |
| Location: | San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis 444 Natoma Street San Francisco, CA 94103 (remote option is available) |
| Program Fee: | $ 55 — General Admission If you are a Candidate, Trainee, or Student of the SFCP, including those in the SF-PPTP, PAPPTP, CAPPTP programs or the Extension Yearlong Program: If you are a Candidate, or Student of another institution: |
| CME/CE: | This program has been approved for a maximum of 3 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ for free (for SFCP members) or $45 (for non-SFCP members) |
Donald Moss, M.D. has been in psychoanalytic practice for 45 years. He is the author of five books—including the Gradiva Prize-winning Psychoanalysis in a Plague Year—and over sixty articles, most recently “Encountering Representations of Evil” and “Always There and Never Before: The Eclipse of Everyday Life.” Winner of the Haskell Norman Prize for Excellence in Psychoanalysis, and member of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis, he teaches Freudian theory at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute.
Mitchell Wilson, M.D. is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. In 2020, his book, The Analyst’s Desire: The Ethical Foundation of Clinical Practice, was published by Bloomsbury Press. Lately, he has written on Lacan and Lucia Tower’s paper “On Countertransference” as part of the special JAPA issue “Lacan in America,” “Property, Materiality, Proximity: The Analytic Frame and Person Work” published in JAPA earlier this year, and also in JAPA, “The Edges of the Voice,” a plenary he gave in New York in 2024. His essay, “Comedy and Cruelty: The Comic Mode in the Age of Trump,” was recently published in Parapraxis 6: Resistance. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and a Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. He is in private practice and leads study groups in Berkeley, CA.
Accreditation Statement for CME/CE Sponsorship and Disclosure Statement
Educational Objectives:
Upon completion of this activity, the learners will be able to:
- demonstrate a deeper understanding of the distinction between benign nostalgia and malignant nostalgia.
- examine and identify the role melancholic deadness and the absence of mourning in the preoccupation with “making great again,” “reclaiming,” and “restoring.”
- apply this knowledge to clinical recognition and technique related to the pursuit of re-finding the perfect object.
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 San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. 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.
Disclosure Statement
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, the activity 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.
PSYCHOLOGISTS: The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Psychologists attending SFCP events approved for CE credits may report AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ toward their CE requirements. Psychologists self-certify the number of hours they have completed on their renewal form (whether online or paper).
LCSWs/MFTs: The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis is a continuing education provider that has been approved by the American Psychological Association, a California Board of Behavioral Sciences recognized approval agency
Psychologists, Social Workers, and Marriage and Family Therapists will be awarded AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ on an hour for hour basis; see the program description for the maximum of credits awarded for each program.
Commercial Support: None