Appalachian Psychoanalytic Society
a local chapter of the Division 39 of the American Psychological Association

presents a 

Saturday Morning Seminar 
with 
Vance Sherwood, PhD,
on
The Therapist as Storyteller:
Blind Luck,
the Importance of a Witness,
and Repetition
in the Treatment of Trauma

Saturday, December 13, 2025
8:30am - 12:10pm

University of Tennessee Medical Center
Morrison Education and Conference Center
1924 Alcoa Highway
Knoxville, TN 37920

Description of Program
Sigmund Freud and Søren Kierkegaard, using completely different categories, addressed the concept of trauma and what it means to move past it. Trauma removes us from representative time or the time of ongoing human projects and instead deposits its victim in what has been called anarchic time, a beginning that never proceeds toward a future. These events are not psychologically accessible; they are, instead, compulsively repeated. The challenge for treatment is returning patients to ongoing, narrative time, where the trauma can be left behind. This proves to be an unpredictable process in which analysts must not only use but rely on their mistakes to create tensions by which they become witnesses to what patients cannot represent. Kierkegaard’s repetition tells us therapy must return an actual event to the status of what is future or merely possible for the patient, in which case it can be repeated as something different than before. Kierkegaardian repetition makes the analyst into a narrator with whose story the patient may identify.

Presenter
Vance Sherwood, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Knoxville. He has been a speaker at conferences from coast to coast and published half a dozen papers. In addition he has written three books, two of which he co-authored with the late Charles P. Cohen, PhD; these have been used in professional training programs in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Dr. Sherwood was for nine years the Clinical Director of the original Peninsula Village, a 100-bed long term, residential center working with treatment-resistant adolescents. He has made multiple presentations to APS and was the 2019 recipient of the Hans H. Strupp Award.

Schedule
8:30am Registration 

8:55am Welcome and Introduction

9:00am Freud and Repetition: The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Trauma

10:30am Break

10:40am The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Trauma in a Kierkegaardian Direction

12:10pm Complete Evaluations and Adjourn.

After attending this intermediate-level program in full, participants will be able to:
1. Utilize a phenomenological interpretation of internalized object relations/mental representations in the treatment of trauma.

2. Critique the reasons the unpredictability of treatment allows the therapist to become a necessary witness of the patient's trauma.    

3. Integrate Kierkegaard's notion of repetition with Freud's, seeing how it explains treatment's unpredictability and how the therapist must, because of this, become a storyteller with whose stories about them patient's might identify.

Participants

This program is open to all APS members and other interested mental health professionals who may not be members. It is not limited to individuals practicing in a predominately psychoanalytic mode. The material will be appropriate for clinicians with intermediate levels of experience and knowledge.

Registration Fees and Policies

BY December 8, 2025:

Professional Members and Scholar Members: $45
Non-members: $60
Early-Career Professional Members: $35
Graduate Student Members: Free.

AFTER December 8, 2025:
Professional Members and Scholar Members: $60
Non-members: $75
Early-Career Professional Members: $50.
Graduate Student Members: Free

Registration will close on December 12, 2025.

Although walk-ins will be accepted, please register online at www.aps-tn.wildapricot.org in advance to assure adequate food and seating.

If you prefer to pay by check, please print the Program Registration form, and mail with your payment to:

Wesley Gosselin
APS Treasurer
100 Forest Court
Knoxville, TN 37919.  

Refunds honored with written/electronic notice at least 48 hours before date of program. Contact Wesley Gosselin. 

Contact the APS President Joyce Cartor, PhD to negotiate fees, if needed.

Facility is accessible to persons who are physically challenged. If participants have special needs, we will attempt to accommodate them. Please address requests, questions, concerns and any complaints to Joyce Cartor, PhD.

APS Membership
Eligible professionals can join APS or renew their membership for the 2025-2026 program year for $120. Scholars can join/renew for $80 and Early-Career Professionals can join/renew for $65. Graduate students may join or renew for $25.

American Psychological Association Approval Statement
Division 39 is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Division 39 maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Continuing Education
This program, when attended in its entirety, is available for 3 continuing education credits. With full attendance (sign-in at start of program) and completion of a program Evaluation and Learning Assessment, a certificate will be issued. Psychologists will have their participation registered through Division 39.  Partial credit is not available for partial attendance.  

APS and Division 39 are committed to conducting all activities in conformity with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles for Psychologists. APS and Division 39 are also committed to accessibility and non-discrimination in continuing education activities. Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods.

Selected References
Marion, J-L. (2015). Negative Certainties. (S. Lewis, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.

Levine, H. (2018). The Colourless Canvas: Representation, Therapeutic Action, and he Creation of Mind. In H. Levine, G. Reed, & D. Scarfone (Eds.), Unrepresented states and the Construction of Meaning: Clinical and Theoretical Contributions. Routledge.

Gaudilliere, J. -M. (2021). Madness and the Social Link: The Jan-Max Gaudilliere Seminars 1985-2000. (A. Jacob, Trans.). London: Routledge.

Gaudilliere, J. -M. (2021). The Birth of a Political Self: The Jan-Max Gaudilliere Seminars
2001–2014 (A. Jacob, Trans.). Routledge.

Sherwood, V. (2024). As luck would have it: Freud and Kierkegaard on repetition and trauma. American Imago 81, 429-448.

Recommended Reading
Carlisle, C. (2013). Kierkegaard and Heidegger. In J. Lippet and G. Pattison (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard (pp. 421–439). Oxford University Press.

Freud, S. (1920). Beyond the pleasure principle. Standard Edition (Vol. 18, pp. 7–64). Hogarth Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (1964). Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology (W. Lowrie, Trans.). New York: Harper Torchbook. (Original work published 1843).

Contact
If participants have special needs, we will attempt to accommodate them. Please address requests, questions, concerns and any complaints to the APS President Joyce Cartor, PhD.

There is no commercial support for this program nor are there any relationships between Division 39, APS, presenters, program content, research, grants or other funding sources that could reasonably be construed as conflicts of interest. During the program, the validity/utility of the content and risks/limitations of the approaches discussed will be addressed.