INTERNATIONAL HONORARY FELLOWS

Back to People

Bob Stolorow: Robert D. Stolorow is one of the original members of the International Council for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, the group which evolved over 25 years from one begun by Heinz Kohut in 1980 and named by him the "Self Psychology Publications Committee". The 1995 recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Award (given by the Division of Psychoanalysis [Division 39] of the American Psychological Association), Dr. Stolorow has been a sought-after presenter, teacher, and supervisor on the national and international scene since the inception of his career. He is a founding faculty member and a training and supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and a founding faculty member and supervising analyst at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity in New York City.

Donna Orange: Donna M. Orange, Ph.D., Psy.D., holds two doctorates: one in Philosophy from Fordham University and the other in Clinical Psychology from Yeshiva University. A faculty member of the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity and a supervisor at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University, she maintains a private practice in New Jersey.

Rich Hycner: Rich is the author of Between Person and Person: Toward a Dialogical Psychotherapy (1993, Gestalt Journal Press) and the co-author with Lynne Jacobs of The Healing Relationship in Gestalt Therapy (1995, Gestalt Journal Press). He and Lynne are currently editing a new book Relational Approaches in Gestalt Therapy due to be published in February 2010. Rich has been a psychotherapist for thirty five years and is a licensed Clinical Psychologist in California. He and Lynne are described by Erving and Miriam Polster as belonging to the third generation of Gestalt therapists - bringing richness, clarification and thoughtful perspective to the continuing renewal of Gestalt therapy.

News Update - November 2009

We are delighted to announce that we now have three International Honorary Fellows - Bob Stolorow, Donna Orange and Richard Hycner. Bob and Donna accepted this membership of BCPC in 2008 and Richard accepted just recently in 2009.

Many of you will be familiar with them either through their writing (see below) or through their recent involvement in Conferences hosted by BCPC - in July 2004 with Bob Stolorow; in October 2008 with Donna Orange; and in July 2009 with Richard Hycner.

Bob Stolorow and George Atwood developed a 'psychobiographical' perspective on psychoanalytic theory through their landmark book 'Faces in a Cloud' (1979) where they illustrated that the theories of Freud, Jung, Reich and Rank were all intimately linked to their psychobiography. We have adapted this teaching theory on the bcpc psychotherapy training. We have found that to place the theorists' subjectivity as central to their theory significantly helps students to place their own subjectivity centrally. They can thus begin to reflect on themselves, and the ways in which they position themselves as theorists and researchers, and as therapists.

Alongside other theorists emerging from Self Psychology (Brandchaft, Socarides, Trop, and Orange) a project that was to revision Freudian psychoanalysis eventually became 'Intersubjective Systems Theory' (IST) - a post-modern approach to psychoanalysis rooted in phenomenology and subjectivity. IST has been crucial to our theoretical development at BCPC. It has allowed us to expand our person centred/humanistic ethos, which accepts the primacy of the client's experience, into a fully relational stance. We have embraced IST in its provision of an elegant and robust theory which firmly places the relationship at the centre of the therapeutic endeavour, as an organic lived experience.

We have been engaged in integrating these two contemporary theories (one psychoanalytic and one humanistic) over the past fifteen years, and we continue to explore both these orientations in various areas of research on our Psychotherapy Diploma/MA and Post Qualifying MA courses.

Whilst our training remains Humanistic and Integrative, our invitation to Bob and Donna to become Honorary Fellows of BCPC indicates the deep and enduring influence of IST on our psychotherapy training. Both Donna and Bob have identified BCPC as being a significant outpost of IST, and the only training in the UK that is developing expertise in this area through teaching, research, and clinical practice.

We have also found that Dialogical Gestalt is highly compatible with our relational sensibility and alongside IST we have strongly included Richard’s work in our psychotherapy training. His book “The Healing Relationship in Gestalt Therapy”, co-authored with Lynne Jacobs, deeply informs our work at BCPC.

David Slattery, MA Course Leader
Tree Staunton, Course Director for Psychotherapy
Jane Purkiss, Head of Training

Published Books by BCPC International Honorary Fellows

Intersubjective Systems Theory (IST) in order of publication:

Stolorow R and Atwood G (1979) FACES IN A CLOUD: Subjectivity in Personality Theory (Northvale: Aronson)

Atwood G and Stolorow R (1984) STRUCTURES OF SUBJECTIVITY: Explorations in Psychoanalytic Phenomenology (Hillsdale, N.J. Analytic Press)

Stolorow R and Atwood G (1992) CONTEXTS OF BEING: The Intersubjective Foundations of Psychological Life (Hillsdale, N.J. Analytic Press)

Orange D (1995) EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING: Studies in Psychoanalytic Epistemology (New York: Guildford Press)

Stolorow R, Brandchaft B and Atwood G (1995) PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT: An Intersubjective Approach (Hillsdale, N.J. Analytic Press)

Orange D, Atwood G and Stolorow R (1997) WORKING INTERSUBJECTIVELY: Contextualism in Psychoanalytic Practice (Hillsdale, N.J. Analytic Press)

Stolorow R, Atwood G and Orange D (2002) WORLDS OF EXPERIENCE: Interweaving Philosophical and Clinical Dimensions in Psychoanalysis (New York: Basic Books)

Stolorow R (2007) TRAUMA AND HUMAN EXISTENCE: Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic and Philosophical Reflections (New York: The Analytic Press)

Orange D (2009) THINKING FOR CLINICIANS: Philosophical Resources for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Humanistic Psychotherapies (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group)

Dialogical Gestalt:

Hycner R (1993) BETWEEN PERSON AND PERSON: TOWARD A DIALOGICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY (Gestalt Journal Press)

Hycner R and Jacobs L (1995) THE HEALING RELATIONSHIP IN GESTALT THERAPY: A Dialogic/Self-Psychology Approach (Highland N.Y: The Gestalt Journal Press).

Back to People