The Silence of the Sea, the 1949 film of Jean-Pierre Melville, concerns a relationship between a Nazi officer billeted at the village home of an elderly man and his niece in occupied France, during World War II. In protest of the occupation of their country and their home, they commit to remaining absolutely mute in the presence of the officer. The space created by the silence evokes speech from him. He speaks and speaks, a narrative that he comes to recognize as imaginary, eventually coming to the truth of himself, and leading him to act consistent with this new knowledge. Both he and his silent listeners are transformed by his speaking.

Learning Objectives

As a result of attending this course, participants should be able to:

• Evaluate the relationship of the analyst’s silence to its positioning in the analytic relationship
• Identify how the analyst’s silence makes a space for speaking that is not the ordinary discourse that resists the truth of the subject
• Explore how the silence of the analyst constitutes one of the renunciations on their part that is called for by the ethics of the clinic

John Wayne, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in South Pasadena.  He is a member of GIFRIC (Groupe Interdisciplinaire Freudienne pour Recherches et d'Interventions Clinique et Culturelles), the California Psychoanalytic Circle of the Freudian School of Quebec, the California Forum of the IF-EPFCL, Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) of the American Psychological Association, and the San Fernando Valley Psychological Association. He has been published in International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self-Psychology, Vol. 7, 2012. He taught psychoanalysis at Antioch University as adjunct professor in addition to presenting talks at NCP on a number of occasions.

Christopher Meyer, PhD, Analyst of the School, and Faculty of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis, San Francisco, psychoanalyst and psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills. He supervises in the Individual Adult Program of The Maple Counseling Center in Beverly Hills. He is a member of GIFRIC (Groupe Interdisciplinaire Freudienne pour Recherches et d’Interventions Clinique et Culturelles), the Freudian School of Québec, and the California Psychoanalytic Circle of the Freudian School of Québec. He has published articles in The American Journal of Semiotics Savoir, Psychoanalyse et Culturelle, Correspondences: Courrier de l’École Freudienne du Québec, and The Journal of Culture and the Unconscious.

Pricing & CE Credits

• $20 with 2.5 CE Credits
• $10 without CE Credit