MPA Conference held October 7-8

-- Dara Trooien

It was a chilly Friday morning as I walked toward the Auditorium for the Minnesota Psychological Association (MPA) President’s Conference to listen to Dr. Allan Schore in a presentation called Hardwired to Connect: The Developing Brain and Its Implications for Psychotherapeutic Treatment.

The conference was a collaboration between the MPA, the Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, local chapter of APA’s Division 39, and Metropolitan State University, according to the MPA’s Web site. Participants had the option of attending just Friday morning as a First Friday forum, one full day, or two full days on Friday and Saturday.

Topics that Schore spoke about during the presentation included affective regulation, attachment theory, developmental psychology, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis. “Events that occur during infancy, especially transactions with the social environment, are imprinted into the structures that are maturing in the first years of life. The child’s first relationship, with the mother permanently molds the individual’s capacities to enter into all later emotional relationships,” he said. In addition, local mental health clinicians were able to join Schore in a panel discussion after each lecture, where both the panelists and audience members were able to ask Schore questions.

President Bradshaw Ph.D. introduced Schore and made the opening comments at the conference. When later asked about the MPA Conference, he said that he was very pleased that the MPA has chosen Metropolitan State University as the venue for their Friday Forums. He went on to say that “the forums regularly bring distinguished psychology professionals and scholars to our campus to discuss and share information on topical issues. These forums also provide our faculty and students ready access to excellent and thought-provoking discourse on current issues in professional psychology.”

On the second day of the conference, a breakfast was held with Schore, primarily for Metropolitan State University students. Eleven students attended the student breakfast with Schore. It was an informal meeting in the Psychology Lab where students had a chance to ask questions.

Susan Rydell, a licensed psychologist and a professor here at Metropolitan State University helped develop a collaborative relationship with the MPA over the years, as she was president of the MPA from 1988-1990. As a result, she said many opportunities became available to students such as the Friday Forum series, which is a continuing education program for professional psychologists, but is offered as a credit course for students named Psychology 360. “Students have had the opportunity to meet a number of prominent psychologists and professionals in the field,” Rydell says.

Schore is a clinical faulty member of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and also at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He has been an active clinician-scientist for the past four decades and is currently involved in neuroimaging research. The MPA President’s Conference was a wonderful opportunity for students to talk with and learn from such a renowned psychologist as Dr. Schore.

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