Special Lecture Series
CAPA offers special lectures, seminars and courses for students, graduates, and members. A variety of topics will be covered by distinguished members of CAPA's faculty. Upon completion of the Special Lecture Series lecture, seminar or course, student and graduate participants will receive a certification of participation.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speaker(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of CAPA.
Special Lecture Series 2026-2027
Title: Emotional Pain’s Hidden Architecture: The Psyche–Brain–Body Continuum in Light of the 5 Biological Laws
Presenter: Prof. Diana Medina
US Seminar Dates: Friday, November 6 & 13, 2026
US Seminar Times: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM (Eastern Time - NY)
China Seminar Dates: Friday, November 6 & 13, 2026
China Seminar Times: 10:00 PM - 12:00 AM (22:00 - 00:00 Beijing Time)
Prerequisites: All CAPA members, students, graduates, and members of the public
Course size: Open Enrollment
Description: “The difference amongst brain, body and psyche is merely academic. In reality they are one”.
Ryke Geerd Hamer. Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer (1935–2017), a German physician, developed a system known as German New Medicine (GNM) also known as Germanische Heilkunde. At its core are the Five Biological Laws. The 5LB perspective focuses on adaptation and survival, revealing adaptive biological responses to situations that require a special or specific physiological resources, modifying normal physiology that is then reproduced with new levels of intensity following a shock – an unexpected event that poses risk or threat to the organism. These programs involve coordinated responses across the psyche, brain, and organ to help the organism adapt to and resolve unexpected distress.
From this perspective, diagnostic labels are the result of combinations of special programs running simultaneously in different tissues that occur within vicious circles that become chronic. The third biological law makes special emphasis on the embryological origin of the organ or tissue, since this explains the apparent contradiction in the increase or decrease in organ function throughout the autonomic response. The 5BL are a discovery in the biological medical field that constitute a new reference model regarding our health. This model allows us to navigate our way with precision through every symptom, sign or observable clinical change in the organism, widening the possibilities of therapeutic intervention and bringing us a new comprehension of the phenomena that we call “disease”.
The first class is an introduction to the 5 Biological Laws which requires an audience with an open mind since this knowledge will challenge what you think you know about how the body works. The second class I will introduce my perspective on how this knowledge brings more clarity to psychoanalytic interventions, how we may support our work with other therapeutic techniques, and on how we can use the 5BL to navigate our way more easily into the real core of the patient’s problem, if we learn to read the signs.
Course Objective:
Transform the comprehension of what we call “disease” into a precise biological adaptation response to the challenging unexpected situations that we experience in our everyday lives. This transformation allows us to not to fear uncomfortable disturbing symptoms -like pain- but to understand the biological function that the symptom is serving.
Bring our attention to biological feelings, sensations and emotions that are signaling troublesome situations in our lives -or in our inner psychological experience- that keep triggering biological processes. When two or more biological processes remain “active” in the brain, there will be modifications in our thinking and behavior in order to look for solutions to the situation.
This comprehension opens our mind to the fact that diagnostic labels -both medical and psychiatric- are a consensual constructs that can be more accurately described from the 5BL model, taking away the moral value of “good” or “bad”, “malignant” or “benign”, “disorganized or psychotic”.
To start by observing and associating our own simple biological responses -like flu- to periods of stress and solution and raise your curiosity to learn more.
Bio: Clinical Psychologist based in Mexico City. She completed her psychoanalytic training at the Institute of Postgraduate Studies of the Psychoanalytic Society of Mexico (SPM). Her additional training includes Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard University, a Master’s degree in Brief Strategic Psychotherapy (Nardone model), and basic training in EMDR.
She is currently pursuing a PhD in Psychoanalysis with a specialization in Neuropsychoanalysis at Universidad Intercontinental. She has been a member of the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA), the Neuropsychoanalysis Association (NPSA), and the Psychoanalytic Society of Mexico (SPM). Since 2006, she has been deeply engaged in the study and understanding of Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer’s Five Biological Laws, following the work of a young Mexican physician who has played a key role in introducing and disseminating this knowledge throughout Spanish-speaking countries.
“An unexpected event in my early twenties set me on a profound journey of self-discovery—one that would ultimately bring meaning and clarity to the most challenging chapters of my life. It was then, in 1995, that I began my training in psychoanalysis. When my mother passed away in early 2000, I found myself engulfed in a deep and overwhelming melancholy. In my search for healing, I embarked on a spiritual quest that would forever change my understanding of health, illness, and the human experience. During this journey, I encountered the work of a doctor who offered a compelling explanation: that cancer often originates from a shocking emotional experience endured in isolation and silence. His words resonated with me instantly. Guided by my deep-seated distrust of impersonal medical approaches, an unmistakable inner knowing, and an unrelenting intellectual curiosity, I immersed myself in the study of Dr. Hamer’s Five Biological Laws. There, I finally found coherent and compassionate answers to the “how” and “why” behind my mother’s cancer diagnosis.
Today, with profound gratitude for the path I have walked, I am dedicated to weaving together the wisdom and lived experiences that have guided my own healing. My heartfelt purpose is to help others integrate a deeper understanding of ourselves as living beings—embodied in a sentient body that is beautifully designed to support and guide our emotional and psychic life—so that we may gently reconnect with our most authentic selves”.
If you have any questions about the seminar, please contact Prof. Medina directly at dmedina.niembro@yahoo.com.
Title: The Body as a Site of Transgenerational Transmission: When Symbolization Fails, the Analyst’s Body Knows
Presenter: Joy V. Levinson, Ph.D
US Seminar Dates: Saturday, January 9, 2027
US Seminar Times: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Eastern Time)
China Seminar Dates: Saturday, January 9, 2027
China Seminar Times: 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM (22:00 – 23:00 Beijing Time)
Prerequisites: CAPA Members, Students & Graduates and Members of the Public
Course size: Open
Description: In this presentation, I will explore how traumatic and transgenerational experience may be communicated through the body when it cannot yet be thought or spoken. Through detailed clinical material from the treatment of Ms. J, a 78-year-old woman whose early life was shaped by maternal envy, contempt, and attacks on female embodiment, I will examine how experiences that had never been symbolized emerged in the analytic relationship through bodily states, scrutiny, shame, disgust, and assaults on the analyst’s embodied presence. I will focus on how the analyst’s body became not only a site of projection, but also a vehicle for psychic transformation. Feelings of exposure, bodily shame, and at times being “devoured” became important forms of countertransference knowledge, revealing dimensions of the patient’s internal world that had previously remained unthinkable. I will consider how surviving these bodily communications without retaliation, withdrawal, or collapse created the conditions for change. More broadly, the presentation will offer a contemporary psychoanalytic model of embodied transgenerational transmission, drawing on Laplanche, Faimberg, Loewald, Anzieu, Bick, Lemma, and Balsam. I will suggest that when bodily enactments can be recognized, contained, and thought within the analytic relationship, they may become pathways to symbolization and psychic change.
Course Objective: By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Identify ways in which traumatic and transgenerational experience may be communicated through bodily states when symbolic representation has failed.
Recognize forms of embodied countertransference as potential sources of clinical knowledge within analytic treatment.
Describe how the analyst’s capacity to receive, survive, and metabolize bodily projections can facilitate symbolization and psychic change.
Apply contemporary psychoanalytic concepts of bodily transmission and embodiment to the understanding of difficult clinical impasses and enactments.
Bio: Dr. Levinson received her Ph.D. from the Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University and completed her psychoanalytic training at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Her clinical approach is psychodynamic and deeply individualized, integrating contemporary psychoanalytic understanding with warmth, curiosity, and practical attention to each patient’s unique circumstances. In addition to her private practice, Dr. Levinson serves on the faculty of the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, and the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance. She teaches and supervises doctoral and postdoctoral clinicians, and is committed to mentoring the next generation of psychotherapists. Dr. Levinson’s scholarly interests include embodiment, transgenerational transmission, trauma, and the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis.
If you have any questions about the seminar, please contact Dr. directly at joy.levinson@gmail.com.
Title: The Tao of Psychoanalysis
Presenter: Arseny Tarabanov, Ph.D.
US Seminar Dates: Friday, February 26, 2027
US Seminar Times: 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM (Eastern Time - NY)
China Seminar Dates: Friday, February 26, 2027
China Seminar Times: 10:00 PM – 11:30 PM (22:00 – 23:30 Beijing Time)
Prerequisites: All CAPA members, students and graduates
Course size: Open enrollment
Description: The Tao of Psychoanalysis offers an immersive exploration into the "Eastern mode" of the human mind as defined by Christopher Bollas.
Course Objective:
We move beyond the traditional Western focus on linear logic and interpretation to rediscover the "maternal order" of the psyche—a realm of being, rhythm, and pre-verbal experience.
Participants will gain a new clinical "ear" for the unthought known, learning to use silence, countertransference resonance, and aesthetic response as precision tools for healing deep-seated psychic fragmentation.
Bio: Dr. Arseny Tarabanov is the Director of Institute of Neurocommunications and Psychotherapy in Vilnius (Lithuania). He is the popularizer of neuropsychoanalysis in the Baltic countries. He designs courses in affective neuroscience, neuropsychoanalysis, and traditional Chinese psychotherapy. He has twenty years of teaching experience and five years of clinical experience.
Dr. Tarabanov aims to develop psychotherapeutic methods based on a cross-cultural approach in psychopathology and the latest achievements in neuroscience. His publications include articles on the neuropsychoanalytic approach and chapters of the textbook "Child Psychiatry" devoted to the neuropsychodynamic approach to various types of psychopathology. He has been studying Chinese medicine for many years and applying it to the practice of martial arts. His post-doctoral certifications are in Body Therapy, Child Psychoanalysis, and Contemporary Methods of Family and Group Psychotherapy.
If you have any questions about the seminar, please contact Dr. Tarabanov directly at beobachter1971@gmail.com.