Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma:
What we have learned in our work with mothers and infants
affected by the trauma of 9/11
May 19, 2005 8:00 PM
New York Academy of Medicine 2 East 103rd Street, New York, New York

Suzi Tortora
The Use of Nonverbal Movement Analysis in the Treatment of Women
Pregnant and Widowed on 9-11

ANNI BERGMAN is Faculty and Member, IPTAR and New York Freudian Society (NYFS); Associate Professor, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Co-Founder and Co-Director, Parent-Infant Training Program at the NYFS.

SALLY MOSKOWITZ is a Member, Faculty, and Supervisor, IPTAR; Supervisor, CUNY Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology and NYU Postdoctoral Program. RITA REISWIG is Member and Faculty, IPTAR; Member and Faculty, NYFS Child Analytic Training Program; Co-founder and Co-director, NYFS Parent-Infant Training Program.

MARK SOSSIN is Associate Professor of Psychology, Pace University; Faculty and Supervisor, NYFS; Vice-President, Child Development Research; Faculty and Supervisor, Derner Institute Postdoctoral Programs in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.

SUZI TORTORA is a Nonverbal Movement Analyst, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Pediatrics; Faculty, Postgraduate Institute for Infants, Children & Families, Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, and Pratt Institute.

The World Trade Center Project was conceived by Beatrice Beebe, Phyllis Cohen, and Joseph Jaffe, in collaboration with Anni Bergman and Sally Moskowitz, as a primary prevention and intervention project for pregnant 9/11 widows and their unborn or newly born babies and their older children. The Project consists of support groups for mothers and their babies and toddlers; mother-child video bonding consultations; feedback sessions with the mothers using the videotapes; and therapist peer-supervision and support group. The authors will present specific aspects of their work with these families, including the mother's transmission of the lost father to the infant (Reiswig), the disruption of primary maternal preoccupation in grieving mothers (Moskowitz), the nature of children's play in the wake of traumatic loss (Sossin), and the dynamic interplay of the maternal psychic state and the infant's emerging psyche as viewed through nonverbal movement analysis (Tortora).

Phyllis Cohen, CO-director of the World Trade Center Mother-Infant Project will lead a discussion following the presentations. Dr. Cohen is Founder, Director, Faculty, and Supervisor, The New York Institute for Psychotherapy Training in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence; and Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU Department of Applied Psychology. 

Steven Ellman, President 

Anni Bergman & Carolyn Ellman, Program Committee Co-chairs

Program Committee: Jeanne Even, Roslyn Goldner, Laurence Gould, Judy Ann Kaplan,
Carol Kaye, Kathy Krauthamer, Ellen Sinkman, Neal Vorus, Tracey Strasser Vorus,
Florence Williams, and Arnold Wilson