Silvan S. Tomkins Institute: Audio and Video Tape Library

Tomkins Institute Audio and Video Tape Library
The Silvan S. Tomkins Institute maintains a library of presentations related to affect theory, script theory, and the applications of these theoretical systems to psychotherapy.
Our annual meetings are held in Philadelphia each October. The lectures and discussions are available as sets of 12 cassette tapes packaged in a protective album and accompanied by a copy of the handouts used at the original lectures, with all the textual material presented on the slides.

1993 Toward a New Psychotherapy   An overview of the major theories of emotion leading to the work of Tomkins, followed by a succinct explanation of affect theory and script theory. Introduction of the Affect Pattern Chart; links between affect and psychopharmacology; theory of personality; nature of empathy; disturbances of empathy. Speakers: Nathanson and Kelly.

1994 The Experience and Expression of Anger   The spectrum of emotions and behavior involving anger, demonstrating new approaches to the understanding of anger, violence, explosiveness, and the treatment of anger-based disorders. Speakers: Nathanson, Kelly, Abramson, Moore, Heath, Stone, Shapiro.

1995 Affect, Script, and Psychotherapy   Psychotherapy patients fall into two groups - those with otherwise adequate life scripts but who have been dazed by affect; and those whose core scripts leave them able to handle only a limited range of situations. Approaches to "borderline" illness based on affect and script as seen in the Affect Pattern Chart, problems of intimacy, substance abuse, integration of psychotherapy and religion, introduction of image-oriented therapy and the use of the drawn image. Speakers: Nathanson, Kelly, Deppe, Klein, Wright.

1996 The When, When Not, and How of Brief Psychotherapy   Dedicated to the memory of master clinician and therapist Michael Franz Basch, and honoring his final book Doing Brief Psychotherapy, this meeting addressed the factors responsible for the duration of psychotherapy. Introduction of the Philadelphia System for psychotherapy; review of the Tomkins Polarity Scale; use of script theory in organizational management and workplace disorder; affect blocking in gay and lesbian psychology; psychopharmacology and affect. Speakers: Nathanson, McShane, Hill, Moore, McDonald, Desmond, Pfrommer, Hite; The First Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award Lecture given by Leigh McCullough Vaillant.

1998 The Philadelphia System   The Philadelphia System represents the application of Tomkins's work to clinical practice. It may be understood as an approach to clinical practice based on an appreciation of the affects that have been experienced in one's past, the scripted methods of handling affect that color future experience, the cognitions through which these affective experiences are represented and interpreted, and the scripts that develop in each individual to manage those affect patterns. Nathanson on: his framework for the initial interviews through which we come to understand the core scripts of a new patient; a way of understanding EMDR on the basis of script theory; and the case of a celebrated transvestite whose episodes of cross dressing seem to have operated as part of an addiction script. Hill on new understanding of psychic trauma made possible by script theory. Donald Mosher, recipient of the Second Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award, offers a summary of his life work on sexual scripting. Workshops by Lauren Abramson, David Cook, Susan Leigh Deppe, Robert E. Desmond, Robin Dilley, Vick Kelly, Marsha Schwartz Klein, MarilynLuber, Robert Most, Diane Ruch, Brett Schur, and Warren Wittreich.

1999 The Experience and Relief of Distress: Overload, Grief, and Suffering.   We live in a climate of overload --- working more than one job, proud that anybody can reach us at any moment, handling whatever comes our way. All this "efficiency" comes at the sacrifice of privacy or any place for personal repair, and we live "pushed to the limit." Steady state overload triggers not "anxiety" (as it is usually mislabeled) but the affect distress-anguish. In this album Nathanson shows the ubiquity of ignored and overlooked distress, presenting a new Compass of Distress that complements his famous Compass of Shame, and explains the place of distress-anguish in a wide range of normal and pathological constellations. Wesley Novak offers innovative methods for the psychotherapy of distress; Jon Grindlinger shows the place of distress in several forms of music; Sue Deppe explains the way several major religions handle this affect; Jeanette Wright demonstrates the role of visual imagery in distress; Melvyn Hill explains how tragedy and comedy deal with the scripts through which people handle suffering; and further workshop presentations suggest the use of this knowledge in clinical work. The Third Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award Lecture is presented by Reverend David McShane as Distress: Bad News From A Friend.

2000 Optimizing Connections: Problems of Intimacy, Schools, and Community.   The Tomkins Institute presented a Colloquium on Connection that dealt with a new way of understanding how people form and maintain relationships. Dr. Nathanson discussed such usually overlooked matters as the problems between men and women that are based in what he called a nuclear script that afflicts all men and therefore bedevils all women. Celebrated Australian Police Sgt. Terry O'Connell, recent recipient of the Order of Australia Medal, presented the Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award Lecture on "The Bad Scene as a Doorway to Change," in which he showed how and why the conferencing system he helped develop has been so effective in improving and maintaining relationships that have been distorted and split by crime. Professor Norman Brown discussed the process of dating from the affects involved in initial attraction to the scripts formed for the maintenance of love. Further advances in the field of couples therapy were presented by Dr. Wesley G. Novak, who showed "Clinical Maps for the Couples Therapist," and Dr. Vernon C. Kelly, Jr., who discussed "Optimizing Emotional Connection in Couples: Impediment Removal Therapy." Psychotherapist and famed jazz musician Gary David offered "Together We Are Sound," a stunning earful of recorded examples of how individuals communicate and join when they chant or sing together. Ted Wachtel and Lauren Abramson joined plenary speakers O'Connell and Nathanson for the symposium "Rebuilding and Repairing Our Community," showing how they've applied these principles to heal groups larger than those usually seen by psychotherapists.

In addition to these albums of work presented at the annual colloquia of the Tomkins Institute, we are beginning to assemble a tape library of lectures by and about Silvan Tomkins.
Recorded informally at various colleges and meetings, these provide a wonderful opportunity to hear Professor Tomkins discuss his own ideas. The videotape of "Inverse Archaeology" preserves his July 1990 presentation to the International Society for Research on Emotion. Also available are the audiotapes "Reading Faces" recorded 4 October 1976 at Kalamazoo College, and "A Theory of Psychological Magnification: How Things Become Meaningful," recorded at Western Michigan University on 5 October 1976. Finally, we are pleased to make available the professionally recorded videotape "A Tribute to Silvan Tomkins" used as the centerpiece of the Memorial for Professor Tomkins held in Philadelphia on 15 September 1991.

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	1993 Toward a New Psychotherapy An overview of the major theories of emotion leading to the work of Tomkins, followed by a succinct explanation of affect theory and script theory. Introduction of the Affect Pattern Chart; links between affect and psychopharmacology; theory of personality; nature of empathy; disturbances of empathy. Speakers: Nathanson and Kelly.

	1994 The Experience and Expression of Anger The spectrum of emotions and behavior involving anger, demonstrating new approaches to the understanding of anger, violence, explosiveness, and the treatment of anger-based disorders. Speakers: Nathanson, Kelly, Abramson, Moore, Heath, Stone, Shapiro.

	1995 Affect, Script, and Psychotherapy Psychotherapy patients fall into two groups - those with otherwise adequate life scripts but who have been dazed by affect; and those whose core scripts leave them able to handle only a limited range of situations. Approaches to "borderline" illness based on affect and script as seen in the Affect Pattern Chart, problems of intimacy, substance abuse, integration of psychotherapy and religion, introduction of image-oriented therapy and the use of the drawn image. Speakers: Nathanson, Kelly, Deppe, Klein, Wright.

	1996 The When, When Not, and How of Brief Psychotherapy Dedicated to the memory of master clinician and therapist Michael Franz Basch, and honoring his final book Doing Brief Psychotherapy, this meeting addressed the factors responsible for the duration of psychotherapy. Introduction of the Philadelphia System for psychotherapy; review of the Tomkins Polarity Scale; use of script theory in organizational management and workplace disorder; affect blocking in gay and lesbian psychology; psychopharmacology and affect. Speakers: Nathanson, McShane, Hill, Moore, McDonald, Desmond, Pfrommer, Hite; The First Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award Lecture given by Leigh McCullough Vaillant.

	1998 The Philadelphia System The Philadelphia System represents the application of Tomkins's work to clinical practice. It may be understood as an approach to clinical practice based on an appreciation of the affects that have been experienced in one's past, the scripted methods of handling affect that color future experience, the cognitions through which these affective experiences are represented and interpreted, and the scripts that develop in each individual to manage those affect patterns. Nathanson on: his framework for the initial interviews through which we come to understand the core scripts of a new patient; a way of understanding EMDR on the basis of script theory; and the case of a celebrated transvestite whose episodes of cross dressing seem to have operated as part of an addiction script. Hill on new understanding of psychic trauma made possible by script theory. Donald Mosher, recipient of the Second Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award, offers a summary of his life work on sexual scripting. Workshops by Lauren Abramson, David Cook, Susan Leigh Deppe, Robert E. Desmond, Robin Dilley, Vick Kelly, Marsha Schwartz Klein, MarilynLuber, Robert Most, Diane Ruch, Brett Schur, and Warren Wittreich.

	1999 The Experience and Relief of Distress: Overload, Grief, and Suffering. We live in a climate of overload --- working more than one job, proud that anybody can reach us at any moment, handling whatever comes our way. All this "efficiency" comes at the sacrifice of privacy or any place for personal repair, and we live "pushed to the limit." Steady state overload triggers not "anxiety" (as it is usually mislabeled) but the affect distress-anguish. In this album Nathanson shows the ubiquity of ignored and overlooked distress, presenting a new Compass of Distress that complements his famous Compass of Shame, and explains the place of distress-anguish in a wide range of normal and pathological constellations. Wesley Novak offers innovative methods for the psychotherapy of distress; Jon Grindlinger shows the place of distress in several forms of music; Sue Deppe explains the way several major religions handle this affect; Jeanette Wright demonstrates the role of visual imagery in distress; Melvyn Hill explains how tragedy and comedy deal with the scripts through which people handle suffering; and further workshop presentations suggest the use of this knowledge in clinical work. The Third Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award Lecture is presented by Reverend David McShane as Distress: Bad News From A Friend.

	2000 Optimizing Connections: Problems of Intimacy, Schools, and Community. The Tomkins Institute presented a Colloquium on Connection that dealt with a new way of understanding how people form and maintain relationships. Dr. Nathanson discussed such usually overlooked matters as the problems between men and women that are based in what he called a nuclear script that afflicts all men and therefore bedevils all women. Celebrated Australian Police Sgt. Terry O'Connell, recent recipient of the Order of Australia Medal, presented the Michael Franz Basch Memorial Award Lecture on "The Bad Scene as a Doorway to Change," in which he showed how and why the conferencing system he helped develop has been so effective in improving and maintaining relationships that have been distorted and split by crime. Professor Norman Brown discussed the process of dating from the affects involved in initial attraction to the scripts formed for the maintenance of love. Further advances in the field of couples therapy were presented by Dr. Wesley G. Novak, who showed "Clinical Maps for the Couples Therapist," and Dr. Vernon C. Kelly, Jr., who discussed "Optimizing Emotional Connection in Couples: Impediment Removal Therapy." Psychotherapist and famed jazz musician Gary David offered "Together We Are Sound," a stunning earful of recorded examples of how individuals communicate and join when they chant or sing together. Ted Wachtel and Lauren Abramson joined plenary speakers O'Connell and Nathanson for the symposium "Rebuilding and Repairing Our Community," showing how they've applied these principles to heal groups larger than those usually seen by psychotherapists.