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The Dewald Tapes: Archiving a Complete Recorded Psychoanalysis and Rereading It Through the Referential Process

Christopher Christian

November 8th, 2026, 10:00 – 11:30 am (NYC time)

This presentation introduces a plan for the digitizing, archiving and study of a complete recorded psychoanalysis. It consists of 378 audio cassettes made by psychoanalyst, Paul A. Dewald, M.D., covering a four-times-weekly treatment around 50 years ago. What sets the collection apart from other recorded treatments that exist in process research, such as that of the well-known case of Mrs. C., is that after each session, Dewald dictated his formulations onto the tape: the dynamics, the transference and resistance, the interpretations he chose to withhold, and his overall judgment of the hour.

This talk will describe the archival and digitization workflow, from sorting and sequencing the cassettes to audio restoration and offline transcription that protects confidentiality. It then presents two instruments for scoring the dictations. The first is the Analyst’s Global Assessment Scale (A-GAS), a seven-point rating of how productive the analyst judged each session. The second is a set of ten process dimensions derived from the commentaries, including transference engagement, affective immediacy, conviction, self-observation, and the yielding of resistance. We will examine how sessions Dewald judged productive or resistant compare on Mean High WRAD and WRAD → WRRL sequences, using Bucci’s measures to reread the case from a perspective independent of the analyst’s own. Methodological challenges will be discussed.

Christopher Christian, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Psychology and co-chair of the Rapaport-Klein Study Group, and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at IPTAR and the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, past Dean of IPTAR, and a Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He is board certified in Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology and in Psychoanalysis.

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More Upcoming Referential Process Seminars

All seminars take place at 10:00 – 11:30 AM EST (NYC time).

• December 6 – Galit Harel
• February 7 – Attà Negri and Stefano Milesi
• March 7 – Wilma Bucci

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Past Events

• RP Meeting: Clinical Explorations: Correlating patterns of arousal, symbolization, and reflection with clinical progress. Presenter: Charles M. Jaffe, MD. This meeting was held June 7^th, 2026.
• Wilma Bucci gave a keynote address: “Verbal Expression of Emotion in Bilingual Speakers: A Multiple Code Perspective” at an NSF-sponsored symposium on Bilingualism Research in Individual Differences: Goals for Education and Clinical Specialists, held May 7^th-8^th, 2026 at St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y.
• RP Meeting: The First Version of the Portuguese Brazilian Referential Activity Dictionary Applied to the Sylvia Plath’s Journals. Presenters: Marques V., Cerroni S., Mariani R. This meeting was held May 3^rd, 2026.
• Leon Hoffman gave his presentation “Addressing Defenses: A Core Mechanism of Change in Psychodynamic Treatments” on January 17^th, 2026 at an event organized by the Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Society.
• On October 11^th, 18^th, and 25^th, 2025, the Pacella Research Center presented the online course “The Referential Process in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship” in collaboration with the University of Bergamo’s Department of Human and Social Sciences. Wilma Bucci, Attà Negri, Rachele Mariani, Riccardo Bianchi, and Christopher Christian presented on Multiple Code Theory and the Referential Process, DAAPLab and its computerized linguistic measures, and applications across clinical practice, supervision, and research.
• Wilma Bucci delivered a talk titled “Levels of Awareness in Emotional Communication: A Multiple Code Perspective” as part of the 63^rd Annual Meeting of the Rapaport-Klein Study Group on June 21^st, 2025.
• As part of the Austen Riggs Center’s Friday Night Lecture Series, Christopher Christian presented his paper “The Vanishing of Culture in Psychoanalysis: History and New Directions” on April 5^th, 2024. Learn more here.
• Henry Peterson addressed the North American Chapter of the Society for Psychotherapy Research at their meeting in Amherst, MA, in October 2023. He discussed his research concerning pausing in a psychotherapy treatment. A copy of his paper is available for download here.