Faculty Profile

Theresa Aiello MS, MSW, PhD

Associate Professor of Social Work
Curriculum Vitae
theresa.aiello@nyu.edu | (212) 998-5927

bio

Dr. Theresa Aiello is director of the Post-Master’s Certificate in Advanced Clinical Practice and co-director of the Advanced Certificate in Child and Family Treatment. She is coordinator of the Child and Family Focused Learning Program. Dr. Aiello was chair of Human Behavior for the MSW Program from 2004-2010.

Curriculum areas:
Practice, Human Behavior in the MSW and PhD programs.

In May 2000 Dr. Aiello was the recipient of the New York University Distinguished Teacher Medal.

Dr. Aiello has worked as clinician and consultant specializing in Child Treatment in both residential treatment and out patient treatment for the past 28 years, (most recently consultant to the Jewish Board of Family & Children's Services Manhattan North Office). Dr. Aiello is a supervisor for the National Institute for the Psychotherapies Child and Adolescent Analytic Training Program. /p>

She has presented widely at international conferences in social work, psychoanalysis and narrative/narratology.

Interests:
Dr. Aiello's interests include the intellectual history of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Social Work. Her other interests and areas of focus include: attachment theory and contemporary issues of child and adolescent treatment; psychoanalytic theories; the history of psychoanalytic theory and practice; oral history; social theory; feminist theory; and infant research.

In 2000-2001, Dr. Aiello participated in a study group on infant research with Dr. Beatrice Beebe. Dr. Aiello is a participating member of the Oral History Seminar at Columbia University.

Scholarly Work:

Dr. Aiello is currently focused on the construction of narrative in child therapy. Her research project "What the Children Said," is a study of oral histories from child therapists on children's narrative constructions of the events of 9/11. This project is supported by the Jane Bram Fund.

In 2003-04 Dr. Aiello was co-leader with Dr. Brad Lewis of a Humanities Council Colloquium, "Discourses of Identity: Psychoanalysis & Cultural Identifications." This colloquium was an interdiscipline seminar utilizing post-Freudian, post-Lacanian, Foucauldian historicist approaches to cultural studies and political theory. Dr. Aiello was the first professor in the School of Social Work to receive a Humanities council grant for this Colloquium.

Dr. Aiello was recently elected to the National Academy of Social Work Practioners and Scholars. In 2011, she was elected to The National Academies of Practice in Social Work as a distinguished practitioner and researcher.

recent work

"What the Children Said": Children's Narrative Construction of the Events of 9/11 as told to Child Therapists. This research is being conducted in part at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies Child & Adolescent Comprehensive Training Program. It is funded by the William B. and Jane Eisner Bram Research Fund.

Dr. Aiello has been invited to present a paper on chldren's narrative constructions of the events of 9/11, based on Dr. Aiello's ongoing research project, at the Oral History Association Conference in Oakland, Calinfornia (Oct. 24-27, 2007).

Most recently, Dr. Aiello authored Narratology, Narrativist Theories, and Children, the fourth publication in the faculty-authored research series, Issues and Action. The article describes the investigation of children's narratives, with a particular focus on the narratives of children who were affected by the events of 9/11.

recent publications

Books

Aiello, T. (manuscript in progress). Strange Elegy of Childhood: The Construction of Narrative in Child Treatment
Aiello, T. (1999). Child and Adolescent Treatment for Social Work Practice: A Relational Perspective for Beginning Clinicians. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Tosone, C. & Aiello, T. (Eds.). (1999) Love and Attachment, Contemporary Issues & Treatment Considerations. Lanham, MD: Jason Aronson, Inc.

Chapters

Aiello, T. (2005). Disorder and early sorrow: An integration of the motivational system of aversion and Fairbairn's Endopsychic Structure. In D. E. Scharff & J.S. Scharff (Eds.), The Legacy of Fairbairn and Sutherland. London: Routledge Press.
Aiello, T. (2000). In Worterbuch der Psychotherapie: Wein/New York: Springer. [Note: this is a dictionary of contemporary psychotherapy]
Aiello, T. (1999). Identitat, Soziale Schict und Intellekt Eine Er fahrung.
In Aspekte einer Neuen Psychoanalyse: Ein selb-psychologischer Austach: New York - Wien; Verlag neue Psychoanalyse Wien

Journals

2012, Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, V11,Number 1, What the Children Said: Children's Narrative Constructions of the Events of 9/11 as told in Psychotherapy
2012, Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, V11, Number 2 Out of Destruction; , A Terrible Beauty is Born
2011, Traumatology, 17,59(originally published online, March 10,2011 "Beauty and Terror, Just Keep on Going"
AAPCSW Newsletter, Winter 2012 Mentalization and Reflective Functioning: Old Wine in New Bottles in Child Treatment
2010, Clinical Social Work Discussant: The Soldier's Tale: A Discussion of "Can Anyone Here Know Who I Am? Co-constructing Meaningful Narratives with Combat Veterans, by Martha Bragin.
2009, Spring, Issue 4, Issues and Action; New York University Silver School of Social Work Narratology, Narrativist Theories and children
2009, V 19 Number 2, Psychoanalytic Social Work Commentary on Mentalizing in the Therapeutic Relationship with an Older Adolescent: by Raymond Lucente
Aiello, T. (2006). Children’s narrative constructions of the events of 9/11 in psychotherapy. Mellanrummet: kris och trauma. Nr 14: 2006 (Sweden).
Aiello, T (2003). Laws of the father: Nietzche, Salome and the Problem Sublimation: Benjamin Cardozo Law Review, 24. No. 3.

Presentations

2013, March 16, Plenary Speaker: AmericanAssociation for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work Lou Andreas Salome and the problem of the Paradigm in Psychoanalysis
2012, October 20, Psychology of the Self Conference, Washington DC Paper: Lou Andreas Salome, "Mother of Psychoanalysis"
2011, Nov.16-18, Conference: Delirious Naples: A Cultural, Intellectual and Urban History of the City of the Sun. Panel: Variations on the Labyrinth,Thomas Belmonte's The Broken Fountain
2011, April 10, New Jersey Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis, Keynote speaker: Rescue Fantasies and the Therapist's Subjectivity
2010, April 10, American Association for Pyschoanalysis and Clinical Social Work Love, Loss, Creating a Meaningful Life, Plenary Paper: Strange Elegy: Beauty, Illusion and Meaning.
Aiello, T. (2007). A terrible beauty is born: Children’s narrative constructions of beauty after 9/11 (as told in psychotherapy). New York Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (NYAMFT), metropolitan chapter, New York, NY.
Aiello, T. (2007). What the children said: Children’s narrative constructions of 9/11 in psychotherapy. The Oral History Association Conference, Oakland, CA.
Aiello, T. (2007). Contemporary issues in child treatment. National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Conference, San Francisco, CA.
Aiello, T. and Anastas, J. (2006). Evidence and Practices: Theory, Research and Practice (Re)Considered. Fifth International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health. Hong Kong.
Aiello, T. (2006). Psychoanalysis in Exile: The Émigrés in America, and Child Narratives of 9/11 in Psychotherapy. Presentation at The Narrative Matters Conference, New Brunswick, Canada.
Aiello, T. (2005). Child narratives of 9/11 in treatment. Paper presented at the Ninth European Conference on Traumatic Stress, Stockholm, Sweden.
Aiello, T. (2004). What the Children Said: What the therapist answered. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
Aiello, T. (2004). What the children said: What the therapist answered: How children and therapists co-construct narrative in child treatment. Presented at The Narrative Matters Conference, New Brunswick, Canada.
Aiello, T. (2003). Disorder and early sorrow: An integration of the motivational system of aversion and Fairbairn's Endopsychic Structure in child treatment. Featured presentation at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies Child & Adolescent Psychoanalytic Training Program 5th Annual Spring Presentation, New York, NY.
Aiello, T. (2003). The Legacy of Fairbairn and Sutherland Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Aiello, T. (2002). A Secret Vice: Invented Language and Invented Kingdoms in Childhood, Div. 39 of the American Psychological Association, New York, NY
Aiello, T. (2002). January 2002. From the Margins: The Evolution of Relational Practice in Inner City Agencies. Paper presented at Relational Analysts at Work, New York, NY.
Aiello, T. (2002). The American dilemma revisited: Psychoanalysis, social policy and the socio-cultural meaning of race. Presented at New York University, New York, NY.
Aiello, T. (2004). The Traveling concept of narrative: Strange elegy of childhood.
Presented at the Construction of Narrative in Child Treatment, Helsinki, Finland.

Work in Progress:

Presentation for Editorial Board of Affilia (Journal of Women and Social Work: “New Historicist/Post-Lacanian Approaches to Feminist Theory.”
Dr. Aiello is working on a book on Narrative Construction in Child Treatment, tentatively titled: "Strange Elegy of Childhood."