Course Descriptions

This course provides an introduction to each of the major psychoanalytic theories, beginning with Classical Freudian to present day Relational Theory, and their application to clinical material. 

This course provides an advanced introduction to clinical concepts in the psychotherapy process.  Theoretical underpinnings of analytic technique and common issues encountered in psychodynamic work will be examined, as well as the “nuts and bolts” of establishing the structure for psychodynamic practice. 

In the beginning, there was Freud and his groundbreaking vision of the unconscious mind.  This course provides the student with an understanding of how Freud’s ever-changing ideas evolved throughout his lifetime and beyond and how they can inform contemporary practice. 

This course provides a further advanced introduction to clinical concepts in the psychotherapy process.  Theoretical underpinnings of analytic technique and common issues encountered in psychodynamic work will continue to be examined, as well as the “nuts and bolts” of establishing the structure for psychodynamic practice.  While it is helpful to take 102 before 104, 102 is not a pre-requisite for 104. 

This four week mini-course helps candidates recognize spoken and unspoken aspects of clinical interaction through presentation, class discussion, and a brief written account of a clinical encounter.

This course offers an introduction to the major theories of the School of Object Relations. Each perspective on development, personality, and dynamic relational functioning will be explored, as well as their different approaches to psychoanalytic treatment.

This full year course applies psychoanalytic theory to transference, countertransference, and resistance. It traces the development of these concepts from Freud’s early formulations through the viewpoints of Object Relations, Self Psychology, Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, the Relational approach, and Intersubjectivity. Specific therapeutic relationship issues that complicate and enrich the work will be addressed. including negative transference/countertransference, erotic transference/countertransference, negative therapeutic reaction, authenticity, enactment, and projective identification.

This course teaches skills for assessing and diagnosing personality, with a focus on developmental levels of personality organization and the spectrum of psychoanalytic personality theories. It includes an introduction to Ego Psychology (including defense mechanisms, adaptation, the conflict free sphere, and developmental levels of personality functioning), Kernberg’s seminal work on borderline structure, the dissociative mind and self-states, followed by a review of  the subjective characteristics of the personality styles. These theoretical approaches are applied to clinical work with patients.

This four week mini-course teaches the immeasurable value of recognizing the unconscious aspects of your emotional engagement, a second level of understanding, through presentation, class discussion, and a brief written account of a clinical encounter.

This course addresses the changes in Self Psychology since Kohut developed the theory. Candidates will learn the key concepts of idealization, mirroring, twinship, selfobjects, selfobject needs, optimal frustration, transmuting internalizations, intersubjectivity theory, organizing principles, dynamic systems theory, and optimal responsiveness.

The nature of thinking developmentally as a psychodynamic clinician will be emphasized in this course. We will consider the main developmental concepts from each of the primary psychoanalytic schools of thought in our work with patients across their lifespans. Topics covered will include pre-and post-oedipal development, the centrality of separation-individuation, attachment, affect and self-regulation, and the development of mentalization and reflective functioning.

With Sullivan’s discoveries of the centrality of interpersonal anxiety and need for security in human development, came breakthroughs in both theory and technique, from drive to relationship and from repression to omission. Theoretical and clinical readings are drawn from the Interpersonal School’s founders as well as contemporary thinkers.

This course examines how the major analytic schools have defined psychopathology and examines the contemporary efforts to integrate these definitions. Candidates will also study: disorders of mood and anxiety, addictions, and trauma.

This course provides an overview of relational psychoanalytic theory and practice, beginning with its formulation by Mitchell and Greenberg, and including contributions by Hoffman, Aron, D.B. Stern, Maroda, Bromberg, Benjamin, Davies, Ehrenberg and Grossmark. We will examine such concepts as co-construction and mutuality in the analytic dyad, the analyst’s subjectivity, mutual vulnerability, unformulated experience, multiplicity of the self, thirdness, enactment and repair and self-disclosure. Special attention will be devoted to applying relational concepts to clinical cases, particularly work with patients from diverse backgrounds.

The purpose of this course is to give the therapist a thorough knowledge of various psychoanalytic theoretical views of dream interpretation and unconscious process.  This includes exploring dreams from the perspectives of classical (Freudian), Ego, Object Relations and Relational/Interpersonal models of psychoanalytic work.  The course will explore symbolism and how dreams reflect cultural, political and environmental upheaval.  Each therapist will present dreams so that we, as a class, can exercise our skills in comprehending what the dreamer is trying to convey.

Required: A total of 8 courses and 2 four week clinical process mini-courses.

• 1- Advancing the Process of Psychoanalysis (prerequisite: the candidate will be treating a patient 3 times a week or activity seeking a 3 time a week patient)
• 3- Clinical Applications of Psychoanalytic Theory * courses
• 3- Special topic** or Advanced Theoretical Perspectives *** courses
• 1-Final Case Preparation
• 2 four week clinical process mini courses

*Clinical Applications of Psychoanalytic Theory courses include an identified theoretical orientation (at the discretion of the Instructor, for ex.: Comparative Theories, The Analysts Use of Self) & an academic component.

**Special Topics (2-Six week topics can be combined to meet the requirement for one 12 week course. Course offerings are based on Instructor availability):

For example:

• BPD & NPD
• Gender
• Multi Cultural
• Neuropsychoanalysis
• Dreams
• Trauma
• Racism
• Self States

*** (2 – Six week topics can be combined to meet the requirement for one 12 week course. Course offerings are based on Instructor availability.)

For example:

• Models of Subjectivity
• Advanced Object Relations
• Klein
• Bromberg
• Winnicott
• Benjamin
• Loewald
• Searles
• Aron
• Bion
• Ferenczi
• Mitchell
• Lacan

305M Recognizing Clinical Process: Macroprocess

This four week mini-course teaches how to recognize the aspects of your work which are having the most effect on your patient’s progress or may be adding to an impasse. Candidates will look at what has changed over time and how, by creating a “map” that describes your first encounter and two later points in the treatment.

405M Recognizing Clinical Process: Theoretical Identity

This four week mini-course allows candidates to identify the body of psychoanalytic theory which best complements their own theoretical orientation and provides a vast resource of wisdom and new ideas to continue your professional growth.

This course integrates theory and practice through the preparation of a case report of a 3times/week analysis, which is written in short sections, discussed in class, and revised. The entirety of the case report becomes the basis for the Final Case paper and case discussion which are the final requirements for completing training. The course must be taken the academic year in which the final case is presented.