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Psychoanalytic Training

Educational Philosophy

In our psychoanalytic training program, we communicate to our candidates a sense of excitement, creativity, and diversity that exists within contemporary psychoanalysis. Through intense study and open dialogue, we facilitate a process of discovery as candidates forge their analytic identities. We create an educational milieu that encourages critical thinking and writing.

Course of Study

Our curriculum provides in-depth study of broad theoretical ideas from classical to contemporary. The primary focus is on the study of contemporary self psychological and relational psychoanalytic models, along with findings from developmental research, attachment research, and neuroscience. Our program is particularly strong in re-examining seminal psychoanalytic concepts such as the unconscious and therapeutic action in light of contemporary clinical and developmental findings.

The curriculum encompasses three years of coursework. In each training year, we offer two class sessions per week for 30 weeks of classes. The curriculum is usually divided into six-week courses that include both a theoretical and a clinical concentration. In the first year, an introduction to psychoanalytic practice includes a focus on assisting candidates to deepen their clinical work in order to help them develop control cases. We offer a review of contemporary psychoanalytic theories including self psychology, intersubjectivity, motivational systems theory, and relational theory. In the second year, we expand the range of psychoanalytic theories and continue our focus on psychoanalytic practice. In the courses featuring the major psychoanalytic theories, each section will include the relevant model’s views concerning: transference, countertransference, developmental process, psychopathology, working with dreams, primary clinical approach, and therapeutic action. We also emphasize writing in our curriculum as a means of promoting scholarship and critical thinking.

In the third year, candidates and faculty collaborate to design the learning program in order to meet the unique learning needs of the class. The curriculum may follow up on a particular interest of the class members or be a more intense study of a previously offered topic. Examples of courses offered in the past third year curriculum include a psychoanalytic approach to trauma, gender, sexuality, motivational systems, addictions, intersubjectivity and comparisons between self psychology and American relational approaches. Recent seminars by leading psychoanalytic scholars, many of whom are on our faculty, include Owen Renik, Jim Fosshage, Donnel Stern, Judith Teicholz, Estelle Shane, Alan Kindler, Helen Gediman, Shelley Doctors, Joseph Lichtenberg, and Andrew Morrison.

Advisement

Each candidate has an advisor who offers guidance and support through the training process. The advisor meets at least yearly with the candidate to discuss the training experience and to identify learning needs.

Personal Analysis

Through a personal analysis, candidates develop expanded awareness and understanding of their unique subjective reactions in the clinical encounter. Candidates discover blocks and blind spots which prevent them from being fully available to an analysand. This process of self-discovery promotes a capacity for a fuller psychoanalytic engagement.

We recommend, although we do not require it, that the analyst be from within the ICP&P Psychoanalytic faculty. We find that the experience of combining analysis, supervision, and course work from within the contemporary relational mode creates a powerful learning experience for candidates. For candidates who have already completed an analysis, the decision about whether the candidate’s analysis will satisfy the requirement for the personal analysis will be considered during the admission process.

Peer Group

Awareness of self is vital to being an analyst. The peer group experience provides another opportunity to facilitate openness and vulnerability in revealing personal reactions that come up in analytic work. A unique aspect of our psychoanalytic training programs includes weekly meetings as a peer group (without faculty presence) with a focus on case presentations. Ideally, the peer group helps to enhance trust and cohesion as candidates grow in their in capacities to talk about psychoanalytic ideas, apply them clinically, and to help each other.

Supervised Clinical Work

Learning to listen, empathize, and deepen an analysis is challenging and rewarding. Each candidate is required to treat at least three patients at a minimum frequency of three sessions/week over a substantial period of time. Supervision is required for each case. Candidates write up yearly case reports and discuss their analytic development with advisors and supervisors. ICP&P is committed to assisting candidates in finding control cases through suitable referrals and is developing an active referral service.

CURRICULUM

First Year Courses

  • Introduction to Psychoanalytic Practice
  • Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Listening & Responding
  • Foundations of Self Psychology Theory
  • Concepts of Psychoanalytic Technique
  • Foundations of Motivational Systems Theory
  • Psychoanalytic Writing I
  • Attachment Research & Theory I
  • Foundations of Intersubjectivity Theory
  • Foundations of Relational Theory
  • Continuous Case Conference

Second Year Courses

  • Foundations of British Object Relations
  • Ego Psychology: Historical & Contemporary Perspectives
  • Psychoanalytic Case Studies
  • Therapeutic Action: Historical & Contemporary Perspectives
  • Working with Dreams: Contemporary Perspectives
  • Developmental Research and Clinical Interaction
  • Theories of Intersubjectivity – II
  • Continuous Case Conference
  • Writing II

Third Year Courses – some examples*

  • American Relational Theory – II
  • Motivation Systems Theory – II
  • Trauma
  • Addictions & Psychoanalysis
  • Contemporary Perspectives on Freud’s Cases
  • Neuropsychoanalysis
  • Continuous Case Conference
  • Attachment Research and Theory II
  • Transference & Countertransference: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
  • Contemporary Self Psychology II
  • Gender & Sexuality

* The third year curriculum is developed with the faculty to meet the learning needs of a particular class.

Psychoanalytic Training Program Faculty

Chair: Sandra Hershberg, MD

Admissions & Outreach Chair: Elizabeth M. Carr, APRN, MSN, BC

Curriculum Chair: Sandra Hershberg, MD

Progress Committee Chair: Marie Hellinger, MSW

Faculty

  • Lawrence Ballon, MD
  • R. Curtis Bristol, MD
  • Elizabeth M. Carr, APRN, MSN, BC
  • Kathryn Chefetz, MSW
  • Mauricio Cortina, MD
  • Yvonne Decuir, PhD
  • Shelley Doctors, PhD*
  • James L. Fosshage, PhD*
  • Floyd B. Galler, MD
  • Susan Gorman, MSW
  • Marie Hellinger, MSW
  • Fonya Helm, PhD
  • Elizabeth K. Hersh, MD
  • Sandra G. Hershberg, MD
  • Jane Jones, MSW
  • Alan R. Kindler, MBBS, FRCP*
  • Frank Lachmann, PhD*
  • Susan G. Lazar, MD
  • Faith Lewis, MSW
  • Joseph Lichtenberg, MD
  • Kristina C. MacGaffin, MSW
  • Charles T. Olsen, MD
  • Betty Ann Ottinger, DSW
  • Pat Petrash, MSW
  • Roger Segalla, PhD
  • Rosemary Segalla, PhD
  • Estelle Shane, PhD*
  • Adina Shapiro, MSW
  • Joseph Silvio, MD
  • Malcolm Slavin, PhD*
  • Leslie F. Smith, MSW
  • Ernest Wolf, MD*

* indicates out-of-town faculty

Admissions Policy

Admission to the Psychoanalytic Training Program is open to any individual who has completed a degreed program and who has sufficient clinical experience to learn psychoanalytic technique. We look for individuals who have a foundation in psychoanalytic theory, and the personal maturity and life circumstances that permit the undertaking of an intensive training program. Upon acceptance to the Psychoanalytic Training Program each individual is expected to begin a personal analysis, if one is not yet in process or completed. Scholarship assistance is available.

Application Materials

Print out the application

or contact:

ICP&P Administrator:

Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis
4601 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 8
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: 202-686-9300
Fax: 202-232-2565
Email: icpeastadmin@att.net

All applicants should submit a completed application package, including a $50 application fee. For those applicants who are considered eligible, interviews with faculty members are scheduled. Each application is subsequently reviewed by the Admissions Committee. The applicant is informed in writing of the decision and is invited to discuss decisions of deferral or rejection.

FEES

Application:

$50.00 fee (applicable toward tuition).

Tuition:

$2,150.00 per two-semester academic year for the 2008–2009 academic year. Students may apply for scholarship assistance.

Supervision:

Fees for supervision are in addition to the program tuition and are arranged with the individual supervisor. We encourage all supervisors to reduce their fees when appropriate to accommodate a candidate’s financial needs. The Chair of the Psychoanalytic Training Program and the individual candidate’s advisor will assist in process of selecting supervisors.