An Invitation from the ICP+P Psychoanalytic Training Program: Remote Training

The ICP+P Psychoanalytic Training Program initiated a remote training program with a new cohort in January 2022. We will be updating this site to announce recruitment for our next cohort.

Our psychoanalytic training program is designed to engage our candidates in an educational process that brings alive the excitement, creativity, and diversity of contemporary psychoanalytic approaches. This includes the study of psychoanalytic thought and therapeutic action through the examination of various theoretical models and their historical contexts, interweaving the study of race, gender, and sexual orientation through various psychoanalytic lenses. Through personal analytic work, clinical work with control cases, supervision, and classroom learning, a process of discovery is facilitated as candidates become immersed in their clinical analytic work and, over time, forge their analytic identities. We strive to create an educational milieu that encourages open dialogue, critical thinking, and scholarship through discussion, reflection, and understanding clinical processes.

Our candidates and graduates consistently report an enhanced capacity to engage more fully and with greater satisfaction in their clinical work with their patients over the course of their training and beyond. In addition, we actively support and provide opportunities in which our candidates write and present papers during their training. Through these experiences, many graduates have gone on to contribute to the psychoanalytic literature and become leaders in the psychoanalytic community at large.

If you are interested in learning more about the ICP+P Psychoanalytic Training Program, please contact Elizabeth Carr, APRN, MSN,BC, Chair of Admissions and Co-Chair of Psychoanalytic Training at (202)246-7529 or elizabethmcarr.msn@gmail.com or Sandra Hershberg, MD, Chair of Psychoanalytic Training AT (301)229-6570 at hershbs@verizon.net.

Applications can be found on the ICP+P Psychoanalytic Training page of the ICP+P website.


Didactic

Mission

Psychoanalytic training at ICP+P involves an intensive learning experience, fostering each candidate’s development as a contemporary psychoanalyst. Our educational milieu encourages open dialogue, self-discovery, critical thinking, clinical integration and scholarship. Through the powerful interplay of a course of study, clinical practice, supervision, and a personal analysis, candidates build capacities to create growth-promoting analytic relationships.

Components of the Training

The psychoanalytic training program attends to the individual development of each candidate and includes the following components. Each component will be described:
Personal Analysis
Three-year Course of Study
Supervised Clinical Work
Advisement and Mentoring
Group Meetings for Building Connection among Class Members and Case Discussions

Personal Analysis

Through a personal analysis, candidates develop expanded awareness and understanding of their unique subjective reactions in the clinical encounter. Concurrent experiences of classroom study, supervision, intensive work with control cases, and the self-discovery of personal analytic treatment promote a deeper access to the recognition of one’s subjectivity as well as to the intersubjective processes reverberating within an analytic dyad. We find that this integrative learning opportunity creates a meaningful capacity for fuller psychoanalytic engagement. The advisor can serve as a resource in seeking an analyst, if a candidate wishes.

Three-year Course of Study

While the primary focus of our curriculum is on the study of contemporary psychoanalytic models, the study of broad theoretical ideas from classical to contemporary is included. 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.

We begin the coursework with an introduction to psychoanalytic practice that includes an emphasis on assisting candidates with the process of deepening their clinical work and in order to help them develop control cases. We go on to offer a review of contemporary psychoanalytic theories including self psychology, intersubjective systems theory, motivational systems theory, Kleinian theory, object relations theory and relational theory. In addition, we interweave the study of race, gender, and sexual orientation through the various psychoanalytic lenses. The curriculum includes courses that integrate findings from developmental research, attachment research, and neuroscience into clinical understanding and practice. 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 perspectives.

Courses examining the major psychoanalytic theories will explore each model’s theory of mind and theory of therapeutic action. An emphasis on writing as part of our curriculum promotes scholarship and critical thinking. In the third year, candidates and faculty collaborate to design that year’s curriculum to meet the unique learning needs of the class. The curriculum may explore a particular interest of the class members or be a more intensive study of a previously offered topic. Examples of courses offered in the past third year curriculum include: a psychoanalytic perspective on trauma, gender, sexuality, social psychoanalysis, and race. Additionally, candidates have participated in seminars by leading psychoanalytic scholars including Anton Hart, Dick Geist, Elizabeth Corpt, Lynne Layton, Frank Summers, Steven Kuchuck, Steve Stern, Eric Mendelsohn, and Mark Blechner.

Schedule

1st Year Classes will be held from January – May, 2022 from 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. and 7:15 – 8:45 p.m. 2nd Year Classes will be held from September – May, 2023 from 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. and 7:15 – 8:45 p.m.
Detailed Course Schedule

Supervised Clinical Work

Learning to listen, from an empathic perspective, and deepen an analytic process 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 yearly case reports and discuss their analytic development with their advisors and supervisors. ICP+P is committed to assisting candidates in finding control cases through suitable referrals, including a local, reduced fee referral service.

Advisement & Mentoring

Each candidate is assigned an advisor who offers guidance and support through the training process. The advisor meets regularly with the candidate to discuss the training experience and to identify learning needs.

Weekly Group

Weekly meetings foster group connection and provide opportunities to discuss cases. A faculty member will facilitate these meetings.

Curriculum

First Year Courses

  • History of Psychoanalysis
  • Kohut and the Foundation of Self Psychology
  • Introduction to Psychoanalytic Practice Attachment
  • Freud’s Technique Papers – A Close Reading
  • Grappling with Identities: Sameness & Difference
  • Foundations: Transference and Countertransference
  • Writing about Transference and Countertransference
  • Lichtenberg: Guidelines for Analytic Engagement
  • Lichtenberg: Motivational Systems Theory
  • Topics in Contemporary Self Psychology
  • Intersubjective Systems Theory – Stolorow, Atwood, Brandchaft, and Orange

Second Year Courses

  • Melanie Klein & Bion: Foundational to Contemporary
  • Winnicott: Theoretical Innovations & Clinical Implications
  • Infant Research & Psychoanalytic Engagement: Beebe, Lachmann, Seligman
  • Writing – Case Report
  • Analyst’s Use of Self
  • Relational Psychoanalysis
  • Freud’s Cases – A Contemporary Analysis
  • Thinking in Terms of Systems
  • Dreams
  • Interpersonal Psychoanalysis

Third Year Courses – some examples*

  • Clinical Writing
  • Another Look at Intersubjectivity: Theoretical & Clinical Applications
  • Termination
  • Contemporary Self Psychology
  • Ethics & Psychoanalysis
  • The Aims of Analysis: Becoming Oneself, Creating Oneself
  • Relational Psychoanalysis : Perspectives on Gender
  • Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Race
  • Women Psychoanalysts on Psychoanalysis & Female Development
  • Integration of Psychoanalytic Concepts
  • Integrative Seminar on Therapeutic Action
  • Trauma & the Analytic Relationship
  • Development of an Evolving Analytic Identity
  • What’s Next: Reflections on Analytic Practice
  • Case conference with Selected Faculty
  • Challenging Ideas/Important Questions in Contemporary Psychoanalysis
  • Topics in Contemporary Thinking – Analysis of Selected Papers in the Literature
  • Synthesis: Putting it Together

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


Continuing Education

The program meets for 30 weeks across the academic calendar and offers 3.0 CE credits for most evenings. A CE/CME certificate is awarded for each unit of the program individually. To receive the credits, attendees must attend 100% of the classes within each unit. Partial credit is not possible.*

Admissions Policy

Admission to the Psychoanalytic Training Program is open to any individual who is a licensed mental health professional and who has sufficient clinical experience to engage in psychoanalytic training. 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. Each individual is expected to begin a personal analysis if one is not yet in process.

Scholarship assistance is available.

ICP+P does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, national or ethnic background.

All applicants should submit a completed application package (click here to go to the online application), 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:
$2,300.00 per two-semester academic year.  The application fee will be applied to the tuition. Tuition will be billed for the fall and spring semesters in August and December, respectively. Tuition refunds will be available until the semester begins.

Students may apply for scholarship assistance by clicking here.

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. Scholarship funds are available to assist with supervision fees. The Chair of the Psychoanalytic Training Program and the individual candidate’s advisor will assist in process of selecting supervisors.


ICP+P Psychoanalytic Training Program Faculty

Chair: Sandra Hershberg, MD
Co-Chair: Elizabeth M. Carr, APRN, MSN, BC

Admissions & Outreach Chair: Elizabeth M. Carr, APRN, MSN, BC
Curriculum Chair: Sandra Hershberg, MD
Progress Committee Chair: Larry Ballon, MD

Faculty

Lawrence Ballon, MD
Robert Benedetti, PhD
Heidi Block, MSW
Elizabeth M. Carr, APRN, MSN, BC
Russell Carr, MD
Mauricio Cortina, MD
Ebony Dennis, PsyD (Guest Faculty)
Constance Dunlap, MD (Guest Faculty)
Shelley Doctors, PhD*
James L. Fosshage, PhD*
Darren Haber, PsyD, MFT
Marie Hellinger, MSW
Fonya Helm, PhD
Sandra G. Hershberg, MD
Jane Jones, MSW
Linda Kanefield, PhD
Frank Lachmann, PhD*
Monica Leonie Meerbaum, PhD
Ruth Migler, LCSW-C
Suzi Naiburg, MSW
Sarah Pillsbury, PhD
Shelley Rockwell, PhD
Roger Segalla, PhD
Estelle Shane, PhD
Malcolm Slavin, PhD
Leslie F. Smith, MSW
Steven Stern, PsyD*

* indicates out-of-town faculty

Graduates of the ICP+P Psychoanalytic Training Program

Elizabeth Carr, APRN, MSN, BC (2003)
Marie Hellinger, MSW (2004)
Lawrence Ballon, MD (2005)
Leslie Smith, MSW (2005)
Susan Gorman, MSW (2006)
Jane Jones, PhD, MSW (2006)
Faith Lewis, MSW (2006)
Pat Petrash, MSW (2006)
Roger Segalla, PhD (2007)
Heidi Block, MSW (2009)
Monica Callahan, PhD (2010)
Janet Dante, MSW (2010)
Mary Jean Kane, MSW (2010)
Linda Kanefield, PhD (2012)
Sarah Pillsbury, PhD (2012)
Kathy Beck, MSW (2013)
Russell Carr, MD (2013)
John McComb, MSW, PhD (2013)
Shoshana Ringel, PhD (2013)
Charlotte Coates Wilkes (2014)
Thomas Gray, PhD, MSW (2014)
Rhoda Spindel, MSW (2014)
Gwendolyn Pla, PhD, MSW (2017)
Eileen Boyle, PhD (2019)
Ruth Migler, LCSW-C (2019)
John Paddock, PhD (2019)
Edward (Ted) Billings, MSW (2020)

Current Members-in-Training

Current Candidates

Alyson Kepple, MD
Adriana Couto Silva, LCPC
Elaina Vasserman-Stokes, PhD, LPC
Daniela Wolf, LCPC, LCPAT, ATR-BC


* The Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (ICP+P) is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. ICP+P maintains responsibility for this program and its content. ICP+P is approved by the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners to offer Category I continuing education credit. As our CE program receives oversight from a licensed social worker, the CE credits we award are highly likely to be recognized by licensing boards in Virginia and the District of Columbia. These continuing education credits meet the ANCC standards for nurses. Marriage and family therapists licensed in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia may submit these CE credits to their licensing boards. (Marriage and family therapists in other jurisdictions and licensed counselors should inquire with their local Boards regarding continuing education credit.) Attendees from the above professional groups will earn CE credits for attending the classes. Full attendance is required to receive the designated CE credit. ICP+P is accredited by MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society to provide continuing medical education for physicians. ICP+P designates this educational activity for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

* The presenters and the planners have informed us that they do not have a conflict of interest and have disclosed that they have no relevant financial relationships with any commercial interests pertaining to this educational activity. Additionally, the presenters have been instructed to disclose any limitations of data and unlabeled or investigational uses of products during the presentations. The presentations will not contain any references to off-label (non-FDA-approved) use of products or devices.