GENERAL INFORMATION

On September 14, 2003, the Institute celebrated its 50th anniversary.

The Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis was founded in 1952, and accredited (provisionally in 1952 and fully in 1956) by The American Psychoanalytic Asso- ciation. It was incorporated on June 30, 1953, under the laws of the State of Connecti- cut. Incorporators were Robert P. Knight, M.D., William L. Pious, M.D., and Henry Wexler, M.D. The charter members were Professor Erik H. Erikson, Alfred Gross, M.D., Robert P. Knight, M.D., and William L. Pious, M.D. The Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis is a non-profit corporation, governed by a Board of Trustees. All matters pertaining to psychoanalytic training are the responsibility of the Education Committee.

The fundamental objectives of the Institute are three-fold (1) to advance the develop- ment of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis through continued study and further development of the ideas and concepts which stem from the discoveries of Sigmund Freud; (2) to train selected and qualified students in psychoanalytic theory and practice; and (3) to promote psychoanalytic education and research in accordance with the train- ing standards of The American Psychoanalytic Association. The core programs are Adult Psychoanalytic Training and Child Psychoanalytic Training. The Psychoanalytic Clinic offers affordable analyses for adults and children. The Institute building houses facili- ties for its educational programs, including classrooms, administrative and library space.

The primary goal of psychoanalytic education is to facilitate the development of psychoanalytic competence in individuals who have already demonstrated considerable competence and promise in their own original professional fields. Psychoanalytic competence requires an intellectual and emotional openness toward understanding the full complexity of the human mind including psychic pain and distress, an attitude of scientific cu- riosity, a spirit of inquiry for new observations, and a wish to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the accumulated body of psychoanalytic knowledge.

Policies regarding application, fees, curriculum, and progression are described in sections of the Bulletin. The Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis reserves the right to withdraw courses at any time, to change the curriculum requirements, to modify tuition and fees, and to change rules and calendar regarding participation upon notice to the affected parties.

The Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age or physical handicap in the administration of its admission or educational policies, scholarship and loan programs, or any other school-administered program.

REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION TO TRAINING

Admission to training in psychoanalysis is in conformity with the Standards of The American Psychoanalytic Association. Much of what follows is cited from these standards (along with pertinent Institute criteria). It is to be understood that information gathered during admissions procedures and during the course of training is confidential and only for the use of authorized personnel of the Institute to the extent allowable under the law. Applicants, if accepted as candidates, are required to abide by the ethical and professional standards of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis and The American Psychoanalytic Association, and by the rules and policies of the Education Committee. Candidates are also required to join the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society and to sign the ethics pledge. The progression of candidates is determined and overseen by the Education Committee. Candidates are not permitted to represent themselves as psychoanalysts unless and until authorized to do so by the Education Committee.

Selection of an applicant for psychoanalytic education and clinical training involves an assessment of suitability including the possession of certain character traits and ethical values necessary to become an effective psychoanalyst. An applicant should present evidence of integrity, honesty, maturity, flexibility, and strength of character. In addition, the applicant should demonstrate a reasonable capacity for self-observation, self-monitoring, and the ability to maintain proper interpersonal and professional boundaries. It is anticipated that candidates will require personal analysis to become more effective as people and as analysts.

The selection of an applicant for psychoanalytic education and clinical training is also based on the assessment of eligibility and readiness: prior education, clinical training, clinical experience, aptitude, and potential for psychoanalytic competence. Before undertaking training in clinical psychoanalysis, post graduate mental health professional education must entail full immersion in a rigorous, organized, didactic curriculum, a portion of which includes psychodynamic seminars, all of which is accompanied by an organized and supervised clinical training experience.

Applicants in the following categories are automatically eligible to apply for admission. Applicants who are not in these categories do not have automatic eligibility; such applicant may receive clinical training if the Institute supports this course and the applicant receives a waiver from the Board on Professional Standards of The American Psychoanalytic Association. The Education Committee has discretionary authority to determine which categories of applicants it will accept for training.

1. Doctors of Medicine or of Osteopathic Medicine who have graduated from an accredited medical school or osteopathic medical school, and are in or have completed a psychiatry residency program and are licensed in the discipline by the state in which they practice. Psychiatry residency must be completed before Institute graduation.
2. Mental health professionals who have completed a doctoral level degree from an accredited mental health clinical program who are licensed in the discipline by the state in which they practice.
3. Mental health professionals who have graduated from an accredited mental health degree program with a clinical master’s degree. This must be a degree generally recognized as the highest clinical degree within the specific mental health profession (masters in social work, in marriage and family therapy, and in psychiatric nursing). These individuals must also have completed at least two additional post masters degree years of didactic and clinical training including 3000 hours of clinical experience as well as 1) 60 hours post masters of psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision and 60 hours post masters of psychodynamically oriented courses and clinical seminars or, 2) a two-year organized post masters psychodynamic psychotherapy program including supervised clinical experience. They must be licensed by in the discipline by the state in which they practice.

Applicants who are accepted as candidates shall obtain appropriate licensure or certification and malpractice insurance necessary for the practice of psychoanalysis in the discipline in which they intend to practice.

Waiver of Eligibility Standards

Mental Health Clinicians:The Committee on Preparedness and Progress (COPAP) of the Board on Professional Standards of The American Psychoanalytic Association receives requests for waivers of eligibility requirements for full clinical training from Institutes wishing to train mental health clinicians who, on assessment, appear to be suitable to become psychoanalytic clinicians but do not fully meet the above eligibility criteria.

Included are: Individuals whose mental health graduate degree is not at the highest educational level generally obtained to practice clinically within their profession (masters in clinical psychology, in counseling, in education, in pastoral counseling, etc.), but who nevertheless have satisfactorily completed at least two additional post masters degree years of didactic and clinical training including 3000 hours of clinical experience as well as a) 60 hours post masters of psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision and 60 hours post masters of psychodynamically oriented courses and clinical seminars or, b) a two-year organized post masters psychodynamic psychotherapy program including supervised clinical experience. They must be licensed by the State of Connecticut in the discipline in which they practice, or practice in a discipline in which their practices are not regulated by licensure.

Non-Mental Health Clinicians:The Committee on Preparedness and Progress (COPAP) of the Board of Professional Standards of The American Psychoanalytic Association receives requests for waivers of eligibility requirements for full clinical training from non-mental health clinicians who plan to make psychoanalysis their primary career and become psychoanalytic clinicians, but who have not fulfilled all of the eligibility requirements. Included are: individuals who have satisfactorily completed the degree of Doctor of Medicine or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, but who are not planning to complete a residency training program in psychiatry; individuals who do not possess the highest recognized clinical degree but who are in the later stages of completing the expected educational and clinical prerequisites, such as a medical student or Ph.D. candidate; individuals who are assessed by the Institute to be suitable, but for reasons other than those listed above do not meet all of the formal criteria and are not automatically eligible.

ADMISSIONS PROCEDURES

Application forms may be obtained (download below) by writing to the Institute (255 Bradley Street, New Haven, CT 06510; by telephone: 203-562-2103; fax: 203-562-0563; or by email to: [email protected]. A non-refundable application fee of $250 is due with each formal application. Applications will be accepted at any time during the year. After the application is received, a series of interviews with the applicant will be conducted by members of the Admissions Committee, occasionally assisted by other members of the Institute. The applicant will be notified about the decision of the Education Committee regarding his/her application as soon as the possible after the admissions procedure is completed.

Evaluation of Applicants

In view of the limited number of applicants who can be accepted for training and the time expended in full screening, the Admissions Committee will perform a preliminary screening after careful review of each written application. Non-acceptance by preliminary screening does not carry any implication prejudicial to any further application applicants may wish to make.

Those applicants accepted for further evaluation as to their suitability for psychoanalytic training will have individual interviews arranged by the Admissions Committee. On the basis of these procedures, the Admissions Committee will decide whether or not the applicant should be accepted for training, deferred, or rejected. Their findings will be presented to the Education Committee. Should more than a year elapse between acceptance for training and the start of a training analysis, a review and rescreening will be required.

Applications may be submitted at any time. Those applications that have been completed, including letters of recommendation, etc., by March 1 will usually be considered in that academic year.

Transfer Applications

Candidates in any Institute accredited by The American Psychoanalytic Association may apply for admission to The Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. Applicants will arrange, at the time of receiving the application form from the Institute, that their credentials and a summary of the training for which they have received credit be forwarded by the psychoanalytic institute in which they are candidates to the Administrator of this institute. The procedure described above, “Evaluation of Applicants,” is then followed.

PSYCHOANALYTIC INSTITUTE APPLICATION FORM

Click on the form below to download the application.

CANDIDATES’ MANUAL

Upon acceptance, each candidate is provided with a Candidate’s Manual which contains the administrative procedures of the Institute. The Manual answers many of the procedural questions which arise in the course of the candidate’s study in the Institute and therefore should be read carefully and referred to often. Other clarifications or changes in the proceedings are frequently communicated by the Education Committee in the form of letters and announcements. Questions or concerns which may arise during the course of training should be discussed with the candidate’s advisor for training who is appointed when the applicant is accepted. The advisor can remain the same over the course of training or can be changed by petitioning the Education Committee.

FEE SCHEDULE

Candidate Scholarship Program
WNEIP recognizes that the expense of tuition and other costs related to psychoanalytic training may present a financial hardship. Therefore, WNEIP offers financial resources to defray expenses for tuition and educational events. We encourage any applicants for whom this is relevant to apply by contacting our administrator,    Anne Rodems ([email protected])

Application Fee:	$250 to be included with application form; non-refundable
Transfer Fee:	$250 payable upon application; nonrefundable
Matriculation Fee:	$115 payable upon acceptance
Registration Fee:	$150 due at beginning of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years
	$260 due at beginning of the 5th year and each year thereafter
Tuition Fee:	$550 per course, payable on the first day of the trimester
Graduation Fee:	$115 is due upon notification of graduation

Please note: all fees are subject to change without notice. Fees for the personal psychoanalysis and for supervision of non-Clinic cases are arranged individually.

PROGRAM FOR CLINICAL PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING

The candidate participates in a coordinated tripartite program which includes the following:

1. Personal Analysis: referred to as the training analysis, with a training analyst of the Institute so designated by the Education Committee with the concurrent approval by The American Psychoanalytic Association. The candidate may select his/her analyst from those in the Institute who are qualified as Training Analysts and currently designated to begin training analyses.

2. Didactic Program: five years of seminars and case conferences, as described under the “Curriculum for Training.”

3. Supervised Clinical Practice of Psychoanalysis. A minimum of three cases will be required with three supervising analysts. One case should be seen through completion. The cases must include at least one male and one female analysand. In the conduct of these supervised analyses, competence as an analyst should be demonstrated.

4. Completion of a Psychoanalytic Essay.

THE TRAINING ANALYSIS

The personal psychoanalysis is the foundation for training in psychoanalysis. A personal psychoanalysis must be conducted at a frequency of at least four hours per week, on separate days, for a minimum of forty weeks during a year and for a minimum of three hundred hours. The total duration is an individual matter determined in the course of that psychoanalysis. The goal of the personal psychoanalysis is essentially that of a therapeutic psychoanalysis with particular attention, however, to the realization by the candidate of his or her optimum potential as a psychoanalyst. It is essential that the candidate develop the capacities for self-observation, self-reflection, and ultimately, ongoing self-analysis which are necessary for the capacity to maintain a basic psychoanalytic stance. All newly admitted candidates are required to undertake psychoanalysis with a training analyst of this Institute. Therapeutic psychoanalysis prior to psychoanalytic training does not waive the requirement for the training analysand. A period of personal analysis is required at some point during the candidate’s supervised analytic work. A personal analysis need not be completed before graduation.

To be eligible to enter first-year classes in September, a candidate should have been in analysis with a training analyst for at least a year. In special circumstances, permission by the Education Committee may be obtained to modify this requirement. For individuals in an advanced stage of training who transfer from other Institutes, the question of further training analysis will be addressed by the Education Committee on an individual basis. When candidates think they are ready to begin seminars, they should discuss it with their Faculty Advisors. Candidates may then request permission of the Education Committee to begin coursework.

In the event that the personal psychoanalysis is interrupted because it is not proceeding satisfactorily, the training psychoanalyst will inform the candidate and the Education Committee of this fact. The Education Committee may grant the candidate a second attempt with another training psychoanalyst. If the second analysis is not completed, the training is terminated.

The Education Committee recently approved an important new policy after months of discussion, including consultation with the membership. This policy allows for the possibility that some candidates, in specific circumstances, may proceed with analytic training while in analysis with non-training analysts. The Education Committee still encourages applicants for training to pursue their own personal analyses with Western New England training analysts, but we also realize that there may be circumstances where this is not feasible. The new policy is an effort to address these circumstances.

Here is one circumstance – and there may well be others – that the new policy will address. Some individuals may have been in analyses with non-training analysts and have discovered in the context of their analyses an interest in pursuing analytic training. Previously, these potential applicants would have a difficult choice to make. They could choose to finish their analyses and then apply for training. If accepted, they would then be required to re-enter analysis with a training analyst. Or they could apply for training and if accepted, interrupt their analysis with a non-training analyst and begin analysis with a training analysis. At Western New England, we have traditionally recommended against the latter course out of our respect for an ongoing, viable analytic process. Still, such a potential applicant could be delayed for years prior to beginning training.

With the new policy, if a registrant (someone who has been accepted for training but has not yet begun classes) has been in analysis with a non-training analyst for about two years and is not within roughly two years of termination, he or she is eligible to ask the Education Committee to request a waiver of the training analysis requirement from the American Psychoanalytic Association. The specified lengths of time are guidelines, not written in stone, and are meant to address specifically those instances where someone discovers mid-analysis their interest in analytic training. This policy is partly in response to the newly revised standards of the American and partly in response to the Committee’s interest in making training available sooner to qualified individuals in analysis with non-training analysts.

When the Education Committee receives such a request, the Committee will proceed to gather written information from the registrant’s analyst. A letter from the Committee will inquire from which institute the analyst graduated and when. The analyst will be asked to list each analytic case since graduation by number, the frequency of sessions, the length of the analysis, whether or not there was a planned termination, whether or not the case was supervised, and the diagnosis of whether the patient was psychotic or non-psychotic. The analyst must attest to being in good ethical standing in appropriate professional organizations.

Upon receipt of this information, the Education Committee will apply the following criteria to decide whether to request a waiver:

(1) The analyst must be five years post graduation from an American Psychoanalytic Association or International Psychoanalytic Association-affiliated Institute.

(2) The analyst must have experience with a minimum of four unsupervised, non-psychotic, psychoanalytic cases since graduation.

(3)  Each analytic case must have been ongoing for at least three years.

(4) The analytic cases must include both sexes.

(5)  The analytic cases must include at least one planned termination.

(6)  The analyst must be in good ethical standing.

(7)  The analyst must be no older than 72 years old prior to the beginning of the prospective candidate’s analysis.

(8) A waiver will be requested only once for a particular analyst.

Using a written request and applying clear cut, openly available criteria in making a decision about the waiver request is distinctly different than our usual way of assessing applicants for appointment as training analysts. Our usual assessment procedure is a long, slow, deliberative process occurring over six to eighteen months and involving multiple interviews, a detailed review of current and prior analytic cases, the presentation of process material, and so on. To apply the same level of intense scrutiny in a situation where the registrant’s analyst is not requesting it is intrusive and, we think, ill advised.

With the new policy, the evaluation of the analyst’s experience is done in writing. While the assessment is not as thorough as for training analyst appointment, it does establish some level of analytic immersion, experience, and ethical values, which we consider essential to analyzing candidates. Importantly, the criteria for requesting a waiver will be made available to the registrant and analyst in advance. This allows either party to decide against pursuing a waiver if the process seems too disruptive to the ongoing analytic work or if it is apparent that the analyst does not meet the criteria for the waiver.

If the registrant’s request for the Education Committee to apply for a waiver of the training analysis requirement is turned down, there is an appeals process via an ad hoc committee of faculty, appointed by the Education Committee, who will reconsider the request and render a final decision. If the appeal affirms the Education Committee’s original decision, the registrant must pursue analysis with a training analyst for roughly a year prior to beginning classes, if he or she wants to begin training. If the appeal reverses the Education Committee’s decision, the registrant may begin classes with the next available first-year class.

THE DIDACTIC PROGRAM

The curriculum is designed to be integrated with ongoing personal analysis and supervised clinical work. The program is planned to give the candidate a thorough grounding in psychoanalytic theory, psychoanalytic method and the relationship of psychoanalytic knowledge to related fields. The didactic curriculum is a scheduled series of seminars and electives over a period of five years for a minimum of 450 hours. All candidates are expected to complete all assigned courses. After completion of the core curriculum, all candidates are expected to participate in at least two elective seminars per year until graduation. Candidates may not repeat electives they have already successfully completed for credit.

Classes are usually scheduled on Wednesday evenings during the academic year from September through June. An average trimester includes two 1-1/2 hour seminars per week. Elective courses will be offered to advanced candidates. Candidates of six years or more will complete two electives per year until graduation.

Didactic Courses and Seminars:

The program includes a twenty-eight course curriculum of required and elective courses, lasting approximately five years and focusing on candidate participation and presentation. There are three categories of courses:

1. Psychoanalytic Theory: Courses and seminars centered on the study of the conceptual framework of psychoanalysis from its beginning to current contributions, including courses on development and courses on psychoanalytic writing.
2. Clinical Psychoanalysis: A group of courses dealing with clinical theory of psychoanalysis and seminars on the theory of technique, including clinical conferences and continuous case seminars. The clinical conferences deal with general and special psychopathology, problems of dream interpretation, and special problems of technique.
3. Applied and Research Uses of Psychoanalysis: Among these courses are those dealing with advanced psychoanalytic theory and with selected and applied uses of psychoanalysis including an introduction to psychoanalytic research.

CURRICULUM

Year 6 and above (Two electives are required each year until graduation)

DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARIES OF COURSES

REGISTRANTSIntroduction to Ethics:Registrants will take a three session introduction to ethical principles for psychoanalysts. The seminar stresses the boundaries of the psychoanalytic relationship.

FIRST YEARFreud I, 1893-1909:The development of psychoanalysis is presented through an historical review of Freud’s writings in three courses, two in the first year and one in the second year. This course begins with Freud’s early case studies, clinical formulations and self-analysis. It proceeds through the study of dreams, slips and jokes and the theory of the mental apparatus to the later case studies and the theory of sexuality.

Technique Ia:This seminar is an introduction to the psychoanalytic situation and the psychoanalytic space. In the context of studying the development of psychoanalytic theory from Freud to contemporary writers, similarities and differences between psychotherapy and psychoanalysis will be addressed. The psychoanalytic space will involve a consideration of the practicalities of an analysis: schedules, fee setting, room arrangements and other less tangible aspects of the analytic milieu. A short paper on an analytic topic of one’s choosing may be required.

Freud II, 1910-1917:This course covers Freud’s major papers written between 1910 and 1917, exploring the developments in his theory that led eventually to his creation of a new model of the mind: the structural theory. The papers from this period concern the increasing complexity of the topographic model, the role of reality in the formation of intrapsychic structure, and the centrality of the Oedipus Complex as a mental structure. In addition, during this critical period, Freud created developmental models for object relations, narcissism, and morality. This course is organized around the question of what additions to the topographic model led to its becoming an inadequate theory of the mind.

Technique Ib:This early course in psychoanalytic technique is especially focused on the psychoanalyst’s perceptual field, the psychoanalytic attitude, intersubjectivity and the duality of transference-countertransference. Technique Ib moves from the assessment of the patient’s analyzability to the opening and early phases of a psychoanalysis. Participants examine how the psychoanalytic dialogue and process are initiated and sustained by the patient and analyst. The course provides the first opportunity to learn how to present and listen to a clinical psychoanalysis. Members of the class will present the beginning of their first analyses and an advanced candidate will present the initial phase of an ongoing psychoanalysis.

Freud III, 1919-1930:The course begins with the concurrent development of the theory of aggression and the structural theory, proceeds through the reformulation of masochism and the monographs and papers elaborating the structural theory (including anxiety and defense) and ends with a review organized around some major systematizing papers.

Psychopathology I:Psychoanalytic theories of psychopathology are presented in three courses, one in the first, one in the third, and one in the fourth years. Each course will cover a specific group of clinical syndromes and disorders. This course begins with an overview of psychoanalytic perspectives on psychopathology, followed by discussion of neurotic symptom formation, hysteria, dissociative states, conversion symptoms and somatization.

SECOND YEARPsychoanalysis and Human Development:This course, taught in three trimesters, will follow the various strands of psychic life in regards to infancy, latency and adolescence. The course will focus on the key differences in domains of development across childhood and adolescence. Specifically, the course will organize around six functional domains: 1) the building of an object world (attachment and social relationships); 2) the building of a self; 3) emotion regulation and impulse control; 4) problem solving, abstract thinking and decision making; 5) understanding the body; and 6) building a capacity for fantasy and imagination.

The course will utilize developmentally oriented theoretical writings as well as clinical cases and films, and examples from the literature of normal and abnormal development.

In addition, direct observation of children in normative and clinical settings will serve as a “laboratory” to facilitate thinking along functional domains that cross developmental ages and stages. Observational experiences will be age-based and linked to the particular age of focus for that trimester. Each observational setting and opportunity will be guided by a framing orientation about how to observe around functional themes and the opportunity to reflect on the observations with a psychoanalyst or psychoanalytically oriented clinician present in the different observational settings hosting the candidates.

The course will extend the developmental perspective into the various phases of adulthood, taught in a fourth trimester, during the THIRD YEAR. Psychoanalytic views of adulthood will be studied.

Theory of Dream Interpretation:This seminar is centered on a close reading of “The Interpretation of Dreams.” The seminar will also address technical issues in dream analysis.

Psychoanalytic Theory I:This is the first of two courses in psychoanalytic theory, one in the second and one in the fourth year. This seminar builds on and integrates the material from the four Freud reading courses. It provides a summary of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis as understood in the American tradition of ego psychology. Concepts such as the unconscious, defense and the formation of psychic structure will be discussed. Structural theory will be reviewed in detail.

Continuous Case Seminar I:An ongoing analysis, preferably one recently begun, will be presented by a student. Clinical material will be discussed with emphasis on technical aspects.

THIRD YEARPsychopathology II:This course will cover psychoanalytic perspectives on the obsessive neuroses and personality disorders, depression and mood disorders, anxiety and post-traumatic disorders and borderline personality disorders.

Continuous Case Seminar II and III:Psychoanalytic cases will be presented by students in one and one-half hour sessions at weekly intervals. The purpose is to provide group discussion of the detailed clinical problems arising in intensively followed cases.

Analytic Writing I:This course is an introduction to clinical psychoanalytic writing. Over the length of the course, candidates will write up portions of a case for discussion in each class. A model of reporting will be used that places detailed accounts of process within the context of the analysis as a whole. Topics relevant to clinical writing such as process notes, disguise, confidentiality and the ethics of clinical reporting will be discussed. The course will also address issues in writing the graduation essay, the application for certification and articles for publication.

Continuous Child Case:This seminar examines psychoanalytic technique as it is adapted to the developmental level and needs of the child. Basic principles of technique regarding transference, resistance and defense are discussed.

Technique II:This is a continuation of the course begun in the first year. Seminar discussions will deal with the later phases in a psychoanalytic treatment in their theoretical and practical aspects, – development of the transference neurosis, possible problems of counter-transference, modifications of classical technique and their indications, the theory of curative action of psychoanalysis, techniques of interpretation, the later phases and termination of treatment, etc. Relevant literature will be assigned.

FOURTH YEARPsychopathology III:This course will cover psychoanalytic perspectives on narcissistic personality, perversions, gender identity and psychotic states.

Continuous Case Seminar IV and V:These courses are substantially the same as the courses given in the third year, although cases of greater complexity and cases presenting special challenges may be chosen for presentation. On occasion, a borderline patient may serve as the focus for discussion of the indications for and methods of employing technical modifications.

Psychoanalytic Theory II:This second consideration of theory focuses on the way in which theory is conceptualized by different psychoanalytic traditions. Whereas the first seminar dealt with fundamental theoretical questions from the perspective of ego psychology, the second seminar deals with these issues from the perspective of comparative theory. Self psychology, object relations and relational approaches will be studied and used as multiple vantage points for evaluating the usefulness of particular theoretical ideas.

FIFTH YEAREthics:This seminar allows for a more comprehensive consideration of ethics than possible in the introductory course. Topics for discussion include conflicts of interest, sexual and non-sexual boundary violations, countertransference and the impaired analyst.

Analytic Writing II:This seminar will continue the focus on writing case reports and begin the concentration on the psychoanalytic essay. It will meet monthly for two hour sessions during the academic year. Each participant will complete a writing project and present drafts of their work to the group throughout the course. Writing for certification and for publication will also be discussed.

Technique III:This course will deal with special problems in clinical psychoanalysis selected by the candidates in consultation with the instructor.

Continuous Case VI, Termination:This seminar will examine theoretical and clinical aspects of termination in conjunction with the presentation of a terminating phase of psychoanalysis.

ABOVE FIFTH YEAR:Candidates who have completed the required five years of coursework shall take two electives per year until graduation.

ELECTIVES:Candidates take electives in the third, fourth and fifth year of classes. Candidates in the Child Analysis Program may, if they wish, take two of these required electives from the Child Analysis Program and the other two from the general electives offered. After the fifth year, candidates must take two electives each year until graduation. Candidates may not repeat electives that they have already successfully completed for credit. With the approval of the Education Committee, a faculty member may jointly offer an elective as a course in the Institute and in the Society’s extension division.

Elective courses vary from year to year and several are offered in anyone year. Examples of electives offered in recent years include: Psychoanalytic Process and Technique Study Group, Clinic Committee, Integration and Differentiation throughout the Life Cycle, On Therapeutic Actions in Psychoanalysis, Choosing Analysands: What Works?, An Introduction to British Kleinian and Independent Schools, Literature and Psychoanalysis: Shakespearean Tragedy, Topics in Kleinian Theory and Technique, the Work of Jonathan Lear, Ph.D., The Body and Psychoanalysis, and The Writings of Hans Loewald.

THE SUPERVISED PRACTICE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

Supervised clinical work ordinarily begins at the end of the second trimester of the first year, after discussion with the faculty advisor and with the authorization of the Educa- tion Committee. The minimum supervision requirement for graduation from the Adult Psychoanalysis Program of the Institute is 150 hours of supervision on three supervised cases with at least three supervising analysts, none of whom has been the candidate’s personal psychoanalyst. For people in the Child Analysis program, one child case may be substituted for one adult case. The actual requirements for each candidate are de- termined by the Education Committee in the course of his or her training. The time re- quired to satisfy this aspect of training is quite individual and is predicated on the demonstration of the candidate’s ability to do psychoanalysis independently.

Candidates who are not enrolled in the Child Analysis program are also encouraged to apply for permission to undertake the supervised analysis of a child or adolescent as part of their general training. One of the three required minimum cases in the Adult program may be a child or adolescent case.

Patients are to be seen not less than four times a week. Initially supervision will be once per week. One case is to be supervised to termination. It is expected that every candi- date will have a period of personal analysis while conducting analysis under supervi- sion. The opportunity for an analyst to explore his or her responses to the analytic situ- ation while analyzing a patient may be essential to his or her own development as an analyst. When a candidate has demonstrated a basic grasp of psychoanalytic principles and the ability to utilize them effectively in the treatment of the first psychoanalytic case, he or she may request authorization from the Education Committee to start a se- cond case under supervision.

If a candidate’s work is unsatisfactory, the circumstances will be reported to the Educa- tion Committee. The Education Committee will review the candidate’s progress and may then assign another supervising psychoanalyst for supervision, or, if indicated, suggest resumption of the personal analysis if this has been terminated, or may interrupt or discontinue his or her training. A candidate may be placed on probation during which time he/she may not take new analytic cases and will focus on strengthening the unsat- isfactory aspects of his/her clinical work. Probation may last up to one year at which point if the deficiencies are unresolved or showing no improvement, the Education Committee will terminate his/her training.

Candidates must inform their psychoanalytic patients if their training status changes before graduation or if they withdraw from training. Candidates must discuss with the supervisor or advisor how to communicate their change of status or withdrawal from the program to each analytic patient in an ethical and clinically sensitive way.

Each candidate is required to analyze two Clinic patients. Both sexes should be repre- sented in the caseload. All patients will be seen in the candidates’ offices. Arrangements for supervision, including fees, are the responsibility of the candidate. Supervisory fees for clinic patients are paid by the Institute, not the candidate. Both clinic and private case fees are to be paid directly to the candidate. The candidate will endorse all clinic fees over to the Institute.

The candidate is required to advise the Administrator in writing of the dates of the be- ginning and ending of all cases in analysis (both clinic and private) under the supervi- sion of the Institute. An initial summary of a beginning case will be due to the supervis- ing analyst within one month of starting the analysis. The candidate shall provide an annual case summary (June) to his/her supervisor for each supervised analytic case until graduation. Permission to start a new analytic case will be granted only when all reports due on previous cases have been received. Timely submission of the case sum- mary allows for a learning opportunity to develop case formulation skills with the su- pervisor. Senior candidates authorized by the Education Committee to do psychoanaly- sis without supervision are still required to furnish annual case summaries and keep their supervisor informed periodically about the progress of such cases.

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC ESSAY

A completed psychoanalytic essay is expected within one year of the completion of fifth year course work. The nature of this essay will be decided by the candidate in consultation with his/her Faculty Advisor. While candidates may look to their Faculty Advisors for guidance in this scholarly work, the Education Committee may authorize a different senior faculty member to serve as essay advisor on the basis of particular interest or expertise in the area in which the candidate has chosen to work. The candidate-advisor relationship is envisioned as a tutorial one through which candidates can become familiar with systematic clinical and theoretical scholarship; be capable of assessing critically their own efforts and those of others; learn the importance of distinguishing trivial from significant problems and the criteria for making such distinctions; and experience the satisfaction associated with expanding the boundaries of psychoanalytic knowledge. The essay must deal with a psychoanalytic subject and may be a clinical essay utilizing the analytic data derived from psychoanalytic treatment or a thorough critical review of a psychoanalytic concept that represents excellent scholarship.

Sixteen copies of the essay should be submitted to the attention of the Chair of the Essay Review Committee for review. The faculty or essay advisor will notify the candidate of the committee’s decision. The Administrator will send written confirmation.

PROGRESSION

At the end of each trimester, course instructors will submit written evaluations of each candidate’s work. Supervising analysts will submit written evaluations of the candidate’s clinical progress in December and June. The Progression Committee devotes two of its meetings per year, usually in January and July, to evaluate and review the progress of each candidate. The candidate and his or her faculty advisor are responsible for arranging at least one conference annually to review the candidate’s work in the Institute.

The Education Committee may suspend or terminate a candidate’s training or place a candidate on probation if it determines that competence as a psychoanalyst is not developing as anticipated. Reasons for interrupting training include, but are not limited to, failure to meet standards for reasonable progress towards graduation, or violations of ethical precepts for the practice of psychoanalysis. When termination or suspension of training occurs, the conditions for readmission, if any, are stipulated by the Education Committee. When a candidate is placed on probation, the deficiencies in progression will be noted by the Education Committee and discussed with the candidate by his/her advisor.

A leave of absence may be granted by the Progression Committee upon written request by the candidate. The maximum duration of a leave of absence is two years. Exceptions to the two-year limit may be made for medical leaves of absence at the discretion of the Progression Committee. A candidate who for any reason extends a leave of absence beyond two years may be terminated from training without prejudice. If reinstatement is desired, re-application must be made through the Education Committee.

GRADUATION

Consideration of a candidate for graduation may be initiated by the candidate in consultation with her/his advisor upon satisfactorily completing the required work of the curriculum, including the supervised clinical work and the essay. The Education Committee will schedule a review of all relevant data coordinated and presented by the candidate’s advisor. If, in the opinion of the Education Committee, the candidate has demonstrated personal and professional maturity and has acquired a fundamental understanding of psychoanalytic theory and method, he/she will be graduated. Graduates who continue analyses started as supervised cases are advised to report semi-annually to their former supervisor on the continuation of these analyses and on problems of termination during that phase of treatment. In some instances these postgraduate conferences will be of assistance to the Education Committee in formulating its recommendations to the Committee on Certification of The American Psychoanalytic Association at the time the graduate applies for certification and full membership.

Graduates of the Institute are eligible to apply for full membership in The Western New England Psychoanalytic Society, and thereafter in The Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, or other affiliate societies of The American Psychoanalytic Association.

Candidate Scholarship Program

WNEIP recognizes that the expense of tuition and other costs related to psychoanalytic training may present a financial hardship. Therefore, WNEIP offers financial resources to defray expenses for tuition and educational events. We encourage any applicants for whom this is relevant to apply by contacting our administrator,    Anne Rodems ([email protected])

2022-2023   Elective Courses

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC CLINIC

Instructor:           Eric Millman, M.D., Director

Time:                     Monday evening, 7:00-8:30 PM, September through June.

Location:              TBA

Dates:                   First Monday of the Month

 

These meetings offer a candidate an experience of making clinical judgments about the feasibility of offering “control” analyses to the applicants.   The discussion amongst the committee’s graduate analysts and candidates about the treatment of choice for an individual and analyzability can add valuable educational tools for building an analytic practice.  Sometimes we may hear follow-up about our decisions after an analysis has begun.  The conversion of cases from psychotherapy to psychoanalysis is a topic of interest especially when a clinician seeks our opinions with a particular case.  We talk about how to raise and nurture awareness of our services in the community and how to approach research.  (Enrollment is limited to four candidates.)

 

 

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND TRAUMA

Instructor:           Sidney Phillips, MD

Time:                     Tuesday evenings, 6:30—7:45

Location:              Zoom

Dates:                   Spring trimester

This ten-week course is on psychoanalysis and trauma, which will address the principal writers on severe trauma and psychoanalysis, from Freud and Breuer up to the present day. Most of the syllabus and its annotations are taken with permission from a similar course at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute taught by a mentor of mine, Arthur Blank, Jr., M.D.

For purposes of this course, “severe trauma” refers to the effects of various types of violence, including war, assaults, disasters, accidents, rape, and abuse–including intrafamilial and childhood abuse. Our readings will pay particular attention to (1) psychopathology deriving from trauma, (2) both difficulties and triumphs that psychoanalytic writers have shown with respect this topic, (3) the central place of countertransference (broadly defined) in working with those who have experienced severe trauma, (4) the interfaces of trauma and the individual and society, and (5) the nature of the treatment, that is, how psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy can promote the healing of the wounds produced by severe trauma.

The effects of trauma to be considered include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders, and pervasive, subtle personality and life changes. Included in the major authors surveyed are J. Breuer, S. Freud, A. Kardiner, D. Laub, N. Auerhahn, F. Davoine, M. Hurvich, L. Brown, O. Fenichel, J. Herman, J-M. Gaudilliere, J.M. Davies, J. Fernando, A. Blank. The course will also briefly reference other treatment methods used for trauma victims along with psychoanalytic therapy, such as eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR), meditation, yoga, movement therapy, art therapy, etc., in order to look at the synergies of psychoanalytic process and the other activities.

 

NEW HAVEN CHILD CLINICAL WORKSHIP

Instructor:           Matthew Shaw, PhD

Time:                     Thursday evenings, 6-9 pm

Location:              Zoom

Dates:                   9/8, 11/10, 1/12, 3/9, and 5/11

 

This elective offers child and adult candidates and graduate analysts the chance to read seminal papers about working with children and adolescents while also participating in five case conferences.  For each class, a nationally recognized child analyst will be the guest discussant.  The analyst will choose the paper most influential to their theoretical and technical stance.  The first hour will be a discussion of the paper and its impact on the analyst’s clinical approach.  The subsequent two hours will include close-process clinical material from an analysis with a child or adolescent.  The guest analyst and attendees will discuss the material in depth.  Given how rare it is to hear child and adolescent analyses presented, the child faculty has opened the course to all society members and some candidates from outside of WNEIP.

PSYCHOANALYTIC PROCESS & TECHNIQUE: SHAME, GUILT AND HATRED

Instructor:           Deborah Fried, M.D., Lawrence Levenson, M.D., Susan Bers, Ph.D., Lee Brauer, M.D.,

Time:                     Monday evening, 7:00—8:30 PM for 9 sessions, September through May

Location:              Zoom

Dates:                   2^nd Monday of the month

This study group has met continuously for almost 30 years. Careful attention to psychoanalytic process has lit up the group’s considerations of topics ranging from the subtlety of mild superego prohibitions in the clinical setting to overt and flagrant racism in the sociocultural surround.

The most recent year has focused on shame and guilt, for “how could [we] not when these two painful affect states reach everywhere in psychic life?” * Current world events invite us to continue our studies of states of mind that lead from shame and guilt to merciless hatred.  While this study group does not focus on the minds of those who mete out (in)justice or serve as world leaders, we are committed to studying all our minds, with our proclivities and vulnerabilities towards states such as shame, projection and hatred.

We will continue our studies with a consideration of the vicissitudes of conscious and unconscious shame. These forms of shame can lead to rage against and hatred of the other (the presumptive shamer).  Such experiences can then be split off from awareness and ready to fuel  enactments of a projected sense of danger, including racism and misogyny (and we do not exclude ourselves from such dynamics). We see this not only on the world’s stage, but also in early psychoanalytic theory, when, e.g., female psychic development was presumed to be from a girl’s “discovery of her castration’ (Horney, quoting Freud 1933).

Therefore, taking note of the history of psychoanalytic writings on the difficulties resulting from such unrecognized internal conflicts, we will continue this elective with discussions of papers on shame, projection and hatred.

Readings will include, among others, papers by Winnicott, Kernberg, Gray, Sedlak, Stoute, and Caflisch. We also will include work by Karen Horney, rarely read at our Institute, who nearly 100 years ago showed us some basic truths about anxiety while reminding us that it is simply unrealistic to presume the superiority of, for example,  one versus another sort of genitalia.

In each class we will bring the discussion of the readings to additional life with clinical process material from an ongoing case.

*Class description 2021

 

CLINICAL AND THEORETICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INTERPERSONAL AND RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS

Instructor:      Ira Moses, PhD, APBsa

Time:               Mondays, 8:00 pm—9:30 pm

Location:          Zoom

Dates:                      Fourth Monday of the month, Sept.–June

Traditional interpersonal and modern relational therapy, though often viewed interchangeably, substantively differ from each other. This seminar will use clinical material from readings and current clinical work to explore the implications of each approach. We will compare the theoretical perspectives of traditional Interpersonalists (Sullivan, Fromm, and Clara Thompson with modern Relationalists (Mitchell, Bromberg, Stern, Ogden). We will consider how the models differ clinically in their use of reverie, self-disclosure, “unconscious knowing”,  and the challenges of applying intersubjectivity with our patients.  Sullivan’s influence on Loewald will be examined along with Edgar Levenson’s development of Sullivan’s emphasis on communication and the use of Inquiry in technique.

 

TRAINING PROGRAM IN CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHOANALYSIS

The Institute offers a training program in the analysis of children and adolescents which is approved by the Board on Professional Standards of The American Psychoanalytic Association. The program leads to graduation by the Institute in this special area of psychoanalysis.

A combined education and clinical training in child, adolescent, and adult analysis provides the candidate with an optimal opportunity to acquire a broad understanding of the development and functioning of the human mind and an opportunity to acquire a synthesized psychoanalytic approach to the clinical situation. Psychoanalysis of children, adolescents and adults shares a common theoretical foundation, has analogous clinical principles, and has the mutual aim of improving mental functioning and increasing self-knowledge. In addition, child psychoanalysis aims at restoring the progression of normal development.

Clinical training in child and adolescent psychoanalysis aims to give the candidate the clinical skills necessary to utilize effectively psychoanalytic process in the treatment of children and adolescents and the clinical skills necessary to work with their parents. It includes learning specific techniques useful in the analytic situation with children, e.g., how to help the child move from play to verbalization through interpretation, how to understand and interpret transference, how to work with resistance, defenses, and internalized conflict, and how to understand the use of the analyst as an auxiliary ego or superego.

The Child Analytic Program involves a four year sequence of didactic seminars, covering such topics as assessment, technique, development, and work with parents. In addition, child analytic candidates are required to treat three children, including a boy and a girl, once adolescent and one latency child, in four times per week analysis; it is strongly recommended that one case continue through termination. In instances where a candidate has a case in supervision that has continued five or more years and is unlikely to enter a termination phase within the next year, the candidate may discuss this with his or her advisor before submitting a request to graduate (assuming all other graduation requirements have been met). If the advisor supports graduation, the candidate may request to graduate with the understanding that he or she will re-enter supervision during the termination phase of an analytic case. The Progression Committee strongly recommends the candidate also participate in an Institute course where readings on theoretical and clinical aspects of termination are the focus.

The pre-requisite for beginning the didactic part of the program for candidates in the Child Analysis Program is the completion of the first two trimesters in the Development sequence. The didactic aspect of the Child Analytic Program begins with a seminar focused on Introduction to Child Analytic Technique. Using clinical material presented by the candidates, this course focuses on issues of analyzability, preparing a child for analysis, work with parents, and dynamic formulation. The second trimester is a seminar contrasting adult and child analysis using clinical material. Subsequent seminars focus on technique and particular phases of development, technical programs specific to working with children, developmental assessment, working with parents, and continuous case seminars. In addition to the didactic seminars and the analytic treatment of three children, child analytic candidates must complete twenty (20) hours of supervised observation of normal children; this may be at a day care or school site.

Training in the psychoanalysis of children and adolescents may be undertaken by a graduate or candidate in active training at an accredited Institute of The American Psychoanalytic Association. Those having the requisite background but without additional clinical experience with children (e.g., a residency in child psychiatry) may consult with the Director of Child Analytic Training regarding a preparatory program designed to acquire the necessary experience of working with children.

It is possible for any candidate to take a child into analysis at any point during analytic training without undertaking full training in child analysis. Any candidate may also take any of the child analytic seminars as an elective during their training in adult psychoanalysis.

Candidates seeking admission to the program may apply in writing to the Director of the Child Analysis Training Program by requesting an application form from the Administrator. After assessment by the Child Analysis Faculty, the application will be reviewed by the Education Committee for a final decision. The adult and child analysis program may also be undertaken concurrently.

Eric Millman, M.D., Chair, Child Analysis ProgramKirsten Dahl, Ph.DJoan Poll, M.D.

PSYCHOANALYSIS FOR SCHOLARS PROGRAM

The Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis offers a two year training program for scholars and academics interested in psychoanalytic theory and its application to their work. The program has two components. The first is psychoanalytic theory. The faculty of The Western New England Institute offers a perspective on early and contemporary psychoanalytic theory infused by their immersion in psychoanalytic practice. Theoretical topics for discussion range from Freud’s work on dreams, his topographic and structural models to the modern revisions and extensions of psychoanalytic theory. Freud’s case studies and published transcripts of psychoanalytic treatments provide clinical data for examination.

The second component of the program addresses the use of psychoanalytic concepts in the participant’s scholarly work. This segment includes tutorials, study groups and workshops in which participants present and develop their work. The Western New England Institute faculty will offer perspectives on and raise questions about the scholars’ specific research projects. This program is not designed for clinicians. For further information, please contact Dr. Kay Long at 203-498-9091 or by email at [email protected].

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

The Research Fellowship allows for an academic scholar to take the same courses as candidates in the adult and/or child training programs, including in the didactic and elective curricula. The Research Fellowship is designed for those scholars who do not want to train as psychoanalysts yet whose research would benefit substantively from exposure both to the continuous case and technique seminars of the core and elective curricula as well as the courses in psychoanalytic theory, development, and psychopathology.

In their application for the Research Fellowship, applicants must make a strong and convincing case that (1) they maintain continued productivity within and commitment to their original fields; (2) they intend to remain productive in their original fields and wish to amplify the scope of their original research and academic work with insights gained from this fellowship; (3) their research and scholarship requires coursework beyond what is offered in the Scholars Program; and (4) their research and scholarship would benefit specifically from the continuous case and technique seminars as well as the other courses in the adult and/or child programs.

Professional boundaries and respect for patients’ confidentially are crucially important principles of analytic training. The candidates, with whom Research Fellows take courses, are already experienced clinicians and understand these principles from previous training in their respective disciplines as mental health professionals as well as from their own training analyses. We require Research Fellows either to have been in an ongoing personal analysis for at least a year prior to beginning classes or to have completed a personal analysis. We consider this evidence of the scholar’s deep interest in and commitment to psychoanalysis. We also view the personal analysis as a way to instill in the Research Fellow the principles of psychoanalysis as well as the import of professional boundaries and confidentiality. We consider their personal analyses as evidence that they merit our trust in allowing them to participate in highly confidential and protected courses. There will be other opportunities in their coursework to learn about professional boundaries, including, for example, the need to recuse themselves from seminars where faculty and candidates present clinical material from someone known by the Research Fellow.

We also ask Research Fellows to sign an Ethics Pledge that affirms that they will notput themselves forward as psychoanalysts and that they will abide by the Principles and Standards of Ethics for Psychoanalysts in the Principles and Standards of Ethics for Psychoanalysts as set forth by the American Psychoanalytic Association (see “Ethics Case Book” pp. i-xxix or visit website at www.apsa.org).

JOINTLY SPONSORED SEMINARS IN PSYCHOANALYTIC RESEARCH

The Institute, in affiliation with The Anna Freud Centre, the Yale Child Study Center, and University College London, sponsors a series of seminars on Psychoanalysis and Research. These will be open to all interested professionals and will be chaired by Linda Mayes, M.D., who may be contacted directly at:

Linda C. Mayes, M.D.Yale Child Study Center230 South Frontage Road New Haven, CT 06520-7900 203-785-7211FAX: 203-785-7855EMAIL: [email protected]

Studies in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

INTRODUCTION

The Western New England Psychoanalytic Society (WNEPS) is pleased to announce the start of a new, two-year certificate program in psychodynamic psychotherapy, called Studies in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (SPP). This program will be taught and supervised by members of the WNEIP faculty. It is aimed at both clinicians who are recent graduates of training programs who want to increase their skills in psychodynamic psychotherapy as well mid-career clinicians who want to develop and deepen their psychotherapy practices.

HOW IT WORKS

The Two-year Studies in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Program consists of three components:

1. Classes: classes will be held one night per week during the academic year, with two 75 minute classes per night. Topics will include psychoanalytic theory, beginning and ending treatment, ethics, treatment theory, child development and psychopathology. Case conferences, in which students and faculty present on-going cases will be an integral part of the classroom experience.
2. Personal Psychotherapy: In order to be an effective psychodynamic psychotherapist, we believe that one must have experiences being a patient and have some familiarity with one’s own unconscious processes. If you have not previously been in psychodynamic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, we will ask that you begin such a treatment by the time you enter the Program.
3. Supervision: Supervision of two on-going psychotherapy cases from your practice will be required. You will have the option of one supervisor for the two years or changing to a new supervisor for the second year.

ADMISSION

Admission requirements include graduation from a clinical training program, license to practice in the state of Connecticut, and some previous psychotherapy training and current experience. Participants will also need to have the ability to see individual psychotherapy patients, either in a private practice or clinic setting. Please see the brochure for more detailed admission requirements.

CERTIFICATE

When you have completed the 2-year program you will receive a certificate in “Studies in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy”

PROGRAM FEES

1. Application fee $50
2. Tuition $1800 per year, payable in two installments
3. Supervision fees will be arranged individually with each supervisor

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Thank you for your interest. For further information or to obtain an application, please contact the program director:Robert White, at [email protected] or at 203-214-8768.

The program brochure can be downloaded here

[pdf-embedder url=”https://westernnewengland.org/wp-content/uploads/SPPBrochure.pdf”]

If you would like to talk this over with any member of the Committee, please feel free to contact us:

Robert White, Chair @ 203.214.8768 or [email protected]

Bonnie Becker  [email protected]

Angelica Kaner @ 203.776.1499 or [email protected]

Chris Leveille [email protected]

Janet Madigan (consultant for child development)

Continuing Education Courses for 2024-2025

 

Once you have selected the class(es) you wish to take from the descriptions below, you may register in one of two ways:

1. Register online and pay online with Paypal or Credit Card. Register Online!
2.  Download the course registration form and mail it in with a check. We ask that if you download the form and mail it in that you take a few minutes to fill out the course registration online and indicate check payment so that we may update our digital records. Thank you.

CE credit is available for most of our courses for a one time $20 fee per course.  This fee covers processing costs. Please click the CE link under each course description for details on what type of credits are available.

__________________________________________________________________

Reiser Psychoanalytic Core Curriculum

Dedicated to Lynn and Morton F. Reiser, MD in appreciation of their support of Psychoanalytic Education.

This core curriculum will offer three standing Educational Series, the L series dedicated to explorations of children’s literature and child psychoanalysis; the M series entitled The Psychoanalytic Laboratory and dedicated to mind-body explorations at the interface of psychiatry, medicine and psychoanalysis; the A Series dedicated to psychoanalytic perspectives on aging.

The L Series: Children’s Literature and Child Psychoanalysis

So might we say that we write children’s books not only to help children understand their world but also to help us work and rework our own mental experiences tied as these are to our childhood experiences often reawakened as we care for our own children.  Children’s books help us care for our children, not just in the literal sense of fostering moments together but also by helping us reconnect with how our children see their world.  In writing and reading children’s books for and to our children, we may rediscover our own wonderment and curiosity. We remember the wonder of the night when magic happens, and the wild things emerge—and sometimes encounter again those nighttime worries that loomed so large.

Linda Mayes, MD
Director, Yale Child Study Center

The Story behind the Stories: Writing Engaging Picture Books for Children

Instructors:  Sara Levine, DVM

Course Description:

Sara Levine is an educator, veterinarian, and award-winning author of picture books for children. Her books which include Sensitive, Bone by Bone, Flower Talk, and The Animals Would Not Sleep have received the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize, Bank Street College Best Book of the Year, Beehive Book Award, Cook Prize and the Mathical Book Prize. Her area of interest is bringing science and social-emotional topics to children in unique and engaging ways. Here’s a link for more information: http://www.saralevinebooks.com/

In this workshop, Sara Levine will speak about her experiences in writing for children with a focus on advice for those who have an interest pursing this field. Topics will include picture book structure; how she chooses her subject matter; her writing process; and ingredients she uses to make books educational, interactive and funny. There will also be a section on the basic “nuts and bolts” of the business side of this career with plenty time for Q&A, and further discussion based on the interests of those attending.

Dr. Linda Mayes, Chair, Yale Child Study Center, will provide an introduction to the workshop.

Educational Objectives:
This workshop will cover the following topics:

1. 1. Career trajectory of a working children’s book author
   2. Structures of picture books (fiction and non-fiction)
   3. How to choose topics
   4. How to make books engaging and funny
   5. Basics on the business side of writing and publishing

1 Session:  September 21, 2024 from 10 am to 1 pm

Location: Hybrid–in person at 255 Bradley Street and via Zoom

Fee: $150 ($50 trainees/students)
No CME/CE credit available for this course

Register Online!

Bad Fathers, Wicked Stepmothers, Cannibalistic Witches, and Amorous Princes: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Fairy Tales

Instructor:  Robert White, MD

Course Description:

Folk tales have been present ever since humankind started to speak and are present in all cultures.  What we know as fairy tales are literary versions of a series of folk tales, often transmitted through a series of languages and cultures.  What we know as the European fairy tale had its roots in Indian and Arabian cultures.  The earliest fairy tales appeared first in Italy in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, then in France in the seventeenth century, and finally in Germany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  The early psychoanalysts, including Freud, thought of fairy tales as similar to dreams, offering another royal road to the unconscious.  Fairy tales have never lost their popularity and regularly appear in rewritten form, operas, movies, songs, and literature of all sorts.  This course will take up the question of what a fairy tale is, a brief look at the history of fairy tales, and then consider some of the best-known tales of Perrault and the Grimms.  The title of the course is also the title of a forthcoming book by Dr. White, due to be published in the Spring of 2025.   We will read chapters from the book.

Educational Objectives:

1. Develop an understanding of the academic study of fairy tales, including a history of folk tales, their variants within and among cultures, individual fairy tale authors, and the culture, especially France and Germany, that influenced fairy tale structure.
2. Define folk tales, fairy tales, and fantasy as distinct literary genres.
3. Discuss individual tales as a multi-determined psychoanalytic psychology that expresses humankind’s deepest fears and motivations.
4. Use modern rewrites of fairy tales as a window into the motivation of the principal characters.
5. Understand that many fairy tales have a quest structure involving the disruption of ordinary life. The hero is sent off to a magical space of transformation and returns with greater maturity.  This is an adolescent journey into adulthood.

6 Sessions:  Spring 2025

Location: Zoom

Fee: TBD

Registration opens soon

The M Series: The Psychoanalytic Laboratory: Mind-Body Explorations at the
Interface of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Psychoanalysis

Illuminating Psychedelics with Psychoanalysis / Illuminating Psychoanalysis with Psychedelics

Instructors:
Jamie M.A. Smith, MA (Class Coordinator)
Lawrence Fischman, MD
Jeffrey Guss, MD
Gretchen Hermes, MD, PhD
Thomas Hesslow, PsyD
Gurmeet Kanwal, MD
Nahaleh Moshtagh, PsyD

Course Description:

In this course, we will enhance our psychoanalytic understanding of psychedelic therapy by exploring both the historical and contemporary landscape of psychedelic medicine. Through various psychoanalytic lenses, we will examine the effects of psychedelics and their potential therapeutic applications. The course will feature insights from guest speakers and texts representing intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy, interpersonal, ego psychology, and contemporary relational approaches. We will investigate what psychoanalysis can gain from the study of psychedelics and how psychedelic therapy and culture can benefit from psychoanalytic principles.

Educational Objectives:

1. Describe contemporary and historical perspectives on the mechanisms and effects of psychedelics.
2. Discuss the historical, current, and potential applications of psychedelic medicine through various psychoanalytic frameworks.

7 Sessions:  January 8 through February 19, 2025 on Wednesday from 4:30 pm to 6 pm EST

Location: Zoom
Fee: $260 ($50 trainees/students)

Registration Opens Soon

 

The A Series: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Aging

Memory, Memoir and Aging

Instructors:  Gretchen Hermes, MD, PhD and Joan Wexler, LCSW 

Course Description:

William Wordsworth wrote, “The wise mind mourns less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind.” This perspective encourages a shift from lamenting the inevitable changes and losses associated with aging to valuing the enduring aspects of one’s life, such as the lasting impact of actions, experiences, and memories. In this course, the first in a series on aging, we will explore the interplay of memory, memoir, and aging. We will examine how memoirs convey the internal representations of significant people in our lives through a style that is more associative than linear, focusing on themes of conflict and emotion rather than following strict chronology

In addition to readings on memoir and aging, we will be joined by guest speakers sharing their memoirs, both written and filmed. Arnold Richards, Training and Supervising Analyst and former editor of JAPA, will present his work, Unorthodox: My Life In and Outside Psychoanalysis: A Memoir. Su Friedrich, a leading figure in avant-garde filmmaking and a pivotal force in the establishment of Queer cinema, will present I Cannot Tell You How I Feel, a film about Friedrich’s 94-year-old mother, described as a “funny, and profoundly empathetic consideration of mortality and filial responsibility.” Edgar Barens, an HBO documentarian, will present Prison Terminal, a cinema vérité piece centered on a hospice program in an Ohio jail, highlighting the memories of Private Jack Hall and the volunteers who care for him. Joan Wexler, retired psychoanalyst and author will present, A Pot from Shards: A Memoir, a haunting memoir of linked chapters and lost relationships that come to life in a searching mind.

Educational Objectives:

1. Describe the difference between memoir and autobiography especially in the use of memory.
2. Identify the key elements of memoir for aging authors and how these interface with psychoanalytic principles of development.
3. Examine how memoir advances healthy aging.

 

6 sessions: November 6, 13, 20, and December 4, 11, 18, 2024

Meeting Time: Wednesdays, 5:00-6:30 PM

Location:  Zoom

Fee:$225 ($50 trainees/students)

CE credit available for a $20 fee, added to your cart at the time of registration. Please review important CE information before registering.

Register Online!

Standard Curriculum

In Search of Lost Time: Reverie as Generator of Being and Becoming

Instructors:  Angela Cappiello, MD, PhD and Christine Desmond, MD

Course Description:

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that grabs me, but I am the river. It is a tiger that rends me, but I am the tiger. It is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world is, unfortunately, real. I am, unfortunately, Borges.(Borges, 1974)

In this course we will focus on some aspects of the experience of time that are crucial in the clinical setting, particularly in relation to external vs psychic reality, transference and countertransference, dreams, waking dreams and reveries.

As clinicians, we are accustomed to entering a session in a state of free-floating attention or reverie, allowing an atemporal dimension to emerge in the shared narrative with the analysand. How can we link the fragmented segments of our patients’ stories into a coherent picture, shifting from the present moment of the session to a historical continuum that extends from the past into the future? How can past memories become stories to be retold and reclaimed, offering transformative potential and fostering greater expressiveness and subjectivity? This course provides a lens through which to examine how to facilitate emotional connections between a past often entangled in relentless repetitions and unlock a future previously barred from unfolding, thereby promoting a sense of being and becoming.

Objectives:

1. Summarize how past memories unfold in the emotional intersubjective experience of the clinical encounter.
2. Describe the current theoretical understanding of the concept of après-coup (deferred action) in relation to trauma, fear of breakdown, reverie and dreaming.
3. Explain the dynamic interplay of past, present, and future.

6 Sessions: Tuesdays, 10/15/2024 through 11/19/2024 from 6:30–8:00 PM

Location:  Zoom

Fee:$225 ($50 trainees/students)

CE credit available for a $20 fee, added to your cart at the time of registration. Please review important CE information before registering.

Register Online!

Facing up to the Unfolding Global Environmental Catastrophe: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

Instructors:

Lindsay L Clarkson, MD
John Kress, PhD
Donald Moss, MD
Lynne Zeavin, PsyD

Course Description:

We live amidst a global ecological crisis caused by human practices, with vast inequalities in its effects. In modern Western civilization, our way of living reflects an attitude of entitlement to the Earth’s resources, disregarding limits and our impact on the natural world. This has led to distraction and alienation from the part of ourselves that understands our dependence on the biosphere.

After describing the natural world from a historical perspective, we will explore how our inner worlds shape our understanding of external reality, encouraging psychoanalytic consideration of the complexity of our relationship with nature. We will discuss the factors that interfere with our ability to comprehend the ongoing destruction caused by the slow violence of environmental degradation. Together, we will examine the emotional factors that have led us to disavow our psychological and bodily connections to the natural world, thereby impoverishing ourselves. Using poetry and clinical material, we will highlight the vital role nature plays in our internal psychic balance and the internal strengthening that comes with an ecological perspective.

Educational Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to summarize the current state of the global environment from a historical perspective.
2. Participants will be able to discuss the unconscious internalized relationships and processes that shape and influence our ability to perceive and respond to large-scale environmental changes.

5 Sessions: Thursdays, March 6 through April 3, 2025, from 7:30 to 8:45 pm

Location: Zoom

Fee: $150 ($50 trainees and students)

Registration Opens Soon

Narratives: A Reverend, Rabbi, Imam, and Psychoanalyst Discuss the Many Roles of Narratives in Our Lives

Instructors:

Deborah Fried, MD
Rabbi Rona Shapiro
Imam Omer Bajwa
Reverend Shepard Parsons

Course Description:
Psychoanalysis and religion both rely on stories about human nature, narratives about how individuals relate to themselves, their backgrounds, families, cultures, and the world at large. Understanding and articulating one’s own narrative is a fundamental aspect of psychoanalysis. Similarly, learning narratives from religious faiths is integral to many people’s primary traditions. These narratives are transformative, shaping our conceptions of family, community, and self. They can be shaken up in psychoanalytic work and serve as a bedrock of religious practice.

Even before recent world events highlighted the importance of this topic, we have been considering the role of narratives in our work. We now invite clinicians, scholars, and members of the psychoanalytic community to join us in discussing narratives in religion and the many stories we tell ourselves throughout life. We will draw from readings across various traditions and welcome participants’ ideas as we explore the shaping power of narrative together.

Educational Objectives:

1. Compare how Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other religious traditions use narrative.
2. Describe and discuss the function of narrative in psychoanalytic work.
3. Demonstrate and apply these concepts to clinical, pastoral, and homiletic practices.

6 Sessions: Tuesdays, Jan 7, 2025 through Feb 25, 2025, from 7:00–8:15 pm

Location: Zoom

Fee: $175 ($50 for students/trainees)

Registration Opens Soon

Reading Thomas Ogden

Instructors: Elinor Kotchen, LCSW

Course Description:

In this course, we will explore how Ogden’s concepts of reverie and the analytic third can enhance our work with patients. By learning to attune to our own experiences and daydreams during sessions, we can better connect with the patient’s unconscious experience. Each week, we will read a different paper, and participants will have the opportunity to present case material.

Educational Objectives:

1. Explain Thomas Ogden’s concept of the analytic third and discuss how understanding this concept can deepen therapeutic work with patients.
2. Describe how Thomas Ogden uses reverie to gain insight into a patient’s unconscious experience.

6 Sessions: Tuesdays, Jan 14, 2025 through Feb 4, 2025, from 6:30–8:00 pm

Location: Zoom

Fee: $150 ($50 for students/trainees)

Registration Opens Soon

Diving into Gender

Instructor: Susan McNamara, MD

Course Description:

Gender is accumulating unforeseen meanings and implications. This seminar explores how gender is evolving and its significance for us. How does gender collect anxiety and fear? Where does the “anti-gender ideology movement” lead us? Why does psychoanalysis struggle with gender? Why are our driver’s licenses gendered?

This course will examine gender from various perspectives to deepen our understanding of how perceptions of gender intersect and resonate. We will explore evolving biological, social, and psychological concepts of gender by examining the work of Anna Wilson, Adrienne Harris, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, Joan Roughgarden, Ken Corbett, and Judith Butler.

Educational Objectives:

1. Compare biological, social, psychological, and psychoanalytic perspectives on gender.
2. Identify how scientific theories about gender developed over time and how those ideas affect contemporary thought on gender.
3. Examine how biological, anthropological, and medical concepts intersect with cultural and political ideas about racial-ethnic, sexual, and gender differences.

5 Sessions: Wednesdays, October 23, 2024 through November 20, 2024, from 6:30–8:00 pm

Location: Zoom

Fee: $190 ($50 for students/trainees)

CE credit available for a $20 fee, added to your cart at the time of registration. Please review important CE information before registering.

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Scientific Meetings

Scientific Meetings feature analysts from around the world presenting papers and clinical material. Audience members will have the opportunity to engage in discussion with the speakers after the presentation. Anyone with an interest in psychoanalysis is welcome to attend.  CME/CE credits are available (see the registration page for the meeting for details).

You may also be interested in our continuing education and  other events.

The Muriel Gardiner Program in Psychoanalysis &The Humanities

Nancy Olson, M.D.Coordinator

One of the Anna Freud Centre programs at Yale Child Study Center, the Muriel Garndiner Program in Psychoanalysis and the Humanities is a gathering of scholars and clinicians devoted to exploring the ways psychoanalysis and the humanities may illuminate each other. We meet monthly during the academic year for a lecture and discussion.

Trainees and students are welcome.

Presentations are usually on

Thursdays at 7:30pmWhitney Humanites Center53 Wall StreetNew HavenRoom 208

There is a reception prior to the lecture from 6:45pm-7:30pm.

For more information please contact:

Nancy Olson, M.D.Tel: 203.785.1898[email protected]