Curriculumclose attentionMost courses will be eight weeks long.Assessment and Formulation This class focuses on making a systematic account of a client’s difficulties. We will present a methodology for assessment and students will prepare a written presentation of a client’s psychology that will be used as a basis for class discussion. The group will then use this material to construct a formulation of the client’s difficulties. Clinical Theory Underlying Technique This course will study the craft of treatment: curiosity, identification and empathy, safety, kindness, ways of understanding, ways of intervening, deepening the conversation, speaking and silence, resistance, transference and countertransference, enactment, and disclosure. Close Process Using the “In Treatment” HBO television series, we follow one course of treatment, a single session each class, paying attention to the patient’s thoughts and feelings, the therapist’s responses, tracking the process between them, and considering options for intervention. Countertransference Students will take turns presenting clinical material in which they had a strong personal reaction during a session. We will try to understand what the student’s response reveals about the client’s mind and about the treatment. Dreams and Dreaming Using readings and student presentations of sessions containing dreams, this course will demonstrate ways of working with dreaming – how to elicit the client’s associations to a dream, how to use the dream to link the patient’s present concerns with past situations and conflicts, how to integrate dream work into ongoing treatment. Faculty Case Presentation A faculty member will present sessions from ongoing work which will be used to examine the ways in which a therapy develops over time. Nonverbal Communication in the Clinical Hour Each student, in turn, will bring in a detailed account of just the nonverbal process during a clinical session, and the group will work to develop an understanding of the client and the impact of the therapeutic experience based only on tracking the nonverbal events. Only Make Promises that You Can Keep You have to figure out what you can offer the patient and what you can’t. Patients pressure us to give them more, to make them feel better, to transform their lives. How do we work with that? The problems for the developing therapist in dealing with the demanding patient. Role, Task and Boundary Using case material and readings, we consider boundaries, ethics, the nature of the treatment contract, the therapeutic frame, and the meanings and dimensions of the roles of therapist and patient. Telling Therapy Stories Each week of the seminar the students will complete a brief writing assignment: tell the story of your office; tell the story of why a patient sought treatment; tell the story of the first five minutes of a session; tell the story of the last five minutes of a session; tell the story of a time you were caught by surprise; tell the story of a missed chance; tell the story of a good moment. We will focus on both the content and the writing. The Clinical Hour An entire class session will focus on a single clinical hour from a student’s ongoing treatment. We will try to understand the client’s psychic (subjective) reality as it becomes manifest in the hour, and we will explore the ways in which the therapist’s responses facilitate that unfolding. The First Hour Students present the opening hour of a consultation, and the group considers how to best facilitate the client’s unfolding of the reasons for seeking help, with an eye to developing a process that will engage the client for ongoing therapy. Widening the Conversation How to move from the patient’s description of the external events of the week to a self-reflective examination of the patient’s experience; how to catch the crux of the problem that is troubling the patient, and find words to explore it. |
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