The Curriculum
Questions on this information? Please contact David Cooper, PhD, Chair, Curriculum Committee
The curriculum of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute conforms to the Standards of the American Psychoanalytic Association for the training of physicians and other mental health professionals in psychoanalysis. Written evaluations of candidates are required from the instructors of each course. In addition to qualitative commentary, ratings of Outstanding, Satisfactory, Marginal, and Unsatisfactory are given.
Institute classes are currently split between Wednesdays (2:00 pm – 7:15 pm) for 30 weeks during the academic year. Classes meet at the Center offices, 4545 42nd St, NW, #209, Washington DC 20016, unless otherwise indicated. NOTE: The Washington Center for Psychoanalysis will formallly be affliating with George Washington University in the summer of 2013.
Click here to see a list of sample current advanced elective course offerings
FIRST YEAR
A candidate starting first-year courses will be expected to have progressed satisfactorily in personal psychoanalysis with a training analyst of this Institute.
If there is no First year class, individual First year candidates will take tutorials, to be arranged by the Curriculum Committee. When there is a First year class, First year courses (which includes a Colloquium) are normally as follows.
Psychoanalytic Technique
Introduction to Conducting an Analysis
Weeks 1-10
Ten sessions - 2:00 pm (Wed)
Issues in initiating psychoanalysis will be reviewed, from the assessment
through the onset of treatment. The course addresses questions of suitability;
effectiveness; similarities and differences between psychotherapy and psychoanalysis;
and the establishment of a suitable frame, including physical setting, fees,
analyst’s and patient’s roles, and other boundary issues. Candidates
will be asked to share clinical material from their work in evaluating patients
for psychoanalysis and initiating psychoanalytic treatment.
Weeks 11-20
Nine sessions - 2:00 pm (Wed)
The development and therapeutic management of transference and countertransference
in the psychoanalytic situation will be discussed. Candidates’ use
of illustrative material from their own psychoanalytic work will be supplemented
by case presentations in two sessions of early phase psychoanalytic work.
Weeks 21-30
Ten sessions - 2:00 pm (Wed)
This segment will review the analyst’s experience in the psychoanalytic
situation and its influence on the psychoanalytic process. Topics covered
include both parties’ view of the analyst’s internal experience,
the analyst’s listening perspective and use of interpretation, and
the analyst’s position with respect to neutrality and abstinence.
Candidates will be asked to share written clinical vignettes from their
work. There will be two sessions devoted to case presentations of mid-phase
analytic work, and a final session devoted to summation of the year-long
course sequence.
Psychoanalytic Theory
Weeks 1-7 - Topographic/Drive Freud
Seven sessions - 4:00 pm (Wed)
This section will take up Freud’s early theoretical and technical
formulations as set forth in his writings and published lectures. Candidates
will acquire a working knowledge of the following concepts as originally
formulated by Freud: psychical trauma; affect; unconscious mental states;
cathexis; resistance; repression; conflict; ego; neurotic symptom; dream
interpretation; condensation; displacement; anxiety; symptomatic actions;
libido; erotogenic zones; phantasy; nuclear complex; reaction formation;
latency; sublimation; component instincts; and the dynamic model.
Weeks 8-15 - Structural Freud
Seven sessions - 4:00 pm (Wed)
This section is concerned with the transition Freud made from the topographic
to the structural theory, some clinical observations that led to the articulation
of the structural theory, and the importance of the structural theory both
for a new theory of affect and as the basis for ego psychology.
Human Development / Pathological Formations
Weeks 1-10 – Introduction to Development from a Psychoanalytic Perspective
Ten sessions - 5:45 pm (Wed)
This begins the sequence that integrates normal development and pathological
formations. These classes provide an overview to psychoanalytic perspectives
on development and look at the first three years of life.
Weeks 11-20 - Developmental Perspectives on Infancy and the Early Years
Nine sessions - 5:45 pm (Wed) (no class on Week 14 - Colloquium)
This sequence presents a theoretical survey of normal and pathological psychological
development in the first three years. The course moves from early classical
theory to more contemporary perspectives on pre-oedipal development.
Weeks 21-30 - Later Toddlerhood, the Oedipus Complex, and Gender Identity
Ten sessions - 5:45 pm (Wed)
This sequence will be oriented around developmental achievements and problems
connected to the Oedipus Complex. The developmental and intrapsychic issues
that surround this important milestone will be explored, especially as it
relates to the sexual object choice, sexual expression, and sexual identity
in the child and in the adult.
Continuous Case Conference
Week 16-30 – Adult
Fourteen sessions - 5:45pm (Wed)
This continuous case conference will focus on the psychoanalytic process
with an emphasis
on exploring how developmental concepts inform the interventions of the
analyst and are
reflected in the patient’s associations and on case formulation.
SECOND YEAR
Psychoanalytic Technique
Weeks 1-10 - Therapeutic Action
Ten sessions
This class will focus on the conceptualization of what is therapeutic about psychoanalysis, how the treatment "works", with perspective that how one analyzes, what one says and doesn't say, should be informed by a theory of how the process works. After a brief historical overview, we will cover a variety of contemporary theoretical perspectives on this question. A theory of what it is that helps patients should guide definitions of task, role of the analyst, and boundaries around the treatment situation; thus technique becomes suffused with ethical considerations. Examination of these boundary and ethical considerations will part of the content of this course.
Weeks 11-20-The Unconscious
Ten sessions
This course is about unconscious but particularly about unconscious fantasy. Aspects of unconscious mental life are revealed in dreams, slips of the tongue, free associations, and enactments. This course reviews how practioners (beginning with Freud) from various theoretical perspectives have, over the years, identified and worked with unconscious material in session with their patients. Technique will receive special focus, and we will be interested in students' approach to this material in their clinical work as well.cour
Weeks 21-30-The Role Of the Analyst
Ten sessions
During the course of an analysis, an analyst is seen by the patient as having a variety of attributes, some transference determined, some based on external reality. During this class, we will explore the different roles an analyst plays during analytic treatment with the aim of understanding how each of these is experienced and understood by both the patient and analyst.
seis about the unconscious but particularly about unconscious fantasy. Aspects of unconscious mHHuman Development / Pathological Formations
Week 1-19 - Development II
Nineteen sessions
The study of human development provides scaffolding for understanding psychosexual and psychosocial experiences througout the life cycle. The Inraphysic and Intrapersonal phenomena at each stage lay the groundwork for the subsequent levels of development. The first year of psychoanalytic training focused on infancy through the oedipal phase thus laying the foundation for this course which will work to examine the following psychological stages of life: early latency, middle latency, preadolescence, early adolescence, middle adolescence and late adolescence.
Continuous Case Conferences
Weeks 1-10 - Child
Weeks 11-20 - Adolescence
Weeks 21-30 - Adult
An adult and a child case will be chosen by each class for presentation
with a focus on exploring the analyst’s countertransference as a vehicle
to the genesis of interpretation and analytic intervention. Careful consideration
will be given to discussing the impact of countertransference on clinical
work. All the case conferences explore the analytic process with a particular
focus on an examination of the mind of the analyst at work, with a careful
consideration of the multiple different factors to which the analyst responds
when conducting the analysis. In addition to these processes, the child/adolescent
case conference also explores the adaptations of technique necessitated
by the age and developmental level of the child. It is anticipated that
an exploration of how the analyst responds to the adaptations in technique
dictated by the immaturity of the child will prove useful in work with adults.
Writing
The purpose of the writing sequence is to help candidates demonstrate in
their case reports
that they can think psychoanalytically.
The ability to show psychoanalytic process in writing is required to prepare a case report for graduation as well as for certification by the American Psychoanalytic Association, which graduates are strongly encouraged to pursue. The writing of a psychoanalytic case is a skill unto itself. Reducing hundreds of hours of process notes and supervisory sessions to a 20 page, double-spaced report requires the candidate to cull from the material then mete out comprehensible parcels in an orderly and sequential manner. Experience shows that some candidates will find this task more daunting than others. In preparation for the fifth year case write-up, the curriculum includes one trimester writing course annually, starting in the second year when most candidates will have their cases underway.
Weeks 21-30 - Writing Course
Nine sessions
The goals of this first course are 1) to introduce the candidate to a methodology
for translating the inchoate nature of the clinical hour into a few comprehensible
paragraphs that demonstrate a psychoanalytic process is occurring. 2) to
identify stylistic roadblocks that tend to obfuscate rather than elucidate
psychoanalytic process and 3) to select thematic structures that help organize
clinical material. On a rotational basis, the candidate will prepare a write-up
of two contiguous psychoanalytic hours to read aloud and discuss with the
class.
THIRD YEAR
Under Review: Will be Posted When Complete
FOURTH YEAR
Under Review: Will be Posted When Complete
ADVANCED CURRICULUM (Fifth and Subsequent Years)
Course requirements for the advanced candidates represent less than half the time commitment of years 1-4: two trimester courses or one semester course. Each advanced candidate is required to take an advanced clinical course, or a clinical study group, as one of the two required trimester courses, or as the semester course. Self-assessment by candidates strongly encouraged. The choice of courses must be made each year in consultation with the faculty advisor who will help the candidate decide which course will be the most beneficial. One advanced candidate will present and discuss an ongoing analytic case for the Fellowship Program in Psychoanalysis, a group of mental health professionals and students who are interested in an introduction to psychoanalytic thinking and treatment. The presentation and discussion will be facilitated by a member of the Institute faculty chosen with input from the candidate. The seminar is designed to demonstrate to an audience relatively unfamiliar with psychoanalytic theory and technique how material unfolds in an analysis and how the mind of the analyst works, i.e., how we observe and think about what we hear and see; how we form interpretations and decide on whether and when to make them.
Fifth-year Comprehensive Seminar (Tutorial only)
Required for 5th year candidates.
The seminar is intended to assist the candidate in writing the final 20
page case report that demonstrates the candidate has digested and integrated
psychoanalytic theory and has acquired the skill of psychoanalytic technique.
Joint Institute Clinical Case Conference — Adult
Fifteen sessions
This is a Continuous Case Conference for advanced candidates and graduates offered and taught jointly with the Baltimore-Washington Institute. This conference has received excellent reviews by participants in its previous four years and is held in high regard by both institutes. A number of graduates of both institutes have attended regularly and have engaged actively in the lively discussions. Classes are held at the Baltimore-Washington Center for Psychoanalysis, 14900 Sweitzer Lane, Suite 102, Laurel, MD (just off I-95, easy to find and with lots of free parking). For directions go to www.bwanalysis.org.
Study Groups and Tutorials
In place of the required formal courses, advanced candidates may undertake the study of special projects in groups of two or more, with the approval of the faculty advisors and in consultation with the Curriculum Committee. The topics may be clinical, theoretical, or applied psychoanalysis. In addition, an individual candidate may arrange a ten-session tutorial with a faculty member, which will meet the requirement for a trimester course. Study Groups and Tutorials must be formed before March 1 of the previous year.
