Additional Program Details
Supervision
The fee for the weekly individual supervision is agreed upon by the supervisor and student. Tuition for the other three weekly components below (#s 2, 3, and 4) is $40 per meeting, with approximately 30 meetings each year. These charges are in addition to the course tuition of $2055.
1. Weekly Individual Supervision
Minimum of 110 sessions over the three years.
2. Introductory Technique Seminar
In their first year, students will bring notes from their initial sessions with new patients to this seminar. The seminar will explore the various issues involved in beginning a treatment, starting with the initial phone call. Concerns include: ascertaining why the patient has come for therapy, appraising treatment options, establishing boundaries, sensing initial anxieties about treatment, attending to the interactional processes in the here-and-now, developing a therapeutic sensibility, and setting fees and conditions. In addition, the seminar will review sessions from the television series “In Treatment,” using that material as a basis for discussing therapeutic options in the clinical moment.
Faculty: Dr. Christopher Keats and Dr. Robert Winer
3. Infant-Mother Observation
During the student’s second year in the program, the student will observe a mother and her infant in their home for an hour each week. These visits will be discussed in an ongoing group, led by an experienced mother-infant observation supervisor. This group will meet each week prior to the regular classes throughout the year. Observing babies and their mothers/family members over a long period of time means that we have an opportunity to perceive patterns in the making. Observers come to apprehend how relationships are developed and how we become part of each other’s world and to recognize the persistence of infantile patterns of behavior in later life. This is an unique opportunity to enhance our clinical skills when working with adults, children and families.
Faculty: Dr. Karyne Messina
4. Work Discussion Seminar
In their third year, students bring detailed studies of their work with a patient to a seminar conducted along the lines of the Infant-Mother Observation. The aim of the seminar is to sharpen perceptions of verbal and non-verbal communications and to closely study the moment-to-moment interactions between patient and therapist. This group will meet each week prior to the regular classes throughout the year.
Faculty: Ms. Sharon Alperovitz
The Senior Curriculum
The Senior Curriculum is a one year program offered only to students who have completed the Three-Year Curriculum.
Courses
The sixty class sessions are organized by the students and their faculty advisor along the lines of student interest. As an example, the Senior Curriculum has included courses on the work of Melanie Klein, interpretation, ego assessment, superego pathology (guilt, shame, depression, and masochism), trauma, sexuality and a faculty-student clinical case conference.
Supervision or Research
Students have a choice of either completing 60 hours of individual and group supervision or undertaking and completing a research project with the assistance of a faculty advisor. Students selecting the research option must select a research advisor and present a research proposal by September 1 of the academic year. The work will be closely monitored to make certain that its completion is a feasible goal.
Annual Tuition - $2055
Fees for Supervision are additional.
Completion & Post Graduate Standing
Graduates of the program receive a certificate of completion and may join the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis.
Clinical Case Presentations
Four times each year students, graduates, and faculty convene for dinner and discuss a clinical case presentation, given by a student, graduate, or faculty member of the Program. Continuing Education credits will be provided for these presentations.
Special Outside Guest: A Day With...
Once each year we will invite a special guest faculty member to spend a day with our students. During the morning session the guest will present a paper that the group will discuss. In the afternoon the guest will discuss a case presented by one of the students. Our special visitor for 2008-2009 will be Dr. Judith Mitrani, the author of “A Framework for the Imaginary: Clinical Explorations in Primitive States of Being” and “Ordinary People and Extra-ordinary Protections: A Post- Kleinian Approach to the Treatment of Primitive Mental States.” She will meet with us on Saturday, October 11.
