Advanced Psychotherapy Program

The Integrative Psychodynamic Psychotherapies—Moving into the 21st Century Combining the Old and the New into the Now

Virginia Hendrickson, MSW, Chair
…the findings do indicate that the more effective therapists facilitated therapeutic processes that have long been core, centrally defining features of psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Jonathan Shedler

The Advanced Psychotherapy Program is a three-year course of study designed to meet the needs of experienced therapists who desire to expand their theoretical knowledge base in order to increase their clinical expertise in working with the treatment dilemmas they encounter in their daily practice. The vast array of theories and treatment approaches currently available can leave even the most experienced practitioner feeling overwhelmed when it comes to “how do I respond to this particular patient at this particular moment in treatment?” Building on the Fundamental Concepts Program and the Clinical Program on Psychotherapy Practice, the redesigned Advanced Psychotherapy Program offers a unique opportunity for experienced, practicing clinicians to explore and think together about the many challenges they encounter in treating a wide range of patients. Ever mindful of the clinician’s desire to learn how to intervene more effectively in the treatment room a creative dialogue between theory and clinical material is fostered. Thus a clinical focus is maintained within the context of in-depth theoretical understandings that translate into increased effectiveness in the treatment room.

As we enter the 21st century the Advanced Psychotherapy Program has developed a contemporary psychodynamic framework that facilitates thinking about and integrating the many recent advances in neuroscience, infant and child development research, attachment theory, and the vast psychodynamic and analytic literature into clinical practice. Combining the “old” and the “new” into the “now,” we have moved to embracing a two person psychology in which the self is viewed as developing in relation to the other. There is recognition of a real relationship between therapist and patient in interaction with the transference/countertransference relationship.

The centrality of emotional life; the use of countertransference and enactments as ways of accessing the internal world of the other; the concept of intersubjectivity and the third; the development of mentalization and the capacity for reflective thought; the importance of the nonverbal and the body; the impact of trauma and dissociative processes have all become more central to our clinical thinking. The idea of the unconscious has expanded to include the nonconscious, the relational unconscious and the somatic unconscious as well as the dynamic unconscious.

These shifts are reflected in the framework of our program as year one focuses on development of mind, year two on working with trauma, relational dysfunction, and the breakdown of mind, and year three on restoration of mind.

CURRICULUM

Year One: Development of Mind

The first year begins with an exploration of the infant/ caregiver relationship and its implications for the therapeutic relationship. This is followed by a study of attachment theory in conjunction with a focus on affective life as it is developed and articulated in Kohut’s self psychology. Study then turns to Winnicott’s conceptualization of the infant/mother relationship and the way in which the ‘good-enough mother’ creates the needed holding environment required for the infant to develop and grow. This is paired with Bion’s idea of the mother’s love being shown in her containment of the infant’s emotional states. The year continues with a study of the concept of projective identification as developed by Klein, Bion, & Ogden. This is followed by a section on reflective and symbolic functioning as conceptualized in Kleinian/post Kleinian thought in conjunction with Fonagy and Target’s work on mentalization. The year ends with an exploration of how sexuality and fantasy fit into an understanding of the infant’s developing mind.

Year Two: Break Down of Mind

The second year begins with the neuroscience of trauma and affect, followed by Freud’s theories of trauma along with the treatment methodologies he developed. The year continues by bringing together object relations theory, interpersonal theory and relational theory as they emerge from Freudian thought with a focus on developmental trauma and its impact on relationship and development of mind. Fairbairn’s theory of the tie to the internal bad object; Balint’s, Guntrip’s, and Ferenczi’s work on malignant and healing forms of regression; work with dissociative processes and multiple self states as found in the work of the interpersonal and relational theorists, and a focus on the interrelationship of mind and body as manifested in psychosomatic symptoms are studied as students grapple with treating the impact of trauma. The use of countertransference and enactments as ways into the traumatized self will be a continued focus of the clinical portion of these sections.

Year Three: Restoration of Mind

The third year begins with a study of Lacanian thought, including Lacan’s understanding of trauma and its impact on desire. Issues of gender and sexuality are studied along with the field’s shifting understandings of oedipal dynamics. Developing the capacity to mourn as an alternative to the intergenerational transmission of trauma, developing the capacity for symbolization and reflective functioning, restoring intersubjectivity and the capacity for mutuality, and growing the capacity to dream one’s experience are studied in conjunction with the therapeutic processes essential to facilitate their growth. An emphasis on synthesis and integration of theory and practice as it is articulated by the multiple perspectives studied rounds out the final year of the program.

SUPERVISION

Students are required to have a combination of individual and group supervision throughout the program. Students change supervisors annually in order to encounter multiple theoretical and clinical perspectives. Fees are arranged between the student and the supervisor with a range of $75 to $150 per individual session and $25 per group session.

SCHEDULE

Classes meet on Tuesdays for 34 weeks each year from September through May. Each evening consists of a theoretical seminar, 4:00-5:15 p.m., which focuses on theory and a clinical seminar, 5:15-6:30 p.m. which discusses the clinical application of theory. A group supervision from 7:30- 8:30 p.m. follows a dinner hour.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

The Advanced Program promotes an appreciation of multiple theoretical perspectives while striving to identify underlying concepts that lend a sense of continuity to shifting perspectives. It is designed to meet the needs of clinicians who seek:

  • To understand what the above identified shifts in contemporary thought mean for the practicing clinician faced with the patient who:
    • is filled with hostility,
    • threatens to leave treatment prematurely,
    • will not pay his therapy fee,
    • views his problems as located in the other,
    • somatizes,
    • dissociates,
    • is affectively shut down,
    • is overwhelmed with affect,
    • is threatening suicide,
    • is self-mutilating.
    • is experiencing relationship difficulties
  • Greater depth and complexity in understanding the therapeutic relationship and its impact on the internal world of patient and therapist
  • Enhancement of clinical skills and therapeutic efficacy
  • A lively intellectual and professional community in which to nurture his or her professional identity, and in which to grow and contribute to our field

ELIGIBILITY AND SELECTION

Students come from the professional areas of social work, psychology, psychiatry, pastoral counseling, nursing, art therapy and other mental health disciplines. Students are selected on the basis of clinical experience and motivation for rigorous study, talent, flexibility in thinking, and a capacity for exploring the thinking of others through dialogue. Students are required to have a prior or current personal psychodynamic psychotherapy experience.

FACULTY

Virginia Hendrickson, MSW, Chair

Carolyn Angelo, MSW
Harmon Biddle, MSW
Jodi Brayton, MSW
Richard Chefetz, MD
Mauricio Cortina, MD
Ann Devaney, MSW
Molly Donovan, PhD
Diane Dowling, PhD
Megan Flood, MSW
Nancy Griscom, MSW
Patricia Garcia Golding, MSW
Patricia Hartman, MSW
John M. Hayes, PhD
Marie Hellinger, MSW
Paula Howie, ATR-BC,LPC
Betty Ann Kaplan, PhD
Maurine Kelly, PhD
Gordon Kirschner, MD
Kimberly Satin Kubler, MSW
Nancy L. Lithgow, MSW
Leon Lurie, MS
Farooq Mohyuddin, MD
Marie Murphy, MSW
Robin R. Mustain, MSW
Kathy Patrizia, MSW
Sara Pillsbury, DSW
Mark S. Robinson, PhD
George Saiger, MD
Norma Schwartz, MSW
Ann Louise Silver, MD
Alice Southworth, PhD
Mike Stadter, PhD
Mary Ann Vandeloo, PhD
Wilfried Ver Eecke, PhD,LPC
John Zinner, MD

TUITION

Tuition for the academic year is $2,350. Supervision fees and required course materials are additional.

Limited scholarship money may be available, based on need and merit. See