The Modern Freudian Perspective
The sequence in which these three years will be offered depends in part on new enrollment and class size, and will be established during this summer.
Modern Freudian Theory & Technique (12 weeks) This course will present the Freudian model, as it is currently understood and practiced, with a focus on interpretation, resistance, transference, and defense analysis.
The following courses are taught from multiple perspectives:
Development: Adolescence (8 weeks)
Psychopathology: Neuroses & Character Disorders (8 weeks). A psychodynamic understanding of these conditions.
Dreams and Dreaming (6 weeks) Our current understanding of the process of dreaming from biological and psychological perspectives.
Technique: Role, Task, & Boundary (6 weeks) Boundaries, ethics, the implicit therapeutic contract, and the meanings and dimensions of the roles of therapist and patient.
Assessment & Formulation (7 weeks) This course focuses on making a systematic account of a patient’s difficulties. Students apply the diagnostic profile to a current treatment case. Offered in five to seven week segments each year of the program.
Mind & Brain: Theories of Mind & Consciousness (6 weeks) This course takes up “the mind-brain problem”, consciousness, dreaming, memory, and fantasy, and their relationship to the “the talking cure” as conceptualized by Freud.
Therapeutic Action (7 weeks) How therapy works, including comparing the impact of learning through interpretation and learning through the experience of a new relationship. Considers the relative importance of procedural vs. declarative earning.
The Modern Relational Perspective
Modern Relational Theory and Technique (18 weeks) This course encompasses self psychology, the British Independent Tradition, intersubjectivity, and social constructivism, as well as other relational approaches.
The following courses are taught from multiple perspectives:
Development: Adulthood (5 weeks)
Psychopathology: Borderline and Narcissistic Disorders (7 weeks)
Psychopharmacology (5 weeks) An understanding of the rationale behind current medication usage.
Gender & Sexuality (8 weeks) Developmental aspects of male and female experience, including a reappraisal of selected elements of traditional psychodynamic viewpoints on gender. Consideration of the psychodynamics of the various forms of adult sexuality.
Process in Psychoanalysis (6 weeks) A faculty case presentation demonstrating the depth of exploration possible when patient and therapist meet more frequently.
Assessment and Formulation (6 weeks) Continuation from previous year.
Mind and Brain: Technique (6 weeks) This segment will focus on the implications of our current understanding of selected neuroscience and contemporary research for psychotherapeutic technique.
The Modern Kleinian Perspective
Modern Kleinian Theory & Technique (12 weeks) This course will present the Kleinian model, as it is currently understood and practiced, with a focus on the concept of position, phantasy, projective identification, envy, countertransference, and containment.
The following courses are taught from multiple perspectives:
Development: Childhood (14 weeks) This course will include both an account of child development and consideration of childhood psychological illnesses.
Psychopathology: Mood Disorders, Eating Disorders, & Trauma (11 weeks) Includes study of depression and bipolar illness, anorexia and bulimia, and dissociative identity disorder.
Technique: Transference and Countertransference (5 weeks)
Assessment and Formulation (5 weeks) Continuation from previous year.
Mind and Brain: Biology and Neuroscience (6 weeks) This course studies the way different functions are organized in the brain and the implications that has for psychotherapeutic technique.
Therapeutic Action (7 weeks) This course examines historical and current points of view regarding the therapeutic action of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, with special emphasis on the role of insight and the role of the therapeutic relationship.
