Child and Adolescent Training Program

The Washington Center for Psychoanalysis has a long tradition of teaching child and adolescent psychoanalysis. The program introduces candidates to theoretical contributions from the major schools of psychoanalytic thought, complemented by clinical study.

Areas of Clinical Focus

• Diagnosis, with attention to the distinction between normal development and pathology at each developmental level.
• Techniques for working with developmental challenges in the treatment of children, adolescents, and their families.
• The influence of unconscious phenomena on analytic interventions with children and adolescents.
• Environmental and constitutional factors that contribute to a child’s psychological development.

The integrated child, adolescent, and adult curriculum addresses both technical modalities from the beginning of training. Candidates study the applicability and complexity of psychoanalytic theory and technique across developmental stages. Early exposure to child clinical work emphasizes developmental thinking and can deepen analysts’ attunement to both child and adult patients. Many courses required for child and adolescent training are included in the adult curriculum.

Required Courses

Psychoanalytic Theories of Development

This course examines psychoanalytic theories of development and the interaction between maturational or constitutional factors and environmental experience. It considers how disruptions in development can produce pathological compromises in mental functioning. Play, fantasy, and action are studied as ways to deepen the analytic process and promote self-reflection in work with children and adults.

Development Illustrated Through Clinical Material

Clinical material is used to study psychosexual and psychosocial development across the life cycle. The course examines how intrapsychic and interpersonal phenomena at one stage establish foundations for later development, with attention to the Oedipal period, latency, pre-adolescence, middle adolescence, and late adolescence.

Adolescent Continuous Case

An adolescent psychoanalytic case is followed through assessment and the beginning, middle, and termination phases of treatment. Discussion emphasizes the technical challenges of treating patients at this developmental stage.

Child Continuous Case

A child psychoanalytic case is presented and studied across the phases of treatment, using an approach similar to the Adolescent Continuous Case course.

Continuing Case Seminar in Psychoanalysis

This additional required course is taught with the Baltimore-Washington Center for Psychoanalysis. One or more psychoanalyses are presented, with particular attention to how technique affects the progress of treatment. Candidates and graduate analysts consider alternative interventions and their possible effects. Topics may include transference, countertransference, defense analysis, and contemporary ideas about therapeutic action.

Admissions

Candidates in the adult program may undertake a child case without enrolling in the Child and Adolescent Training Program. The case may count as one of the supervised cases required for graduation from the Adult Division and must be supervised by an approved child and adolescent supervising analyst.

An adult-program candidate may apply to the Child and Adolescent Training Program after consulting their faculty adviser. Graduates of an International Psychoanalytical Association-accredited program may also apply. Candidates entering the program are assigned a child and adolescent faculty adviser.

Training Progression and Graduation

A candidate may request permission to begin a first case at any time. Participation in a personal training analysis during at least part of the child and adolescent program is preferred.

Progression depends on the candidate’s active analytic cases and the Child and Adolescent Progress Committee’s evaluation of the candidate’s capacity to understand the complexities of analytic work with children and adolescents.

Graduation requirements include:

• Supervised analyses of three patients: one adolescent and two latency-age or pre-latency children.
• Representation of more than one gender among the cases is highly desirable.
• At least 150 hours of supervision, reasonably distributed among the cases.
• Work with three different supervisors is preferred when possible.

Graduation is determined by the program’s progress committee in consultation with the Institute Council and is based on the candidate’s demonstrated ability to conduct autonomous analytic work with children and adolescents.