Curriculum: Psychoanalytic Studies Program and Psychoanalytic Training—Years 1 and 2

First Year

The first-year curriculum consists of three year-long tracks: theory, treatment technique, and a complementary seminar focused on close observation or foundational psychoanalytic texts. Classes examine concepts relevant to both psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Theory Track

Students explore major psychoanalytic perspectives, including the work of Freud and traditions associated with ego psychology, Klein, Winnicott, Kohut, and relational psychoanalysis.

• Playing with the unconscious
• Early relationships
• Major schools of psychoanalytic thought
• Language, symbol, and meaning
• Thinking and working psychoanalytically

Treatment Track

This track introduces ideas central to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy while considering how those ideas are applied differently in each form of treatment.

• The therapeutic frame, professional role, clinical task, and boundaries
• Assessment and the opening phase of treatment
• Transference and countertransference
• Therapeutic action across psychoanalytic approaches
• The relationship between theory and clinical intervention

Complementary Study

Students deepen their capacity for careful attention through sustained engagement with psychoanalytic writing or close observation of early relationships. The work supports reflection on development, subjective experience, and the process of forming clinical interpretations.

Second Year

The second year builds on the conceptual and clinical foundations established during the first year. Coursework develops students’ ability to compare theoretical perspectives, understand unconscious processes, and apply psychoanalytic thinking to clinical material.

Advanced Theory and Technique

• Unconscious fantasy and other expressions of unconscious mental life
• Dreams, free association, slips, enactments, and symbolic communication
• Conflict, motivation, defenses, and psychological development
• Contemporary approaches to therapeutic action
• Clinical uses of interpretation and attention to the therapeutic relationship

Case Conferences

Ongoing case discussions connect theory with clinical practice. Students examine how an analyst or therapist listens, develops formulations, recognizes transference and countertransference, and decides whether and when to intervene. Instructors may select readings in response to issues emerging from the clinical material.

Integration

Across both years, the curriculum is designed to cultivate psychoanalytic listening, self-reflection, and the ability to understand clinical situations from multiple theoretical perspectives. For students continuing toward clinical psychoanalytic qualification, these two years provide the foundation for subsequent training.