The Washington Psychoanalytic Institute: Curriculum

The first two years of psychoanalytic training are completed with all participants in the Psychoanalytic Studies Program. The curriculum for years three through five is currently being developed.

First Year

The first year has three year-long tracks: Theory, Treatment, and a choice between the Infant/Mother Observation Seminar and the Reading Freud Seminar.

Each class is 75 minutes long. Tuesday evening classes meet from 4:00–5:15 PM, 5:30–6:45 PM, and 7:15–8:30 PM.

1. Theory Track

The theory track draws from models including Freud, Ego Psychology, Klein, Winnicott, Kohut, and relational psychoanalysis. Each section comprises six sessions.

• The Dynamic Unconscious
• Motivations
• The Mind in Conflict
• Early Relationships
• Language, Symbol and Meaning

2. Treatment Track

This track introduces ideas central to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, including how those ideas are applied differently in the two therapies. Clinical examples are drawn from both forms of treatment. Each section contains ten sessions.

• Role, Task and Boundary: The structure of the therapeutic situation, conduct of the first session, and boundary issues.
• Transference and Countertransference: Modern ego-psychological and modern Kleinian perspectives.
• Therapeutic Action: The intended means of influence in modern ego-psychological, Kleinian, self-psychological, and American relational, interpersonal, and intersubjective approaches.

3. Third Track

Students choose one of two 30-session options. A student interested in both may complete one in each year of the program.

Infant/Mother Observation Seminar

The seminar is designed to enhance awareness and understanding of human development and interaction across cultures and ethnic groups. Close observation and reflection help strengthen emotional and intellectual receptivity and the capacity for clinical work.

Observers examine how relationships develop, how people become part of one another’s worlds, and how infantile patterns may persist later in life. The experience also helps students understand their own reactions in a setting where they are not expected to produce psychic change, contributing to an understanding of countertransference.

Each student observes a mother and infant in their home for one hour per week, writes an account, and presents observations to a small weekly group approximately once a month.

The seminar’s goals are to:

• Develop observational, reflective, and therapeutic skills.
• Understand communication in the therapeutic process.
• Complement the foundation for psychoanalytic thinking.

Reading Freud

This full-year course surveys Freud’s work chronologically through selections from major writings. Its three trimesters cover Discovery, 1895–1910; The Years of Maturity, 1911–1920; and New Perspectives, 1920–1939.

The course is inspired by Jean-Michel Quinodoz’s Geneva course and his book Reading Freud. Short lectures and discussions connect Freud’s ideas with clinical practice and other fields of knowledge while considering relevant biography, history, and contemporaneous thinkers.

Students trace concepts including the Oedipus complex, the unconscious, transference, artistic and literary creation, narcissism, femininity, masochism, and conflict between the life and death drives. The course also considers how Freud’s work anticipated later psychoanalytic developments and where the field has moved beyond him.

Second Year

The second year has three tracks: Case Conferences, Theory Conference, and Electives. The class schedule is the same as in the first year.

Case Conferences

On alternating weeks, students attend a conference on psychoanalytic psychotherapy and a conference on psychoanalysis. A class member presents the psychotherapy case, preferably a twice-weekly treatment, while a faculty member presents the psychoanalysis case. The conferences have different teachers, and the Theory Conference instructor attends both during their teaching period.

Theory Conference

Following each week’s clinical discussion, the instructor selects literature addressing an issue raised by the case material. The readings are chosen within 24 hours and are customarily available through PEP-Web, an online library provided to students. This conference connects theory directly with practice.

Elective Choices

Electives are developed using faculty experience and student input from the first year. If enrollment permits, multiple electives may be offered simultaneously. Faculty and students determine the length of each elective.

Supervision

Supervision continues under the same arrangement as in the first year.