Child/Adolescent Analysis

Child and Adolescent Analytic Training

Candidates and graduates of approved psychoanalytic institutes who wish to specialize in the psychoanalysis of children and adolescents may enter the Institute’s Child/Adolescent Program.

Formal training in child psychiatry or child psychology is desirable but not required. In some cases, applicants may be advised to gain additional experience with children through an approved local training program.

Candidates may apply for child and adolescent analytic training after the first trimester of their first year in the adult program.

Curriculum

Advanced Child/Adolescent Clinical Conference

Advanced candidates who have completed the basic adult curriculum examine clinical issues arising from psychoanalytic work with children and adolescents. Topics are selected collaboratively by participants and instructors. Relevant literature supports close study of moment-to-moment interactions in treatment.

Requirement: A current child or adolescent case in analysis.

Psychopathology of Childhood

This course considers the development of childhood neurosis and other psychiatric conditions, including childhood psychosis, psychosomatic disorders, learning disorders, school phobias, and enuresis. It emphasizes understanding these conditions and making differential diagnoses.

Literature of Child and Adolescent Analysis

Participants explore current child and adolescent psychoanalytic literature organized around selected clinical and theoretical topics.

Theory and Technique of Child and Adolescent Analysis

This course examines psychoanalytic principles and theories as applied to clinical work with children. It considers the analytic process, techniques that support it, and factors that may interfere with its development.

Understanding theories of object relations, maturation and development, and conflict-based structural formation is a prerequisite. Participants must have a child in analysis before beginning the seminar.

Clinical Training

Child and adolescent analytic training combines theoretical study with supervised clinical work. The program emphasizes developmental understanding, age-appropriate adaptations of psychoanalytic technique, and careful examination of interactions among the child or adolescent, analyst, and family environment.