The Curriculum

The curriculum of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute conforms to the standards of the American Psychoanalytic Association for training physicians and other mental health professionals in psychoanalysis. Instructors provide written evaluations of candidates, combining qualitative commentary with ratings of Outstanding, Satisfactory, Marginal, or Unsatisfactory.

Classes meet on Wednesdays from 2:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. for 30 weeks during the academic year. Unless otherwise indicated, classes are held at the Center offices at 4545 42nd Street NW, Suite 209, Washington, DC 20016.

First Year

Candidates beginning first-year courses are expected to have progressed satisfactorily in personal psychoanalysis with an Institute training analyst. If no first-year class is offered, individual candidates take tutorials arranged by the Curriculum Committee. Otherwise, the curriculum includes the following courses and a colloquium.

Psychoanalytic Technique

Introduction to Conducting an Analysis — Weeks 1–10, ten sessions

This segment reviews the initiation of psychoanalysis, from assessment through the beginning of treatment. Topics include suitability, effectiveness, similarities and differences between psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and the establishment of an appropriate treatment frame. The frame encompasses the physical setting, fees, analyst and patient roles, and other boundary issues. Candidates share clinical material from their evaluation and treatment work.

Transference and Countertransference — Weeks 11–20, nine sessions

The course examines the development and therapeutic management of transference and countertransference. Candidates contribute illustrative material from their psychoanalytic work, supplemented by presentations of early-phase cases.

The Analyst’s Experience — Weeks 21–30, ten sessions

This segment considers the analyst’s internal experience and its influence on the psychoanalytic process. Topics include how both participants understand that experience, the analyst’s listening perspective, the use of interpretation, neutrality, and abstinence. Candidates share written clinical vignettes. The segment also includes presentations of mid-phase analytic work and a concluding review of the year.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Topographic and Drive Theory in Freud — Weeks 1–7, seven sessions

This section examines Freud’s early theoretical and technical formulations through his writings and published lectures. Candidates develop working knowledge of concepts including psychical trauma, affect, unconscious mental states, cathexis, resistance, repression, conflict, ego, neurotic symptoms, dream interpretation, condensation, displacement, anxiety, symptomatic actions, libido, erotogenic zones, fantasy, the nuclear complex, reaction formation, latency, sublimation, component instincts, and the dynamic model.

Structural Theory in Freud — Weeks 8–15, seven sessions

This section explores Freud’s transition from topographic to structural theory, the clinical observations that contributed to that transition, and structural theory’s importance to theories of affect and the development of ego psychology.

Human Development and Pathological Formations

Introduction to Development from a Psychoanalytic Perspective — Weeks 1–10, ten sessions

This course begins a sequence integrating normal development with pathological formations. It surveys psychoanalytic perspectives on development during the first three years of life.

Developmental Perspectives on Infancy and the Early Years — Weeks 11–20, nine sessions

This sequence surveys normal and pathological psychological development during the first three years, moving from early classical theory to contemporary perspectives on pre-Oedipal development.

Later Toddlerhood, the Oedipus Complex, and Gender Identity — Weeks 21–30, ten sessions

This sequence examines developmental achievements and problems associated with the Oedipus complex. It considers related developmental and intrapsychic issues, including sexual object choice, sexual expression, and sexual identity in children and adults.

Continuous Adult Case Conference

Weeks 16–30, fourteen sessions

The conference focuses on the psychoanalytic process, emphasizing how developmental concepts inform analysts’ interventions and appear in patients’ associations and case formulations.

Second Year

Psychoanalytic Technique

Therapeutic Action — Weeks 1–10, ten sessions

This course explores what is therapeutic about psychoanalysis and how treatment works. Following a brief historical overview, candidates consider several contemporary theoretical perspectives. The course connects theories of therapeutic action with the analyst’s task, role, technique, treatment boundaries, and ethical responsibilities.

The Unconscious — Weeks 11–20, ten sessions

This course concentrates on the unconscious, particularly unconscious fantasy as revealed in dreams, slips of the tongue, free association, and enactments. It reviews how Freud and practitioners from different theoretical traditions have identified and worked with unconscious material in clinical sessions, with particular attention to technique and candidates’ clinical practice.

The Role of the Analyst — Weeks 21–30, ten sessions

Patients experience analysts as having various attributes, some determined by transference and others grounded in external reality. This course examines the roles analysts occupy during treatment and how those roles are experienced and understood by both patient and analyst.

Human Development and Pathological Formations

Development II — Weeks 1–19, nineteen sessions

The study of human development provides a framework for understanding psychosexual and psychosocial experience across the life cycle. Building on first-year study of infancy through the Oedipal phase, this course examines early latency, middle latency, preadolescence, and early, middle, and late adolescence.

Continuous Case Conferences

• Weeks 1–10: Child
• Weeks 11–20: Adolescence
• Weeks 21–30: Adult

Each class selects adult and child cases for presentation, with an emphasis on countertransference as a source of interpretation and analytic intervention. The conferences examine the analyst’s mind at work and the many factors affecting clinical responses. Child and adolescent conferences also address adaptations in technique required by a patient’s age and developmental level, including their relevance to work with adults.

Writing

The writing sequence helps candidates demonstrate psychoanalytic thinking in their case reports. The ability to represent psychoanalytic process in writing is required for the graduation case report and for certification by the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Preparing a 20-page, double-spaced report from extensive process notes and supervision requires candidates to select, organize, and clearly present clinical material. Beginning in the second year, the curriculum therefore includes an annual trimester writing course in preparation for the fifth-year case report.

Writing Course — Weeks 21–30, nine sessions

The first course introduces a method for translating the complexity of a clinical hour into concise paragraphs that demonstrate psychoanalytic process. It also identifies stylistic obstacles to clarity and explores thematic structures for organizing clinical material. Candidates take turns preparing accounts of two consecutive psychoanalytic hours for reading and discussion in class.

Third Year

The third-year curriculum was under review and had not yet been posted on this page.

Fourth Year

The fourth-year curriculum was under review and had not yet been posted on this page.

Advanced Curriculum: Fifth and Subsequent Years

Advanced candidates have a course commitment of less than half that required during years one through four. They complete either two trimester courses or one semester course. At least one selection must be an advanced clinical course or clinical study group. Candidates are strongly encouraged to conduct self-assessment and choose courses annually in consultation with a faculty adviser.

One advanced candidate presents and discusses an ongoing analytic case for the Fellowship Program in Psychoanalysis, whose participants are mental health professionals and students seeking an introduction to psychoanalytic thought and treatment. An Institute faculty member facilitates the presentation. The seminar demonstrates how material develops during analysis, how analysts observe and think about what they encounter, and how they formulate interpretations and decide whether and when to offer them.

Fifth-Year Comprehensive Seminar

Tutorial only; required for fifth-year candidates.

The seminar assists candidates in writing the final 20-page case report demonstrating their integration of psychoanalytic theory and acquisition of psychoanalytic technique.

Joint Institute Adult Clinical Case Conference

Fifteen sessions

This continuous case conference for advanced candidates and graduates is offered jointly with the Baltimore-Washington Institute. Classes are held at the Baltimore-Washington Center for Psychoanalysis, 14900 Sweitzer Lane, Suite 102, Laurel, Maryland.

Study Groups and Tutorials

With approval from faculty advisers and in consultation with the Curriculum Committee, advanced candidates may replace formal courses with special projects undertaken in groups of two or more. Topics may concern clinical, theoretical, or applied psychoanalysis. An individual candidate may also arrange a ten-session tutorial with a faculty member to satisfy one trimester-course requirement.

Study groups and tutorials must be organized before March 1 of the preceding academic year.