The practice of psychotherapy is a rewarding, but very demanding, occupation. Our patients continually challenge ways of thinking and practicing, which provides endless opportunities for growth and development, but can also leave the practitioner feeling unsure how best to work with the people who have turned to him or her for help. In some cases the work can feel isolating.
The NPI one-year psychodynamic psychotherapy program and the one-year advanced concepts in psychoanalytic psychotherapy aim to help psychotherapists:
The curriculum is designed to integrate multiple perspectives about classical and contemporary theories of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Didactic seminars in theory and technique and one clinical conference are conducted weekly, on Fridays, throughout three academic trimesters per year.
Didactic Seminars: Didactic seminars explore models of the mind, technique of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and technical and theoretical aspects of working psychoanalytically.
Theory: Theoretical seminars focus on models of the mind from Freud to the current day, in which intrapsychic processes that shape behavior and symptoms are correlated with biological, psychological and cultural-social factors as well as, affect regulation, developmental theories, dreams and primitive mental states.
Technique: Technique seminars focus on essential elements of the clinical encounter, engagement, frame and boundaries, transference, countertransference, enactment, and thinking psychoanalytically.
Clinical Experience & Supervision: Psychoanalytic Case Presentation gives participants the opportunity to apply their course work to their own cases in small group presentations to senior NPI faculty members and graduate analysts. Participants are also required to meet with a member of the institute for eight weeks each trimester for individual supervision.