Development: Adolescence & Adult
Theodore Fallon, MD & Frances Martin, PhD
This course begins by reviewing the physical development and physiological changes as a backdrop for the psychological challenges that face the child as he/she matures from latency into an adult sized and adult equipped person. These challenges include what to do with the new equipment, increased and elaborated urges stimulated by changing hormonal balances, increasing independence and social demands. We then move on to different conceptualizations of normative adolescent psychological development. We evaluate these conceptualizations with clinical material either from the literature or brought in by students. The goal is to come away with a working conceptualization of adolescence informed by the literature.
The second section of the development course will explore the adult lifecycle. The normal lifecycle developmental issues and associated psychopathology will be considered from a variety of psychoanalytic perspectives. The challenges, possibilities, and limitations of adult development will be discussed, and the course will consider the theoretical and clinical value of the lifecycle perspective.
Depression
Ralph Fishkin, MD
This course will deal with clinical and theoretical aspects of the broad range of depressive states. It will consider the nature of depressive affect, the role of the superego, narcissistic injury, conflict, loss, separation, and early maternal deprivation. Issues of psychoanalytic treatment will also be discussed.
Psychoanalytic Process
Harvey Schwartz, MD
The Psychoanalytic Process is the bedrock of an analysts clinical work. It is what we look for in defining psychoanalysis, cure, graduation and certification. At the same time, it is an elusive concept. Inter-rater reliability in identifying it is weak, though the stridency of various proponents is strong. Candidates in this course will study and compare different authors' views of the psychoanalytic process and note how it relates to their theories of cure. Working from the literature and detailed process notes, candidates will demonstrate on a micro level our various understandings of the analytic process. This should enrich the sense of what we mean when we describe something as psychoanalytic and how we understand psychoanalytic cure.
Master Series
TBA
Advanced Courses
TBA
Relational Theory I
Barbara Zimmerman-Slovak, PhD
Although the Psychoanalytic Institute has a tradition of being grounded in classical psychoanalysis with an ego-psychological emphasis, in reality can be quite eclectic. Relational concepts have been embodied in all of the technique learned so far. The purpose of this course is to focus specifically on the relational approach: on its history and relationship to the ideas and approaches of other psychoanalytic schools. The course will tend to focus on the work of Steven Mitchell, an outstanding figure in the relational school, but will include works by most of the current leaders of relational thinking.
Ethics
Franklin Maleson, MD
This course addresses a variety of ethics issues. It includes discussion of sexual boundary violations, but also a wide variety of non-sexual issues with ethical dimensions, such as self-disclosure, handling of gifts, potential conflicts of interest, dual relationships, and confidentiality dilemmas. The course also addresses the complexities of reporting and adjudicating ethics complaints.
Adult Continuous Case Conference
TBA