Psychoanalysis Training Course

Lesson 1 • History and Origins of Psychoanalysis

Traces psychoanalysis from Breuer's cathartic method through Freud's systematic theory. Grounds students in the intellectual lineage shaping modern analytic thought.

Lesson 2 • Topographic and Structural Models

Contrasts Freud's first model of conscious/preconscious/unconscious with the id/ego/superego structural model. Students understand why the structural model superseded the topographic one.

Lesson 3 • Anxiety, Conflict, and Symptom Formation

Explains how intrapsychic conflict generates anxiety and how symptoms represent compromise formations. Connects theoretical constructs directly to observable clinical phenomena.

Lesson 4 • Psychosexual Development

Covers oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages and their developmental significance. Links developmental arrest and fixation to adult character and symptom formation.

Lesson 1 • The Unconscious in Clinical Practice

Examines evidence for unconscious mental activity through parapraxes, dreams, and symptoms. Establishes the unconscious as a clinically observable, not merely theoretical, construct.

Lesson 2 • Classification of Defense Mechanisms

Surveys defenses from primitive to mature levels using Anna Freud's and later hierarchical frameworks. Students categorize defenses by developmental level and adaptive function.

Lesson 3 • Projective and Introjective Processes

Examines projection, introjection, and projective identification as interpersonal and intrapsychic mechanisms. Prepares students to recognize these defenses in the therapeutic relationship.

Lesson 4 • Repression and Its Derivatives

Focuses on repression as the foundational defense and its relationship to related mechanisms. Clarifies how derivative defenses extend and reinforce primary repression.

Lesson 1 • Bowlby's Attachment Theory

Examines secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment patterns and their developmental origins. Bridges psychoanalytic and empirical developmental research for clinical application.

Lesson 2 • Fairbairn's Structural Model

Presents Fairbairn's revision of Freudian structure around libidinal ego and internal saboteur. Highlights the shift from drive satisfaction to object-seeking as primary motivation.

Lesson 3 • Kleinian Object Relations

Introduces Klein's paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions and part-object versus whole-object relating. Establishes the Kleinian contribution as a major theoretical alternative to drive theory.

Lesson 4 • Integrating Object Relations Frameworks

Compares and synthesizes Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Bowlby into a coherent clinical perspective. Students develop a personal theoretical integration applicable to diverse patient presentations.

Lesson 1 • Intersubjective Systems Theory

Presents Stolorow and Atwood's view of mind as constituted within intersubjective fields. Shifts focus from intrapsychic to co-created relational experience in the analytic dyad.

Lesson 2 • Narcissistic Disorders in Self Psychology

Applies selfobject theory to narcissistic personality organization and its clinical manifestations. Students distinguish self-psychological formulations from classical drive-based interpretations.

Lesson 3 • Relational Psychoanalysis

Covers Mitchell's relational model integrating drive, object, and self dimensions within a two-person framework. Examines how mutual influence shapes analytic process and outcome.

Lesson 4 • Empathy as Analytic Instrument

Defines empathy as vicarious introspection and examines its role in data gathering and intervention. Distinguishes empathic attunement from sympathy and from countertransference reactions.

Lesson 1 • Enactments and Mutual Influence

Defines enactment as jointly created behavioral expressions of transference-countertransference dynamics. Students learn to recognize, contain, and analyze enactments productively.

Lesson 2 • Classical Transference Theory

Defines transference as displacement of past object relationships onto the analyst. Traces the evolution from obstacle to primary vehicle of therapeutic action.

Lesson 3 • Countertransference: From Obstacle to Tool

Traces countertransference from Freud's warning to Heimann's and Racker's positive revaluation. Students distinguish subjective from objective countertransference and use both clinically.

Lesson 4 • Contemporary Transference Perspectives

Examines totalistic, intersubjective, and relational revisions of transference theory. Students evaluate competing models and their technical implications.

Lesson 1 • Dream Analysis in Clinical Practice

Applies Freud's dream theory and contemporary revisions to clinical dream work. Students use manifest and latent content, day residue, and associations to interpret dreams.

Lesson 2 • Establishing and Maintaining the Analytic Frame

Defines the frame as the stable set of conditions enabling analytic work and examines its functions. Students understand how frame violations signal and communicate unconscious material.

Lesson 3 • Working Alliance and Therapeutic Relationship

Examines the real relationship, working alliance, and their interaction with transference. Students balance alliance-building with analytic neutrality and abstinence.

Lesson 4 • Termination: Process and Criteria

Covers criteria for readiness to terminate, the termination process, and post-termination considerations. Students manage termination as a distinct analytic phase with its own transference dynamics.

Lesson 5 • Interpretation, Clarification, and Confrontation

Distinguishes the three primary verbal interventions and specifies their appropriate clinical uses. Students construct well-timed, mutative interpretations grounded in session material.

Lesson 1 • Narcissistic and Antisocial Pathology

Differentiates narcissistic personality disorder from antisocial and malignant narcissism using structural analysis. Students assess prognosis and treatability across the narcissistic spectrum.

Lesson 2 • Psychoanalytic Diagnostic Thinking

Contrasts psychoanalytic character diagnosis with descriptive categorical systems. Students formulate cases using structural, developmental, and relational dimensions.

Lesson 3 • Borderline Personality Organization

Applies Kernberg's structural criteria to identify and formulate borderline personality organization. Students distinguish borderline from neurotic and psychotic levels using identity, defenses, and reality testing.

Lesson 4 • Neurotic-Level Presentations

Examines obsessional, hysterical, phobic, and depressive neurotic character structures. Students identify core conflicts, defenses, and developmental origins in neurotic presentations.

Lesson 1 • Working with Specific Populations

Adapts psychoanalytic technique for adolescents, older adults, and patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. Students modify frame and technique without abandoning core analytic principles.

Lesson 2 • Managing Difficult Clinical Situations

Addresses suicidality, self-harm, acting out, and treatment impasses from an analytic perspective. Students develop analytic responses that maintain the frame while managing clinical risk.

Lesson 3 • Comprehensive Psychodynamic Case Formulation

Synthesizes developmental history, structural diagnosis, core conflicts, and relational patterns into a unified formulation. Students use formulations to generate testable hypotheses guiding ongoing treatment.

Lesson 4 • Personal Analysis and Analyst Development

Addresses the role of the analyst's own analysis in professional development and self-knowledge. Students articulate how personal analytic work informs clinical effectiveness and ethical practice.