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Clinical Training in Child&Adolescent Psychotherapy:
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THE METROPOLITAN INSTITUTE
FOR TRAINING IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
Two courses are required each semester. Classes are held in the instructors'
private
offices on Mondays from 6:30 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. and from 8:30 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. Classes are small to allow for individual
attention.
First Year Fall
Introduction to Technique with Children and Adolescents
Psychoanalytic Theories of Development I
Advanced Technique with Children and Adolescents
Psychoanalytic Theories of Development II
Theory of Child Psychopathology
Technique with the More Disturbed Child
Theory of Adolescent Psychopathology
Technique with the More Disturbed Adolescent
Painting-"Strengthening the Immune System" by Ariyon Deborah Salt www.ariyon.com
The beginning of the course will be devoted to the cultural context of
psychoanalytic psychotherapy and will aim to sensitize clinicians to different
populations. The balance of the course will introduce several aspects of
child therapy with the purpose of imparting an overview of the issues required
to begin to treat children therapeutically. Topics include the child vs.
the adult patient, the function of play in children's lives and in treatment, assessment,
interpersonal/intrapsychic approaches to treatment, and work with parents. Students will present
assessments of their own cases toward the end of the semester.
This course offers an overview of the beginning psychological development of the human infant
from a psychoanalytic perspective. Early development will be considered
from the vantage point of psychosexual stages and of drive and ego
development in the oral and anal phases and from the standpoint of Attachment
Theory. The development of object relations and the emerging sense of self
will be addressed. The contributions from infant research will be covered.
Readings will include Freud,
Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, Spitz, Winnicott, Mahler, Pine, and Kohut. Students
will have the opportunity to think about clinical material from various
theoretical perspectives.
First Year Spring
This course will examine selected topics in child and adolescent therapy, such as working with
structured games, aggression, timidity, and children's requests for need gratification from the
therapist. Emphasis will be placed on understanding transference, countertransference, dreams,
and play as well as on finding answers to technical dilemmas. Exploration will proceed through
readings of clinical papers of classical and contemporary analysts in addition to students' presentation
of case material.
This course continues an exploration into the nature of Freud's basic stage theory of development
and its ramifications for normal and psychopathological character structure. There will be a strong
emphasis on the Oedipus complex as the nucleus of neurotic conflict. The
writings of Freud, as well as the writings of more contemporary theorists will
be studied. This will include reading and discussion of gender and
sexuality, including contemporary theories of femininity, female sexuality and
homosexual and lesbian perspectives.
Second Year Fall
Theories of pathology in the pre-Oedipal through latency phases will be examined in the context of
development, with reference to drive, object relations, and ego development. Beginning with principles
of assessment, clinical entities will be studied in terms of manifest symptoms, latent meaning and structure.
Students will have the opportunity to present clinical vignettes to illustrate the assessment process and aspects
of pathology. Readings will include Anna Freud, Bornstein, Pine, Winnicott, and others.
This course starts with the assessment and diagnosis of the pathology of childhood and then considers the
therapeutic action of play and techniques of child therapy with more disturbed children. Technical interventions
that we use with all children, i.e. clarification, interpretation, and working through, are explored along with
modifications of technique that are necessary with some children. Clinical examples are used to illustrate the
principles under consideration. The treatment of specific disorders and levels of personality organization that
are covered include: character pathology, ego deficits, borderline, narcissistic and psychotic states,
and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
Second Year Spring
Adolescence is a developmental phase with discriminable subphases. Urgent tasks, functions and specific
conflicts with typical "normal" and psychopathological resolutions can be identified as the
phase unfolds. The theoretical contributions of A. Freud, Mahler, and Blos (and others) will provide a
context for the study of adolescence and such issues as sexual identity and identity formation, the ego-ideal
and moral systems, "object removal," normality and pathology in this apparently structurally fluid stage.
Implications for treatment with expectable transference and countertransference structures, treatment
alliance and use of the therapist as a "new" object will be
amplified by using clinical material and/or related readings.
This course focuses on theories, principles and strategies of technique especially as they arise
from phase-specific issues and conflicts in the adolescent. Difficulties in diagnosing and treating the
adolescent who is concrete, narcissistically removed, and/or borderline or psychotic will be addressed.
The issues of identity and character will be examined from the perspectives of intrapsychic dynamics
(related to drive and defense) and as object related solutions to unconscious familial necessities.
Modifications of standard techniques, the inclusion of psychiatric and other team members and the
involvement of family members will be considered as part of the therapist’s repertoire. Selected
adolescent constellations such as anorexia/bulimia, the addictions, depressions, and sexual and social
dysfunction will be studied according to the needs of the students and to the cases available to them.