Northern Rockies Psychoanalytic Institute

Training Requirements
for Psychoanalysts
and 
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists

(Non-certificate programs are currently being developed and interested parties may email the Executive Director for more information on these programs.)

Study at NRPI is structured according to the traditional psychoanalytic tripartite model of coursework, supervision, and training analysis. Students may take up to three courses for credit before applying for candidacy. In order to receive credit for study beyond three courses, a student must have applied for and been granted candidacy to either the psychoanalyst or the psychoanalytic psychotherapist program. 

Curriculum

For the most part, courses will focus on the work of certain key theorists or, more broadly, explore the psychoanalytic schools of thought which their work inspired. The only exceptions are the following offerings: 1) an overview of and introduction to psychoanalysis; 2) transference/countertransference courses; 3) a study of psychopathology which will attend to the traditional underlying structures of the symptom and character neuroses, the perversions, and the psychoses. Psychoanalytic candidates must take a total of 20 courses to graduate with the certificate in psychoanalysis. All candidates must take the introduction to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy candidates must take a total of 12 courses to graduate with the certificate in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic candidates must take two courses in transference-countertransference-resistance, four courses in Freud, at least one in Klein, one in object-relations, one in Lacan, one in the intersubjectivists/relationalists, one in ego psychology and self psychology, one in Modern Psychoanalysis, and one in Jungian psychology, plus three psychopathology courses.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy candidates must take one course in transference-countertransference-resistance, two courses in Freud, one in Klein, one on Lacan, one in object-relations, one in Modern Psychoanalysis, and one in Jungian psychology, plus two psychopathology courses. 

Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Introduces students to the basic concepts of psychoanalysis, such as: the aims of psychoanalysis; psychoanalysis as both a form of psychotherapy and an intellectual discipline; the unconscious; defense and resistance; the repetition compulsion; the dreamwork; transference and countertransference; psychopathology from a psychoanalytic perspective; termination, and others. Additionally, a brief overview of the major psychoanalytic schools of thought will be presented, with attention given to so-called one-person and two-person psychologies (not seen as necessarily and mutually exclusive).

Transference, Countertransference, and Resistance
Key related concepts from various psychoanalytic schools of thought will be explored, as evidenced and experienced in the consulting room, in everyday life, and in the classroom. 

The Symptom and Character Neuroses
Hysteria and obsessional neuroses (and phobias) are studied both as classical “symptom” neuroses as well as later “character” neuroses. Freudian theory and Lacanian elaborations of it are utilized as starting points, en route to contemporary reflections. Attention will also be given to prevailing cultural politics that have all but obliterated awareness among psychotherapists of the persistence, and utility, of such traditional diagnostic categories, even though contemporary thought provides emendations of the early thinking in this area. It is our contention at NRPI that many DSM diagnoses such as ADHD, social anxiety disorder, various depressions, some – not all - forms of OCD, some diagnoses of bipolar disorder and borderline personality must be understood as derivatives of the neuroses. 

The Perversions and the Personality Disorders

The Psychoses

Freudian Theory
The student is introduced to Freud’s major contributions. While there have been many advances in psychoanalysis since Freud, NRPI holds that a psychoanalyst must still have a working knowledge of his work. Repression and other defenses, the dreamwork, unconscious life, the repetition compulsion, compromise formation and the pleasure, reality, and constancy principles, psychosexual theory and the Oedipus complex, the topographic and structural theories are only a few of Freud’s quintessential concepts to be studied.

Kleinian Theory
The work of Melanie Klein, like that of Freud, is studied at NRPI as a foundational theory of all psychoanalysis. Klein’s many contributions - including projective identification, splitting of the self and the object, introjection and introjective identification, the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions - are studied and shown to enrich Freudian theory.

Lacanian Theory
At least in the U.S., the work of Jacques Lacan has enjoyed its greatest favor in university circles. At NRPI, we take Lacan’s work to have enriched Freud’s own, as well as that of contemporaries like Klein. The mirror stage, the imaginary, symbolic, and real orders, the object cause of desire, the sinthome, jouissance, and the Borromean knot, as well as quintessential Lacanian notions like “traversing the symptom” are all examples of concepts addressed in this course.

Object Relations
Key concepts such as the holding environment, holding vs. interpretation, transitional objects and transitional space, beta and alpha elements and functioning, bizarre objects, and transformation are among the key concepts addressed. 

The American Relational Theorists
Dating back to Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal teaching, Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) reviewed the history of object relations in psychoanalysis, setting the stage for the development of relational theory in the United States. Contributors whose work since this volume was published will be featured, including Greenberg, Aron, Mitchell, Ehrenberg, Harris, Bromberg and the constructivist thinking of Gill and Hoffman as well as others. 

The Contributions of Relational Theory, Self Psychology and the Intersubjectivists
This course will compare and contrast the work of contemporary American Relational theorists with the principles of Self Psychology as developed by Heinz Kohut. Out of this mix has emerged the Intersubjectivity emphasis, as described in the work of Stolorow, Orange and Atwood, as well as aspects of Thomas Ogden's writings. How do these approaches differ from Freudian thinking? What unique additions or amendations to technique arise from the differences?

Ego Psychology

Contributions of the Modern Psychoanalytic School
Highlights the role of aggression in the development of schizophrenia and focusing on the crucial role of the emotional environment in the treatment. Addresses the curative value of emotional communication, and provides a range of non-interpretive interventions based on the transference/countertransference matrix.

Jungian Theory
Surveys Jung's model of the psyche and its dynamics in order to identify the distinctive characteristics of Jungian analysis. The concepts examined will include: persona, shadow, anima/animus, Self, typology, the compensatory actions of the unconscious, the role of symbolism, archetypes, and the process of individuation in personality differentiation.

The Jungian Method of Work with Symbolic Material
Concentrates on dream analysis, but also discusses active imagination, and the potentially healing effects of creative activity.

Training Analysis

The frequency of the training/personal analysis and related per-session fee will be determined together by the candidate/analysand and the training analyst, according to clinical and practical considerations. All fees for the analysis are to be paid directly to the training analyst. 

The training analysis for the psychoanalyst will require a minimum of 500 hours of personal analysis. The training analysis for the psychoanalytic psychotherapist will require a minimum of 300 hours. 

Supervision

Psychoanalytic candidates are expected to participate in a minimum of four semesters of Practice seminar / group supervision, psychoanalytic psychotherapy candidates in a minimum of two semesters. Each semester’s group will meet fifteen times, for an hour and a half session each meeting. Subsequently, psychoanalytic psychotherapy candidates will receive 75 hours of individual supervision, while psychoanalytic candidates will receive 100 hours of individual supervision plus an additional 50 hours of control analysis, i.e., the supervision of a single active case for 50 successive supervisory sessions.