2-Year Program Timeline
Our two-year curriculum is organized into three 12-week blocks per academic year and 3 day-long weekend workshops per year totaling 72 weeks of weekly instruction and 6 weekend workshops during the 2-year program. Classes meet on a weekday evening from 6:15pm-9:00pm and our weekend workshops meet Sundays from 9am-3pm.
Classes start September 16, 2025
Applications close September 1, 2025
Approximate weekly time commitment:
Class time: Tuesdays 6:15-9:00pm
Reading: 2-3 hours/week
Consultation: 1 hour/week
YEAR ONE
BLOCK 1 - 12 weeks
– The Landscape of Psychoanalysis (12 weeks)
Review of Foundational, Post-War, Contemporary theorists
Foundational: Freud, Ferenczi, Abraham, Klein, Reich, and others
Post-war: Fairbairn, Winnicott, Bion, Fromm, Sullivan, and others
Contemporary: Ogden, Mitchell, Bollas, Loewald, and others
– Clinical Praxis, —What makes Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Different? (12 weeks)
Overview of frame, unconscious communication, privacy of mind, analytic listening, analytic waiting and reverie, analytic speaking, free association, safety-risk
– Weekend Workshop: Workshop 1
Objects and Object Relations
Nature of objects
BLOCK 2 - 12 weeks
– Psychoanalytic Concepts and their Application (12 weeks)
– Models of the Unconscious
Repression Models
Dissociative models
Splitting (psychosis)
– Clinical Praxis —Conceptualizing the Patient’s Internal World (12 weeks)
What is defended against: sex, aggression, shame, dependency, intimacy, merger, separation; transgression of familial and/or social norms
Holding environment, containment, empathy, identification, countertransference readiness, curiosity, etc.
– Weekend Workshop: Workshop 2
– Enactment
BLOCK 3 - 12 weeks
– Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies in Context (6 weeks)
Race and Racism
– Psychoanalytic Concepts and their Application (6 weeks)
Development
– Clinical Praxis —Focus on transference-countertransference matrix and obstacles and impasses (12 weeks)
– Weekend Workshop: Workshop 3
– Gender/Sexuality
The final design of the second-year curriculum will be responsive to, and shaped by, the feedback and needs defined by the participants at the end of the first year.
YEAR TWO
BLOCK 4 - 12 weeks
– Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies in Context (6 weeks)
Class and the Sociopolitical
– Psychoanalytic Concepts and their Application (6 weeks)
– Understanding the dynamic tensions of intra/interpersonal forces through different conceptual models:
Repression Models
– Clinical Praxis — Working within intra/interpersonal worlds through the lens of the model of repression. (12 weeks)
Holding environment, containment, empathy, identification, curiosity, revisited from within the field.
– Weekend Workshop: Workshop 4
– The Body (The Tethering of Bodies)
BLOCK 5 - 12 weeks
– Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies in Context (6 weeks)
Power and Powerlessness
– Psychoanalytic Concepts and their Application (6 weeks)
– Understanding the dynamic tensions of intra/interpersonal forces from different conceptual models:
Dissociative models
–Clinical Praxis — Working within intra/interpersonal worlds through the lens of dissociation (12 weeks)
Holding environment, containment, empathy, identification, curiosity, revisited from within the field.
– Weekend Workshop: Workshop 5
– Trauma
BLOCK 6 - 12 weeks
– Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies in Context (6 weeks)
Ethics and Being in the World
– Psychoanalytic Concepts and their Application (6 weeks)
– Understanding the dynamic tensions of intra/interpersonal forces from different conceptual models
Splitting (psychosis)
– Clinical Praxis — Working within intra/interpersonal worlds through the lens of psychotic splitting (12 weeks)
Holding environment, containment, empathy, identification, curiosity, while minding the splits
– Weekend Workshop: Workshop 6
– Group, Family
The two-year program will conclude with a graduation symposium in which each participant will offer a presentation designed to convey a central aspect of their own learning and professional development, affording all participants an occasion for reflection and celebration.
Continuing Education Credits: The Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
The Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Therapies values cultural and social diversity. Full participation in the educational activities of the Community is available to any qualified individual regardless of age, race, creed, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnic background.
Those interested to learn more about our program, please email us at inquiries@wpacommunity.org
Applications close September 1, 2025
Get In Touch
Reach us at – inquiries@wpacommunity.org