Child Psychotherapy Program

The Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute offers a two year certificate course in child psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The distinctive organizing principle for the program is its focus on the process of child psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Providing appropriate, meaningful psychotherapy requires the highest level of assessment and treatment skills appropriate to the child and adolescent.

The academic year is divided into three ten week trimesters. There are two seminars each Monday evening (from 6:30 PM until 8:00 PM and from 8:05 until 9:35). The two seminars consist of a didactic seminar focusing on child psychotherapy and a clinical case seminar illustrating the principles involved in child psychotherapy. All seminars are held at the SPSI. The seminars and case conference provide a supportive environment in which to learn and grow as a therapist while allowing the student to form a peer group of potentially lifelong professional relationships.

It is recommended though not required that each participant in the program have weekly supervision on their psychotherapy cases. Times, locations and fees of supervision will be individually arranged. There is a list of faculty members who have agreed to see CPP students.

Countertransference pressures are typically intense in the conduct of child and adolescent psychotherapy and it is therefore strongly recommended but not required that each student in the program have concurrently with the program, a personal experience of psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis in order to increase the sensitivity of the student to the workings of the unconscious forces in themselves and begin to understand the forces within one’s self that might impede the psychotherapeutic process.

Curriculum

The three didactic courses taught in the first year of the Child Psychotherapy Program are as follows:

1. Introduction to Psychoanalytic Child Psychotherapy
2. Psychoanalytic Theories of Child Development I (0 to 7 years)
3. Psychoanalytic Theories of Child Development II (7 to 21 years)

In addition there is one clinical case seminar per each trimester. The three didactic courses taught in the second year of the Child Psychotherapy Program are as follows:

1. Prelatency- psychopathology, techniques, and developmental issues
2. Latency- psychopathology, techniques, and developmental issues
3. Adolescent- psychopathology, technique and developmental issues

In addition there is one clinical case seminar per each trimester.

Admissions

Individuals considering making application for child psychoanalytic psychotherapy training should consult with the chair of the Child Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Division, Catherine Henderson, Ph.D. regarding the admission procedure.

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