Analytic Training
ASPP is the psychoanalytic society associated with the Postgraduate Training Programs in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy at the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY. We’d like to share some information about Psychoanalytic training in general, as well as some specifics about our associated training programs.
“A life immersed in a psychoanalytic world view
is a wonderfully beautiful place to reside”
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- A Postgraduate Faculty Member
Why pursue postgraduate training in Psychoanalysis?
Many graduates are exhausted and in deep financial debt by the time they graduate with a mental health degree. They are eager to get out to the field to work, earn a livable income, and finally “have a life”. They ask themselves: “Why spend more time and more money on education if it’s not absolutely necessary”?, but they soon realize that their clinical training in graduate school was not enough. Many jobs require skilled clinicians. New hires are immediately required to carry a large caseload of difficult to treat patients and the support and guidance that they received during their education is no longer available. Furthermore, the patient that sits in their office, more often than not, does not present with a perfectly organized and neatly identified diagnosis. Very soon graduates find themselves confused and overwhelmed.
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Postgraduate training in psychotherapy concentrates on enhancing one’s clinical work. There are no exams. Learning is gained through reading clinically relevant material, class discussions and supervision of clinical work. Training provides extended support and guidance to usher you into becoming a mature, astute and confident clinician.
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Our Programs
Our Postgraduate Programs are among the very few university-based programs in the US. Our programs have been ranked fourth in the world for psychology–psychoanalysis. Click here to see the rankings.
We are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education, as described here. The Postgraduate training programs help clinicians enhance their skills in providing meaningful psychotherapy to different age groups and develop efficacy in helping patients change.
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What we offer
We offer 9 certificate programs in different treatment modalities – individual, couples, group, and school- based - for mental health professionals and one License Qualifying Program for professionals with a graduate or professional degree in a non-mental health profession who wish to become psychotherapists or to use a psychoanalytic lens within their own field of study. For more information about our training programs, click here.
Our programs have faculty, supervisors and directors who support our candidates and consider them an integral part of our vibrant community. Beyond the requirements of the certificate programs, candidates may attend case narrative writing workshops, intake seminars, serve on the Postgraduate executive board and attend conferences, such as Division 39, with members of our community.
Why chose a psychoanalytically informed training program?
Our approach to training in psychotherapy is guided by the psychodynamic understanding that human behaviors, emotions, and thoughts, are influenced by unconscious processes. To create change we must access these unconscious processes and become familiar with what drives our decisions, choices and reactions. If our motivations are better known to us, we can begin to make more informed conscious choices that will lead us to greater happiness and a more satisfying life. Clinicians who go through our training become very skilled in facilitating these growth promoting processes.
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-To read an interview in which the director of The Postgraduate Programs shares her thoughts about the value of Postgraduate training, please click here.
-If you are considering Postgraduate Training, and would like to learn more, please email us at society@adelphiASPP.org, and we will put you in touch with one of the directors of our programs.
