An Introduction to Psychoanalytic Child Psychotherapy: An Overview of Infancy, Latency and Adolescence from an Object Relations Perspective

The Psychoanalytic Center of California offers advanced training for mental health clinicians in the theory and practice of child psychoanalytic psychotherapy.  This clinically oriented course introduces highlights of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy with infants, children, adolescents and their families. Readings are selected to provide an Object Relations psychoanalytic perspective.

Special features of this program are as follows:
•     One-Year Introductory Certificate Course for mental health clinicians working with children
•     An Object Relations Synthesis of Prenatal, Infancy, Latency and Adolescent Life
•     Integration with Infant Research and Neurobiology
•     Introduction to Psychoanalytic Clinical Treatment from Infants to Adolescents
•     Working with Parents
•     Combined Didactic and Case-Based Seminars
•     Begins October of Each Year


COURSE OBJECTIVES
PCC’s year-long intensive child psychotherapy course provides a perspective on the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and the nature of human development. The course introduces psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic theory and technique for working with infants, children and adolescents from an Object Relations Model. 

PCC’s unique approach:
•    Gives attention to major developmental phases from prenatal life through adolescence
•    Elaborates specific states of mind that accompany each developmental phase
•    Builds on the work of Klein, Bion, Winnicott, Tustin, Meltzer and others
•    Includes readings from the London Tavistock Clinical Series
•    Is a window into central theoretical and clinical components of PCC’s training programs
•    Correlates theory with clinical application in all seminars.


COURSE STRUCTURE
This introductory course on child development and clinical treatment integrates theoretical conceptualization and clinical application in each two-hour seminar. The course focuses on essential and unfolding elements of the psychotherapeutic encounter with parents and their children from pregnancy, infancy, and childhood through adolescence. 

The course is structured as follows:
•    Two-hour seminars conducted over three trimesters
•    Begins in October and ends in June
•    Students present case material from their clinical work for discussion
•    Each Student is Assigned a PCC Faculty Mentor


OVERVIEW OF COURSE MATERIAL
A succinct and comprehensive overview of human emotional development unfolds over PCC’s intensive year-long child psychotherapy program. 

Highlights of course material include:
•    Possible meanings of pre-birth experience
•    The nature and significance of the mother/father/infant relationship
•    States of mind characteristic of young child, latency and adolescent mentality


COURSE SCHEDULE
Seminar Classes meet for two hours on Wednesday evenings in the PCC Conference Room or an otherwise specified location ten weeks per trimester.  

Course offerings are as follows:

FALL COURSES
Discovering Infantile Mental Life
•    Pre-birth Experiences
Nature and Significance of the Mother/Infant Relationship
Considerations about Early Development
•    Early Affect Regulation
•    Developmental Disorders
Launching the Treatment
•    Assessment
•    Fundamental Needs
The Growth of Mental Structures
•    Unconscious Phantasy
•    Early Oedipus Complex and Super-ego Formation

WINTER COURSES
Diagnostic Evaluation of the Child
•    Neuroses in children
•    Psychotic illness in early childhood
The Psychotherapeutic Setting
•    The playroom
•    Issues of play technique
•    Communication and Interpretation in work with young children
Gathering the Transference
•    Working with children who cannot talk or play
•    Technique of working with latency age children
•    Issues of emotionality and learning disorders

SPRING COURSES
Issues of Puberty and Adolescence
•    Problems of unresolved mother/infant relationship
•    Problems of unresolved Oedipal issues
The Assessment of Adolescence
•    adolescent states of mind
Eating disorders and other psychopathologies
The adolescent at risk
•    Gang mentality and delinquency
Issues of ending therapy
Impact of these states of mind on psychosexual development from puberty to adulthood


CERTIFICATE
Students are awarded Certificates of Completion at the year-end Graduation Ceremony held in June.


TUITION
•    $50 non-refundable application fee
•    $425 per trimester
•    $50 one time Administration fee
•    Total cost for one year is $1375 (application fee included), paid as follows:
•    $525 due before commencement of classes
•    $425 due at beginning of second and third trimesters


ELIGIBILITY
Applications are accepted from all mental health professionals with a valid California license (L.C.S.W., M.D., M.F.T., Ph.D., Psy.D., R.N.), and have authorization to work under a person holding a valid California license or are working within or under the auspices of a state approved mental health facility.

APPLICATION PROCESS
•    Submit Application Form with $50 non-refundable application fee
•    Two Interviews with members of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program Faculty
•    Concurrent personal psychoanalytic psychotherapy is recommended but not required
•    Applications due by August 15
•    Late Application Fee is $100
•    No Applications accepted after September 1
•    Download Application form below or email request to PCC at psychcntr.pcc@verizon.net


NON-DISCRIMINATION STATEMENT
The Psychoanalytic Center of California admits students of any race, color, gender, sexual orientation, national and ethnic origin to all rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded to or made available to students at the Center. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and other school-administered programs.

CLICK HERE FOR DOWNLOADABLE CHILD PPP BROCHURE 

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