CINCINNATI PSYCHOANALYTIC INSTITUTE

THE ANALYTIC TRAINING PROGRAMS

Thank you for your interest in our programs. Please click on the links below to learn more about the excellent range of training modules offered by Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute: 

GENERAL INFORMATION

Continuing Education Credit

The Institute applies annually to provide for continuing education credits for

Physicians: The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to sponsor continuing education for physicians. The American Psychoanalytic Association designates these continuing medical education activities on an hour per hour basis in Category I of the Physician’s Recognition Award of the American Medical Association.

Psychologists: CPI is approved by the Ohio Psychological Association as a provider of mandatory continuing education (MCE) credits on a one credit per contact hour basis.

Social Workers and Counselors: CPI is approved by the State of Ohio Counselor and Social Worker Board as a provider of continuing education credits for counselors and social workers on a one credit per contact hour basis. The Ohio Board of Nursing accepts credits earned in courses approved for social workers and counselors.

Certificates of Participation: To earn continuing education credits, students must sign an attendance sheet at each session they attend. Certificates indicating the number of credits earned are mailed at the end of the semester or conclusion of a course.  

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TRAINING PHILOSOPHY

Psychoanalysis is a unique undertaking of the study of human psychology and behavior. Generally, it is seen as having at least three dimensions: first, it is a method of exploring the mind and how the mind works. Secondly, it is an integrated and often intriguing body of knowledge about why humans do what they do. This body of knowledge can be applied to and inform many other disciplines and sciences. Thirdly, but not least, psychoanalysis is a well-founded modality of treatment and remains the treatment of choice for many emotional difficulties.

Psychoanalysis has evolved and is still evolving from its origins in Sigmund Freud’s early major discoveries. Training at CPI emphasizes the development of psychoanalysis as a science, albeit a relatively new one with many unanswered questions. Nevertheless, it recognizes that there are essentials in technique and theory that help hone a candidate’s developing sense of analytic process and its unfolding in daily clinical encounters. It is through this foundation in the basic constructs of psychoanalysis that a candidate can grasp the “new” in the earliest contributions to the field as well as the “old” in the most current psychoanalytic thinking.

In this way, candidates appreciate the continuity of the discipline in the very midst of change. This is the perspective that allows candidates to comprehend most fully how psychoanalysis has grown to contain many paradigms that conflict with each other, complement each other, and reshape each other. Though there can certainly be some confusion in this state of flux, there is also an elegance and an excitement about the various directions analytic thinking is taking as it moves into its second century. Despite some constrictions in psychoanalytic practice and some current misconceptions about psychoanalysis, now is a stimulating and wonderful time to be an analyst.  Indeed, it is a privilege to do this work.

Perhaps what defines psychoanalysts in the most basic way is their conviction about the aliveness and centrality of the analytic process, however their differing views on technique and theory shape how they come to talk about that process. The teaching of psychoanalysis repeatedly returns to this experiential fulcrum point.  In this way and in others, the Institute strives to help candidates develop their own styles and psychoanalytic perspectives while maintaining a regard and intellectual curiosity about other perspectives that operate within the larger psychoanalytic framework.

It also seems self-evident that the ideal psychoanalytic education would include meaningful exposure to clinical experiences across the full range of the life cycle from infancy to senescence.  A seamless analytic attitude towards people of all ages enhances and informs the analytic attitude towards a person of a particular age.  In this way the mutual influences of adult and child analysis are synergistic and yield a better understanding of analytic process than either enterprise standing alone.

The Experience of Being a Candidate

Committing oneself to the arduous task of becoming a psychoanalyst at the turn of the twenty-first century is not easy.  While many individuals in the mental health world agree with us that psychoanalysis provides a unique contribution to understanding human nature and treating emotional illnesses, there are others, reflecting the quick-fix, cost efficient influences on our culture and marketplace, who would disagree.  Choosing to be a candidate today is reminiscent of the passion shown by pioneers in our field. One of our current candidates words it this way:   

"Being a psychoanalytic candidate is not about choosing a career.  It's about choosing a life...my experience as a candidate has been an amalgam of blood, sweat and itching.  The itching is about always scratching below the surface...I pursue this kind of labor because the passion for it is simply and totally a part of who I am...Living a candidate's life is a peculiar cross between work and play...each week we gather at the Institute to clear out the cobwebs, open the blinds, and blow a fresh breeze through our minds. We feed each other's visions and dreams with new perspectives and ideas, and occasionally with bagels and cream cheese -- small, but not simple pleasures."   (Celeste Sinton, MD)

The Candidate and the Larger Institute Community

Candidates are junior partners in the academic and cultural life of our Institute.  Our philosophy is inclusive rather than exclusive. Candidates interact with faculty during joint workshops, and attend faculty seminars such as the Faculty Forum.  Candidates listen to faculty's clinical work with the same respect and curiosity as faculty listens to candidate's clinical work.  Candidates participate in faculty committee work (curriculum, admissions, library, and program leaders, e.g.); devise their own courses to offer to the community in the Extension Division; receive small grants for research.  Candidates, certainly during the initial years of training, are also analysands.  Thus the joint and sometimes contradictory tasks of preserving the boundaries of each personal analysis while simultaneously creating an open academic atmosphere is a struggle which we all share. 

The Institute encourages and recognizes the value of our Candidate Organization, which brings together candidates from all years of training to support each other and focus on common goals.  The Organization also participates on a national level in the Affiliate Council of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

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THE TRAINING PROGRAM

CPI’s core purpose is to teach the theory, technique, and practice of psychoanalysis. First and foremost, our intent is to prepare candidates to skillfully use psychoanalysis as a unique treatment for emotional difficulties. However, by the very nature and vantage point of analytic thinking, candidates inevitably will enhance their abilities to work in a variety of other treatment approaches.  A tripartite model of psychoanalytic training is viewed as vital to the complex process of fully learning psychoanalysis. To achieve this model the training program includes concurrently a personal training analysis, a required curriculum of study, and supervised treatment of psychoanalytic patients.    

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PERSONAL TRAINING ANALYSIS

The candidate’s training analysis is conducted by an analyst approved as a training analyst by the Institute and by the American Psychoanalytic Association. CPI is a “non-reporting” Institute, meaning that the training analyst does not report to the Institute concerning the candidate’s progress in any way other than affirming the beginning and ending dates of the analysis and the total number of analytic sessions. The “educational” aim of the preparatory analysis is to free candidates from attitudes which could interfere with their psychoanalytic competence as well as to provide a firsthand experience of the dynamic unconscious, resistances, transference, and the working through process.

Candidates are expected to maintain a schedule of at least four analytic sessions weekly throughout the training analysis. Obviously, the duration of the analysis is an individual matter, though for optimal educational benefit, the candidate’s analysis should extend well into the middle phase work of at least one of his/her supervised cases.