David M. Castro, Ph.D., LCSW
Director of Licensure Qualifying Program (LQP)
LQP Foundational Year Course Schedule and Curriculum
• Trimester 1
*Fundamentals: The Initial Analytic Interaction, Psychiatric Assessment, and Case Formulation—(10 weeks, 60 minutes each class)
*History of Psychoanalysis: Diversity, Modification, and Controversy—(10 weeks, 60 minutes each class)
*Research in Psychoanalysis: Outcome, Process, and Study of Psychic Representations—(10 weeks, 90 minutes each class)
• Trimester 2
*Clinical Foundations/ Case Seminar I: Classical and Contemporary Freudian Approaches and Ego Psychological Perspectives—(10 weeks, 90 minutes each class)
*Clinical Foundations/ Case Seminar II: Object Relations, Self Psychology, Relational, and Interpersonal Perspectives—(10 weeks, 90 minutes each class)
–*Mini Course—Psychopharmacology (one weekend, 3 hours total)
• Trimester 3
*Psychoanalytic and Psychiatric Diagnosis: Convergence and Divergence (10 weeks, 60 minutes each class)
*Psychoanalytic Ethics—(10 weeks, 90 minutes each class)
–*Mini Course—Understanding and Treating Substance Abuse in Private Practice Settings (one weekend, 3 hours total)
Trimester 1
1. Fundamentals: The Initial Analytic Interaction, Psychoanalytic Case Formulation, and Psychiatric Assessment
This course will introduce candidates to the initial psychoanalytic encounter, emphasizing what makes the first psychoanalytic encounter different than other orientations to practice. Candidates will gain an understanding of and appreciation for factors that set the foundations for psychoanalytic treatment and for psychoanalytic methods of evaluation and assessment. They will also gain a beginning understanding of how to transition from the initial contact to continued analytic work. Issues of the importance of role of the frame will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on relational as well as interpersonal dimensions of the initial encounter. Candidates will also learn fundamental tenets of evaluating for suicidal ideation as well as other important risk factors. The balancing of careful and detailed psychiatric assessment and the establishment of a decidedly psychoanalytic framework will be highlighted throughout. Issues of ethnic, racial, and gender diversity and how these elements are integrated into the initial encounter/assessment will be emphasized throughout the course.
2. History of Psychoanalysis: Diversity, Modification, and Controversy
This course explores the historical and conceptual foundations for the development of psychoanalysis as a body of knowledge about the mind and as well as dimensions of clinical practice. Links will be made between important moments in the development of the field (including central points of dissidence and controversy) and changes in psychoanalytic technique. Seminal points of disagreement in schools of thought and clinical and cultural implications will be considered. Emphasis will be placed on the impact of the relational movement in psychoanalysis and the development of the interpersonal perspective. The history of developments across countries will be addressed. Candidates will also study the development of these ideas in the context of issues of gender, class, race, and ethnicity throughout the course..
3. Research in Psychoanalysis: Epistemological Questions: Study of Outcome, Process, Interdisciplinarity
The research course will focus on epistemological questions in psychoanalysis, asking how we produce knowledge in psychoanalysis, how we come to know what we believe we know, and the assumptions embedded within the methods we use to investigate our work as analysts. In considering these crucial questions, the course will examine varieties of evidence that researchers in psychoanalysis have utilized to help us understand the intricacies of psychoanalytic work and how we attempt to study these intricacies. One aspect that candidates will study is ways that evidence can help indicate if change has occurred as well as how that change has occurred. The rich tradition of research in psychoanalysis will be closely examined. These include different research methodologies utilized in psychoanalysis that include single case studies as well as empirical research (both outcome research and different varieties of process research). Aspects of symbolization and desymbolization, the referential process, the differentiation scale and reflective functioning scale, studies in annihilation anxiety, the empirical evaluation of the concept of working through, International Work from the IPA Committee on Clinical Observation, empirical infant research as it relates to work with adults, and critical studies on neuroscience and affect regulation will be taken up. In addition, the impact of research from other fields outside psychoanalysis (cultural studies, philosophy, gender studies, literary studies) will be considered. The utility and immediate application of all these diverse methods of research will be examined in terms of the direct impact research has on clinical work.
Trimester 2
4. Clinical Foundations/ Case Seminar I: Classical Freudian, Contemporary Freudian, and Ego Psychological Perspectives
This course will explore core clinical ideas and how they are formulated and applied by classical Freudian thought, conflict theory, the tradition of ego psychology, and developments in modern Freudian perspectives. The class will address the ways that such themes/issues as the frame, the analytic stance, the analytic relationship, therapeutic change, transference and countertransference, and interpretation are conceptualized and handled within these ways of thinking and working. The course will begin with the classical model and move on to map theory along the lines of the ego psychological model, beginning with the influence of Freud’s structural model, moving to a sustained study of the role of defenses embedded within the central contributions of Anna Freud and other seminal figures. The latter part of the course will move on to a study of modern/contemporary Freudian points of view, illustrating the movement from ego psychology to contemporary conflict theory and the way object relations has influenced modern Freudian perspectives. Throughout the course, theory will be linked to clinical practice and candidates will apply the theories they learn to the clinical setting through case studies that will help to illuminate the theory in practice. Issues of ethnic, racial, and gender diversity will be emphasized throughout the course.
5. Clinical Foundations/Case Seminar II: Object Relations, Self-Psychology, Relational, and Interpersonal Perspectives
The course will explore core clinical ideas and how they are formulated and applied by interpersonal psychoanalysis, object relations, developments in self-psychology, and the contemporary relational turn. The class will address the ways that such themes/issues as the frame, the analytic stance, the analytic relationship, therapeutic change, transference and countertransference, and interpretation are conceptualized and handled within these schools of thought. Issues of the centrality of the analytic relationship, the alliance, authenticity, mutuality, culture, use of self, intersubjectivity, and self-disclosure will be addressed. Central features of the different schools of thought will be studied, comparing and contrasting ideas with the other schools. Discussion of the way these theories and orientations to practice conceptualize object relations will be compared and contrasted with contemporary Freudian approaches. Throughout the course, theory will be linked to clinical practice and candidates will apply the theories they learn to the clinical setting through case studies that will help to illuminate the theory in practice. Issues of ethnic, racial, and gender diversity will be emphasized throughout the course.
6.Mini Course—Psychopharmacology
This mini course will introduce candidates to the major classes of pharmacological agents used in the treatment of mental health conditions. The course will explore the intersection of psychopharmacology and psychoanalysis in complex cases.
Trimester 3
7. Psychoanalytic and Psychiatric Diagnosis: Convergence and Divergence
The diagnosis course will help candidates understand the distinct differences between DSM descriptive based diagnosis and the rich tradition of psychoanalytic diagnosis that entails a consideration of psychic structure. Candidates will learn the historical and conceptual foundations of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as well as the rationale for the criteria of the major diagnostic categories in the DSM-5. The complicated history of psychoanalysis and psychiatry manifested in the changes that took place in the different editions of the DSM will be explored. Candidates will also engage in an in-depth study of psychoanalytic dimensions of personality stemming from the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual and will learn the central tenets and dimensions of Kernberg’s outline of psychic structure, focusing on the borderline personality organization. Aspects of the impact of ethnic, cultural, and gender differences on the process of diagnosis will be emphasized throughout the course.
8. Psychoanalytic Ethics
The ethics course will involve study of codes of ethics in the field of psychoanalysis (prescriptive ethics) as well as questions about ethics in the context of the role we take up at every point in the consultation room (e.g., ethics as it intersects with technique). Students will learn the Psychoanalytic Code of Ethics and its nuances as well as a consideration for the way that moral questions arise at every point in the treatment. Case examples will be provided. The way in which ethics intersects with considerations of diversity will be emphasized throughout the course.
9. Mini Course—Understanding and Treating Substance Abuse in Private Practice Settings
This mini course of three hours duration will introduce candidates to central elements of drug and alcohol use, abuse, and dependence. Candidates will learn the various major classes of drugs and characteristics associated with each of the substances, biological and behavioral features, and types of interventions. In particular, candidates will gain an understanding of how to assess for substance use issues in a private practice setting.
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