Instructor: TBA To introduce first-year Postdoctoral students to the wide range of theoretical and clinical orientations that constitute the world of contemporary psychoanalysis. This course will serve as an introduction to the diverse perspectives that are taught in the NYU Postdoctoral Program by exposing students to the key ideas and concepts, the historical development, and the clinical approach of each of the major orientations or schools. Ethical considerations relevant to psychoanalytic practice will be emphasized.
This course is designed to be taken concomitant with any other course in the Postdoctoral Program or as an independent study project. It serves as an opportunity to write about a particular topic or question either emerging within another course taken at the same time as this course, or as an independent writing project. It is unique to the program as it offers six classes in which candidates are able to compare and contrast their writing over time and with each other.
This course reviews the present state of psychoanalytic thinking on the supervisory process with major emphases on the supervisory process in a climate of theoretical diversity and heterogeneity and the supervisory process as a triadic system with multiple interactions as the focus. Readings and clinical presentations by students are utilized to illustrate the main issues being studied.
G89.4580 The History and Development of Psychoanalysis Focusing on Specific Contributors: Selected Topics
As in the humanities, and unlike some sciences, psychoanalysis must be studied historically. Whatever one’s current point of view, a well-educated analyst must have a solid understanding of Freud’s contributions and texts as well as those of other significant contributors. Often the contributions of seminal psychoanalytic writers must also be studied in conjunction with their school of thought. This course teaches students the theory and practice of psychoanalysis through a study of notable individuals’ contributions, developmentally and historically, as well as by studying the historical development of specific schools of thought. In various semesters or in different sections this course will focus on one contributor or tradition.
G89.4581 Clinical Case Seminars—The Psychoanalytic Relationship: Selected Topics
Case seminars and careful, detailed monitoring of psychoanalytic process over time are among the hallmarks of clinical psychoanalytic education. This course encourages students to present their own clinical work in detail over time working with feedback from other students and with the guidance of faculty. Depending on the semester or section the focus may be on treatment from a particular theoretical slant or on specific aspects of the treatment.
Clinical Seminar in Psychoanalytic Process Instructor: Bromberg
G89.4582 Clinical Treatment of Specific Disorders: Selected Topics
The psychotherapist and psychoanalyst must learn to tailor the treatment to the needs of the individual patient. One factor in individualizing treatment is to take into account diagnostic considerations and various dimensions of psychopathology. This course introduces students to current, sophisticated thinking about how psychoanalysis works with various styles of personality and forms of pathology. Each semester or section will focus on a different category or personality style taught from one or more theoretical perspectives.
G89.4583 The Study and Clinical Use of Dreams: Selected Topics
The origins of psychoanalysis go back to Freud’s study of his own and his patients’ dreams and to his first major work, The Interpretation of Dreams. This course introduces students to current theories of dreaming, empirical research on dreaming, and clinical work with dreams. Each semester or section will focus on a specific aspect of dreams, such as methodology for dream interpretation or comparative study of dream theories.
Contemporary psychoanalysis is diverse and pluralistic, some might even say fragmented into various schools and theories. This course examines psychoanalytic theories and clinical practices using a model of “comparative psychoanalysis.” Theories and practices are examined historically, compared along the lines of theoretical and clinical issues, and compared for their implications in the treatment situation. Readings and course discussions add complexity and depth to the student’s sense of the contributions and limitations of each model for clinical practice.
G89.4585 Psychoanalytic Theory and Technique: Selected Topics
This course focuses on the intricate and complex relationship between theory and clinical technique. How do we understand the psychoanalytic method? What are the technical implications of diverse theories? What is the relationship between theory and technique and when can theory aid or interfere in treatment? Each semester or section will examine a specific theory and its application in depth and detail.
G89.4586 Cultural, Political & Spiritual Issues: Selected Topics
Psychoanalysis has been understood by some as a form of social ideology, influencing discourse around power, gender, race and class. From this point of view, psychoanalysis itself can be critiqued as constructing and constraining such discourses. In addition, psychoanalysis is viewed as part of the larger mental health system, with all its social welfare and social control functions. But psychoanalysis can also function in service of social critique, as when it offers understandings of socio-economic-political structures that are concealed in the surface of ordinary discourses. These include the workings of power and privilege and how these are distributed along lines of race, social class, culture, gender, and sexual orientation. Each semester or section of this course will focus on various political, spiritual, and cultural issues.
Historically, aspects of psychoanalysis were rooted in 19th century cultural assumptions about sexuality and gender. Feminist critiques of those assumptions, both within the field and from psychoanalytic outsiders, have led to dramatic changes in psychoanalytic theory and practice. This course links the psychic and the social in the construction of gender and sexuality. Each semester or section will examine one aspect of this constellation in depth, focusing variously on gender, sexuality, feminism, and/or queer theory.
Advanced Seminar on Sexuality in Relational Perspective Instructor: Dimen
G89.4588 Developmental and Life Span Issues: Selected Topics
The genetic and epigenetic (developmental) points of view have long been important to psychoanalysis. Classical theory began with a focus on the development of sexuality and the psychosexual stages, but soon analysts were studying the development of the sense of reality and a variety of developmental lines. This course examines various developmental perspectives in psychoanalysis, sometimes by observing young children and at other times retrospectively through the reconstruction of earlier life experience in adults. Some semesters and sections focus on infant research, some on later developmental phases, some on the clinical implications of developmental theory, and some on very specific developmental factors such as early loss or the family context.
G89.4589 Infancy and Psychoanalysis: Selected Topics
The past several decades have seen an explosion of research on infancy, and the findings of infancy research have had a significant impact on psychoanalytic theory and practice. Psychoanalytic theory has itself influenced infancy research and infancy research has influenced psychoanalysis. Second-by-second analysis of face-to-face interactions between parent and infant have led to monumental changes in how we understand bodily and affect regulation as well as the early origins of relatedness and patterns of communication that continue to operate through the lifetime. Each semester or section of this course will explore recent developments in infancy research focusing on methodological considerations, theoretical and/or clinical implications.
