one-year group experience

The Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies (CMPS) is a psychoanalytic training institute founded in 1971, chartered by the New York State Board of Regents and recognized by NY State as a licensure-qualifying institute. Modern Psychoanalysis rests on the theoretical framework and clinical approach of Sigmund Freud and the innovative techniques of Hyman Spotnitz and Phyllis Meadow, whose insights expanded the repertoire of available interventions. Its cornerstone is emotional communication, the practice of which allows for the loosening of repetitive and rigid patterns of thinking and behavior in both individual and group work. These interventions have proven to be particularly helpful to clinicians in social work agencies, drug and alcohol treatment facilities, and community mental health centers. Others who find psychoanalytic thought valuable are psychologists, psychiatrists, educators and guidance counselors, nurses, students of the arts, and those engaged in business.

We live in a society composed of groups—the family, the classroom, the workplace. This course of study introduces you to modern analytic concepts of group practice designed to increase your effectiveness as a group leader and to enhance your contribution to any working group. Group therapy, as in individual treatment, uses the concepts of transference and countertransference to resolve resistances to growing and functioning. We will formulate interventions specific to group treatment using here-and-now experiences and define the role of group members as adjuncts to the therapeutic process.

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COURSEWORK

Fall Semester

BEGINNING GROUP PROCESS

• Factors to be considered in forming/managing a group
• Selecting members and establishing a contract
• Using induced feelings to address treatment destructive
  behaviors

TRANSFERENCE & RESISTANCE IN GROUPS

• Working with multiple transferences
• Deciphering transference and resistance patterns
• Understanding the role of enactments/projective processes
• Utilizing and resolving treatment impasses

Spring Semester

COUNTERTRANSFERENCE IN GROUPS

• Distinguishing between narcissistic, subjective, objective
  and anaclitic countertransference
• Using induced feelings to craft interventions

SPECIAL ISSUES IN GROUP ANALYSIS

• Recognizing destructive patterns as expressions of resistance
• Understanding the effects of premature and planned
  terminations
• Introducing new group members

ONE YEAR GROUP EXPERIENCE CLASSES MEET TUESDAYS from 5:30 to 8:40pm with a ten minute break.

Fall semester: September 16 to December 9

Spring semester: February 3 to April 28

No classes held during weeks of Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur, and Thanksgiving.

Students progress through each program as a group.CMPS Certificate Faculty teach all courses • A certificate of completion is awarded at the end of each program. Fee for each program is $1000 per semester.

Participants are invited to CMPS events where they meet certificate students and faculty for an informal exchange of ideas.

Participants who choose both programs will observe the value of having clients in individual and group treatment simultaneously.

There will be $50 non-refundable application fee.