apptraining in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy                                                                   

Module descriptions and brief content

During each academic year the Training Committee reviews the content of modules in the light of feedback and of delivering the teaching. You will be informed of any changes. Please note the information provided below with regards to all the modules and brief content can be subject to change. 

Module 1: Internal Worlds (4 weekends)

This module explores the question of whether we are born a ‘blank slate’ and if not, what structures and processes there might be in the mind, the foundations of which were there from birth (or possibly before birth).  The aim is consider some classical and contemporary approaches to the formation of the psyche and by the end of the module students will have gained a critical understanding of the drive and relational models of the development of the mind.

Classical Theory                                                         Contemporary Theory

Weekend 1: Freud Instinct                                             Neuroscience (Solms et al)

Weekend 2: Jung complexes                                       Development of the mind (Geddo ..)

Weekend 3: Klein drives                                                Mentalisation (Fonagy)

Weekend 4: Winnicott/Fairbairn/Guntrip                  Relational Psychoanalysis

Module 2: Dreams (3 weekends)

This module explores the role that dreams have traditionally played in psychoanalysis (‘The royal road to the unconscious’, Freud) and links these ideas to more contemporary understandings and approaches. By the end of the module students will have gained a critical understanding of the role dreams play in our sleeping lives and how these ideas can be brought into the consulting room.

Classical Theory                                                    Contemporary Theory

Weekend 1 : Freud                                                        Meltzer/Colman

Weekend 2: Jung                                                          West/Ogden

Weekend 3: Dreams and psychosis                          Contemporary use of dreams

& Cultural aspects of dreams

Module 3: Working with particular presentations 1 (2 weekends)

The module (which is linked to module 6) explores those areas where adaption has to be made to ‘standard’ psychoanalytic technique because of the particular difficulties and presentation of the patient.  As well as exploring notions of diagnosis, importantly, they will also be critiqued. The aim is to help students who might have to work with patients who are in considerable emotional distress formulate their approach to their patient. The limitations and problematic applications of DSM will be considered and alternative models of assessing mental health will be considered (e.g. Open Door / Western Lapland / Arbours approaches).

Classical Theory                                                              Contemporary Theory

Weekend 1: Working with Borderline                             Contemporary NHS approaches to violence

Weekend 2: Assessment and Diagnosis                        DSM5/ICD11

& Assessment and Formulation

Module 4: Human Relationships (4 weekends)

This module examines and explores a range of ideas which place the relationships between people, including the psychotherapist and patient, at the heart of the work. It examines where these relationships can become difficult and how this might be understood psychoanalytically. By the end of this module students will have gained a critical understanding of the way people form and maintain relationships and the role the psychotherapist plays in relationship to the patient.

Classical Theory                                                           Contemporary Theory

Weekend 1: Attachment theory                                          Intersubjectivity

Weekend 2: Transference & Countertransference          Intersubjectivity

Weekend 3: Alchemic metaphor                                       Clinical aspects

Module 5: The making of the mind (3 weekends)

This module focuses on the process where infants move from a world dominated by emotions, to one where they begin to think and make sense of the world through thinking and recognising that others have relationships. By the end of this module students will have gained a critical understanding of models of the development of the mind and the relationship between thinking and feeling.

Classical Theory                                                           Contemporary Theory

Weekend 1: From emotion to thought                             The analytic couple

& Mirroring (Winnicott and Lacan)

Weekend 2: Styles of thinking                                           Myers Briggs

Weekend 3: Bion 1                                                               Mindfulness

Module 6: Working with particular presentations 2 (3 weekends)

This module (which is linked to module 3) explores those areas where adaption has to be made to ‘standard’ psychoanalytic technique because of the particular difficulties and presentation of the patient.  As well as exploring notions of diagnosis, importantly, they will also be critiqued. The aim is to help students who might have to work with patients who are in considerable emotional distress formulate their approach to their patient.

Classical Theory                                                           Contemporary Theory

Weekend 1: Borderline                                                        NHS Approaches (including MDT)

Weekend 2: Addictions & Psychosis                                 NHS Approaches

Weekend 3: Trauma & Dissociation                                   NHS Approaches

MODULES 7 & 8 THE EMERGING SELF: Self, Family and Society

Modules 7 and 8 examine the early processes involved in the emerging self when the infant may be thought of as shifting from one view, where the world should be organised to meet all their needs, to ones that recognises others as having needs and that they can form relationships which do not include the infant. Module 7 considers narcissism and other pathways the mind can take in response to life’s challenges. Module 8 highlights Freud’s important paper on narcissism and looks in more detail at major theorists on narcissism, moving on to consider Oedipal dynamics and triangular space, and finally social defence systems in groups and society. 

Module 7: THE EMERGING SELF and the features and difficulties of the emerging self (4 weekends)

Module 8: THE EMERGENT SELF: Narcissism and other difficulties – Self, Family and Society (3 weekends)

Module 9: WHEN THINGS ARE NOT IDEAL: Loss, Rupture, Repair and Growth (2 weekends)

This module opens with a detailed study of Freud’s paper ‘Mourning and Melancholia’. We will think about the growth that may emerge from even devastating experiences in life and how loss and rupture feature in the analytic relationship with the potential for growth for both analyst and analysand.

© AGIP 2018