Year 1: 30 didactic classes; 6 process groups; 2 workshops
Intro Series (4-5 classes)
09.16.25 Personal descriptions of analytic sensibility All faculty encouraged to come
09.23.25 The framing of psychoanalytic therapy Sharon Bernstein
Ethics and Sensibilities : and so we begin
Syllabus
Readings:
1. Mc Williams, Nancy. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Practitioner’s Guide, The Guilford Press , New York 2004 Chapters 1 and 2
2. Smith, Kevin R, Therapeutic Aims and Human Flourishing
09.30.25 The Framing of Psychoanalytic Therapy George Herrity
Syllabus
Readings:
Required:
McWilliams, N. (2004). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioner's guide. Guilford Press.
- Chapters 3: The Therapist’s Preparation pp. 46 – 72.
-Chapter 4: Preparing the Client pp. 73 – 98.
Optional:
Briggs, S., Netuveli, G., Gould, N., Gkaravella, A., Gluckman, N. S., Kangogyere, P., & Lindner, R. (2019). The effectiveness of psychoanalytic/psychodynamic psychotherapy for reducing suicide attempts and self-harm: systematic review and meta-analysis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 214(6), 320-328.
Shedler, J. (2020). Where is the evidence for “evidence-based” therapy? 1. Outcome research and the future of psychoanalysis, 44-56.
Tarzian, M., Ndrio, M., & Fakoya, A. O. (2023). An introduction and brief overview of psychoanalysis. Cureus, 15(9).
10.07.25 The framing of psychoanalytic therapy Kevin Smith
Readings:
Required Readings:
McWilliams, N. (2004). Psychoanalytic therapy: A practitioner’s guide. Chapters 5 & 6. Guilford Press.
Smith, Kevin R. (2025). Three aspects of therapeutic practice. (Handout for this class.)
Supplemental readings (not required):
10.14.25 Introduction to Situatedness Patricia Donohue
Required Readings (3):
Supplemental Materials (3):
Q1. Blending of How is the Human Mind Structured with What Motivates us and how do these motivations contribute to development
10.21.25 Process Group Landaiche
10.28.25 Freud Bill Cornell
Freud’s Theory of Mind: The Centrality of Repression and the Development of Unconscious and Conscious Mental Processes
References/Readings:
3. Freud, S. (1915). Repression. The Standard Edition, Vol. 14, 141-158.
Supplemental articles:
11.04.25 Freud Bill Cornell
Evolution of American Ego Psychology from Freud’s Original Concepts
References/Readings :
1. Loewald, H.W. (1950). Ego and reality. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 32: 10-18.
Supplemental articles:
11.11.25 Freud Bill Cornell
Contemporary revisions of the nature of the unconscious and the functions of repression
Syllabus
Required Readings:
Supplemental articles:
11.18.25 Kleinian model of the mind Loren Sobel
Klein’s Becoming: The Kleinian World. Part 1
Video:
Klein, Melanie, and West Lodge. “Melanie Klein’s Technique Then and Now,” Melanie Klein Trust. 2016
You can watch this video at the following link, the pdf of the recording is provided: https://vimeo.com/174515650
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
11.25.25 Kleinian model of the mind Loren Sobel
Klein’s Becoming: The Kleinian World. Part 2
Syllabus
Video:
Introduction to Melanie Klein: Paranoid-Schizoid and Depressive Position- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnT8o1DF0VE
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
12.02.25 Process Group Landaiche
12.09.25 Kleinian model of the mind Loren Sobel
Klein’s Becoming: The Kleinian World. Part 2
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
12.16.25 Winnicott & Models of the Mind Miriam DeRiso
Mind and its Relation to the Psycho-Soma
Required Readings:
Supplemental Readings:
Seligman, S. (2025) Holding and Containing: “The Metaphor of the Baby” in Winnicott, Bion and Klein. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, (35)(1), 46-54.
Ogden, T. (2013) Chapter 2 The Mother, the Infant and the Matrix: Interpretations of Aspects of the Work of Donald Winnicott. New Library of Psychoanalysis, (78): 46-72.
Ogden, T. (2018) The feeling of real: On Winnicott’s “Communicating and Not Communicating Leading to a Study of Certain Opposites”. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, (99)(6): 1288-1304.
Peltz, R. (2019) Tyler in the Labyrinth: A Young Child’s Journey from Chaos to Coherence. Psychoanalytic Dialogues,(29) (5): 627-631.
Little, M. (1985) Winnicott Working in Areas Where Psychotic Anxieties Predominate: A Personal Record. Free Associations: Psychoanalysis Groups Politics, Culture, 1D3: 9-42.
01.13.26 Winnicott & Models of the Mind Miriam DeRiso
Required Readings:
Supplemental Readings:
01.18.26 Workshop 1 - Immigrant Fears (WPA Community) Miriam DeRiso & Patricia Donohue 10am-4pm
Required Media/Readings:
Film: Green Border/Zielona granica (2023) directed by Agnieszka Holland (2 hours, 27 minutes, streaming on Apple TV, Amazon, Kanopy). Be advised that the film includes realistic depictions of violence, trauma and death.
As you watch the film, be attentive to the cultural/political situatedness of different social groups (refugees, townspeople and guards, activists) and the ways people in fear move towards recognition, relationship, care and reparation.
Tummala-Narra, P. (2020). The fear of immigrants. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 37(1), 50. [12 pages]
Supplemental Readings:
Ahmed, S. (2004). The affective politics of fear. The cultural politics of emotion, 62-81.
Eng, D. L. (2016). Colonial object relations. Social Text, 34(1), 1-19.
01.20.26 Winnicott & Models of the Mind Miriam DeRiso
Required Readings:
Smith, K. Winnicott on Development (summary)
Supplemental Readings:
McKay, R. (2019) Bread and Roses: Empathy and Recognition, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, (29)(1): 75-91.
Interview with Agnieszka Holland
01.27.26 Waddel and the baby: tying Freud, Klein, Winnicott (Bion too but that will not yet have been covered) Sharon Bernstein & Adam Haglund
Inside the Lives of Others
Required Readings:
Inside Lives Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the Personality; Revised edition, 2002 H. Karnac Ltd. London, Introduction and Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 pps 1-27
Inside Lives Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the Personality; Revised edition, 2002 H. Karnac Ltd. London, Chapters 3 and 4 pps 29-59
Supplemental Readings:
Director, Lisa. Revisiting the Psychoanalytic Object: Introduction. Psychoanalytic Dialogues. 28:1-11
Elkins, J. (2017) Revisiting Destruction in “ The Use of an Object”, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 86: 109-148
Ogden, T. (2018) The feeling of real: On Winnicott’s “Communicating and Not Communicating Leading to a Study of Certain Opposites”. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, (99)(6) 1288-1304.
02.03.26 Process Group Landaiche
02.10.26 Waddel and the baby: tying Freud, Klein, Winnicott (Bion too but that will not yet have been covered) Sharon Bernstein & Adam Haglund
More on Getting Inside the Lives of Others: Projection and Learning
Media: (if you did not get to watch)
Everybody Rides the Carousel…1976—animated film of Erikson’s stages of psychological development. Directed John Hubley and written and produced by Faith Hubley….available on You Tube.
Required Readings:
Inside Lives Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the Personality; Revised edition, 2002 H.Karnac Ltd. London, Appendix 253-257.
Inside Lives Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the Personality; Revised edition, 2002 H Karnac Ltd, London, Chapters 5 and 6 and 7 pps 61-122.
Supplemental Readings:
02.17.26 Waddel and the baby: tying Freud, Klein, Winnicott (Bion too but that will not yet have been covered) Sharon Bernstein & Adam Haglund
Inside the Lives of Others: Focus on Introjection
Media:
Media: (if you did not get to watch)
Everybody Rides the Carousel…1976—animated film of Erikson’s stages of psychological development. Directed John Hubley and written and produced by Faith Hubley….available on You Tube.
Required Readings:
Goldin, Daniel & Posner, Daniel S, The Original of Shame in Early Life: Psychoanalytic Inquiry: (2024) 44:3 234-244.
02.24.26 Let Us Hold What We Have Learned: A Chance to Review Sharon Bernstein, George Herrity, and Kevin Smith
Readings:
(Not required)Elkins, J. (2017) Revisiting Destruction in “The Use of the Object’, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 86, 109-148
03.03.26 Neuropsychoanalysis (structure of mind, motivations and development) Noah Rahm
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
Denis, P. (2016). The Drive revisited: mastery and satisfaction. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 97:759-784.
Koivikko, T. (2017) Drives and objects - notes on the change of drive theory. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 40:19-28.
03.10.26 Neuropsychoanalysis (structure of mind, motivations and development) Noah Rahm
Repression as Isolation in Psychic Conflict
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
Boag, S. (2020) Reflective Awareness, Repression, and the Cognitive Unconscious. Psychoanalytic Psychology 37:18-27
Busch, F.N. (2017). A Model for Integrating Actual Neurotic or Unrepresented States and Symbolized Aspects of Intrapsychic Conflict. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 86, 75-108.
03.17.26 Process group Landaiche
03.24.26 Dissociative model (Interpersonalists and Relationalists: Ferenczi, Sullivan, Levenson, Stern, Bromber, Davies etc.) George Herrity and Michael Mervosh
The Dissociative Model in Psychoanalysis
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
03.31.26 Dissociative model (Interpersonalists and Relationalists: Ferenczi, Sullivan, Levenson, Stern, Bromber, Davies etc.) Mike Mervosh and/or George Herrity
The Dissociative Model in Psychoanalysis Part 2
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
04.07.26 Dissociative model (Interpersonalists and Relationalists: Ferenczi, Sullivan, Levenson, Stern, Bromber, Davies etc.) Mike Mervosh and/or George Herrity
The Dissociative Model in Psychoanalysis - Linking Dissociative States & Trauma
Required Reading:
Optional Readings:
04.14.26 Attachment Theory Kevin Smith and Laure Swearingen
Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis
Required Reading:
Smith, K. R. Handout on attachment classifications (1 page)
Eliza-Christie, A. Handout: What is analytic listening? (1 page)
Optional Readings:
04.21.26 Attachment Theory Kevin Smith and Jay Wiggin
Attachment and the Development of Mentalization
Required Reading:
Smith, K. R. Mentalization Theory—An Outline. (7 pages)
Optional Readings:
04.28.26 Process group Landaiche
05.05.26 Attachment Theory Kevin Smith
Shared Intentionality (And its Dissociative Disruption)
Required Reading:
Tomasello, Michael. (2019) Becoming Human: A theory of Ontogeny. Keynote address at The Association for Psychological Science. Watch on YouTube: (This talk is a valuable guide to these topics, in particular because it includes video clips of children and chimps engaging in similar activities in such a way that you can see the differences between their forms of interaction with others.)
Smith, K. R. (2026). Shared Intentionality Theory—A Brief Introduction.
Optional Readings:
05.12.26 Infant Observation, Self Psych, Intersubjectivity Theory Alyson Kepple
Introduction to Self Psychology, Part 1
Required Reading:
Please read the process material provided by your classmate. I will present a brief conceptualization of the case (through a self psychological lens) to demonstrate some of the concepts we are covering at the end of the class. I have provided an outline for those that would like to print and bring this to class.
Fosshage, J. L. (1995). Self psychology and its contributions to psychoanalysis. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 4(4), 238–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/08037069508409554This broad overview is a bit dry, as overviews tend to be, but it introduces the key concepts of self psychology which will be reviewed in class.
Optional Readings:
05.19.26 Infant Observation, Self Psych, Intersubjectivity Theory Alyson Kepple
Infant Research & Psychoanalytic Engagement
Required Reading:
The “baby watchers” have their own language so there is a lot of terminology which may be new. We will focus in on some of the key terms in class. Reviewing the research protocols and findings from microanalysis can be very tedious - so we will be viewing some examples of mother-infant video analysis in class and will focus on some of the most important findings and the big picture in terms of how this research has contributed to a more contemporary analytic understanding of development. If this paper starts to feel too heavy, view the following brief YouTube video introducing Beebe’s work: “Joining your baby’s distress: A story of one mother and infant”(15 min) copy this link into your browser: https://youtu.be/qfIyFLP5oXg?si=OYzgVw_HmN0J7OpU
Optional Readings:
Beebe, B. & Lachmann, F. (2020) Infant Research and Adult Treatment Revisited: Cocreating Self- and Interactive Regulation. Psychoanalytic Psychology 37:313-323
Beebe, B. & Lachmann, F. M. (2015) The Expanding World of Edward Tronick. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 35:328-336
Lyons-Ruth, K. (2015) Dissociation and the Parent-Infant Dialogue: A Longitudinal Perspective from Attachment Research. Attachment: New Directions in Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy 9:253-276
05.26.26 Infant Observation, Self Psych, Intersubjectivity Theory Alyson Kepple
Introduction to Intersubjective-Systems Theory, the Phenomenological, Contextualist Perspective in Psychoanalysis
Required Reading:
Please listen to part 1 of the podcast, "The Conversation" by Daniel Goldin and Daniel Posner on the subject of "Otherness" and come prepared to share your questions and reflections. Hopefully this will start to jog everyone’s memory a little as we will be integrating concepts from earlier classes on infant research and attachment and it’s interesting to hear the theorist’s speak.
Stolorow, R. D. (2014). Undergoing the situation: Emotional dwelling is more than empathic understanding. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 9(1), 80–83.This paper provides some background on intersubjective systems theory but quickly moves into a compelling clinical application. If you are wanting more of an overview of the theory, which will be provided in class, see the recommended reading #3 below.
Optional Readings:
Bugliani, A., & Rowlandson, B. (2023). The Therapist’s Struggle to Hold Hope When All Seems Lost. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 33, 351 - 367.
Ferguson, H. (2023). Searching for Embodied Connection in the Age of COVID-19. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 43, 629 - 640.
06.02.26 Infant Observation, Self Psych, Intersubjectivity Theory Alyson Kepple
Affect & Selfobject Experiences
Required Reading:
Socarides, D. D., & Stolorow, R. D. (1984-1985). Affects and selfobjects. The Annual of Psychoanalysis, 12-13, 105–119.Intersubjectivity theory expands Kohut’s original concept of a selfobject emphasizing the primacy of affect in the selfobject experience. The paper gets a bit repetitive so focus on the beginning of it and get the gist if you are short on time.
Atwood, G. & Stolorow, R. (2016). Walking the tightrope of emotional dwelling. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 26:102-107. DOI:10.1080/10481885.2016.1123525. An opportunity to review the concept of “emotional dwelling” from last week focusing on how this relates to Kohut’s original understanding of empathy as vicarious introspection, we will be integrating these different perspectives on empathy in class.
Mitchell, S. A. (1984). Object relations theories and the developmental tilt. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 20(4), 473–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.1984.10745749
Mitchell’s “developmental tilt” is an important hypothesis that alerts us to some of the potential limitations and clinical issues that can emerge in many psychoanalytic perspectives that have held on to (and attempted to build on top of) the original premises of drive theory while leaning into an interpersonal, developmental model.
Optional Readings:
06.07.26 Community Workshop 2
I’m All Shook Up: On Becoming A Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER- requested by June 4th
Facilitators: Steven Heskey, Ph.D.; Catherine Maihoefer, MS, NCC, LPC; Colleen Peddycord, LCSW; and Jay Wiggin, LCSW
Date: Sunday June 7, 2026
Time: 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Location: 145 44th Street Pittsburgh, PA 15201
Seminar 4.0 CE Credits
Description: In this workshop, we will be reflecting on our process of becoming psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists. Participants, learners, graduates and faculty of the Western Pennsylvania Community for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies will join to explore what “shakes us up.” Psychoanalytic work creates upheaval—it disrupts, upends, and unsettles. This is as true for therapists conducting psychoanalytic therapy as it is for patients receiving it. To take in something genuinely new is itself a breakdown.
As part of the workshop preparation, participants will read/watch the required materials and spend time reflecting on their own upheavals along the way of becoming a psychoanalytically-oriented therapist. Try to recall a particular moment – clinical, supervisory, or personal – when something gave way in the development of a sense of yourself as a clinician, and bring it with you.
On the day of the workshop we will be in small groups, listening to facilitators share their experiences of the inevitable unsettledness that comes with the development of the sense of one’s self as a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist, and expand the discussion to invite participants to reflect on their own experiences with regards to the program.
Program Objectives: At the end of the program, participants will be able to:
Acknowledge specific thoughts, feelings and awareness of how they experience themselves as psychotherapists in process of changing how they see themselves as psychotherapists.
Identify two aspects of psychoanalytic theory that have impacted the way they think and feel about being a psychoanalytic psychotherapist.
Identify and acknowledge how the theoretical principles they are being exposed to are both helpful and hindering their being in a clinical encounter with a patient.
Identify one conundrum they find themselves encountering as they absorb psychoanalytic theory.
Explain how some aspects of the clinical encounter seem to be non-problematic in spite of the new theoretical and ideological frame of analytic theory.
References/Readings
Required):
Maroda, K. J. (2018). Core competency six: Repetition and working through. In R. E. Barsness (Ed.), Core competencies of relational psychoanalysis: A guide to practice, study, and research (pp. 158–178).
McWilliams, N. (2024, May 28). Between Us:Grist for the mill (J. Totten, Interviewer; M. Neely, Ed.; season 5, episode 45). Retrieved May 14, 2026, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhogSpQeU94
Kite, J. (2021). [Jane Kite Essay 37]. In F. Busch (Ed.), Dear candidate: Analysts from around the world offer personal reflections on psychoanalytic training, education, and the profession (pp. 255–261).
Optional:
McWilliams, N. (2004). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioner's guide. Guilford Press. -Chapters 3: The Therapist’s Preparation pp. 46 – 72.
06.09.26 Process group Landaiche