Systematic Learning

Since the program’s inception, IPTAR has supported our work in ways that have led to a deeper understanding both of individual students and of the issues involved in working with this population.  The therapists working in the schools are candidates in, or graduates of the IPTAR Child and Adolescent Program, Adult Analytic Program, Externship/Internship (Pre-Analytic) Program or Respecialization Program.  In addition to attending regular team meetings with the IPTAR site supervisors, each therapist is individually supervised on a weekly basis by an IPTAR graduate with expertise in child and adolescent treatment. Curriculum and course sequencing have been sensitive to the needs of trainees in the school program.  Senior members of the institute have run workshops on such topics as working with cultural diversity and psychotherapy with traumatized individuals. Candidates from the Child and Adolescent Program have given accounts of intensive courses of psychotherapy both as lectures for IPTAR and for the wider community.

We have found that the combination of psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy and participation in a strong academic community makes a significant difference in students’ ability to effectively meet both academic and personal goals.  We have described our work at conferences and in published papers (see below). Our next step will be to develop research studies to further understand our clinical observations. We have one study addressing changes in object relations and self-image after several years of individual and group therapy in a middle school, and another which studies the impact of narcissistic mentation on object relations.