|
The following statement was created by the original group of clinicians who envisioned The Psychotherapy Institute during 1970-1971, before the organization even had a name. They distributed the statement to colleagues and friends along with an invitation to join them in founding an institute. They used the term “psychoanalytic” in the broad sense with which we now use the term “psychodynamic,” without seeking to limit membership in the new institute to therapists who adhere to classical Freudian theory. |
|
We, the undersigned mental health professionals, are interested in establishing a forum for continuing post-clinical psychotherapy training within a framework of a psychoanalytic orientation and perspective. We acknowledge that the Bay Area has numerous creative and inspiring teachers and experienced therapists, and has many clinical training centers. But it seems that there is a real lack of a community of psychoanalytically oriented therapists and that individuals tend to become isolated and fragmented within their agencies or private practice. We would envision an institute as providing a common meeting place for lively discussion, support and creative interchange between members of the organization; moreover, membership in the organization itself would provide the opportunity for active participation and group identity. We also believe that there is a need for such a post-clinical institute among all mental health practitioners of common orientation regardless of their specific designation or profession--psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses who often receive at least some of their clinical training together--for continued quality education and growth as psychotherapists, as psychotherapy teachers, and as consultants. We see such an institute more specifically fulfilling four basic needs: |
| 1. | To provide continuing responsible, in depth training, consultation and supervision in psychotherapy technique and practice for the young professional who either wants a wider and more intensive program of training than his agency provides, or who is interested in embarking on a private practice experience |
| 2. | To provide a teaching, consultative, and supervision opportunity for the more experienced professionals who either wish to develop in a teaching capacity, or who desire a more intensive and extensive teaching forum than is available to them in their agency or in private practice |
| 3. | To provide a continued forum for general education in the field, literature review and discussion, aimed toward helping bothnew professionals and the more experienced professionals keep up with the literature, broaden and deepen their background, and integrate and synthesize helpful new approaches and techniques within the framework of a responsible and sound psychoanalytic orientation. (For instance, we do not believe that the approaches and techniques of behavior therapy, family therapy and communications theory, systems theory, gestalt therapy, Jungian therapy, or object relations theory are mutually exclusive within a psychoanalytic orientation--in fact, rather that they may provide some fresh and helpful ways of conceptualizing the process of therapy and add to psychoanalytic understanding.) Additionally, we see such a continued forum encouraging creative writing and presentation of members’ papers, providing constructive feedback, and supporting publishing articles in journals and perhaps eventually development of our own journal |
| 4. | To provide direct and indirect services to the community through: (a) a low fee clinic (in the process of providing continued clinical training cases) with the availability of more intensive and longer term treatment than most clinics can now provide, and family and marital therapy, group therapies and other treatment modalities, and (b) consultation and education to the wider community of professionals, businesses, and community organizations engaged in teaching, counseling, legal services, and community action, etc. |
|
We believe that the above goals meet at least some of the basic needs of most mental health professionals in the community. We believe, however, that in order to create an organization in which members will be able to talk to each other without unduly becoming involved in irreconcilable disagreements or factions that members should have at least some basic similar orientation and philosophy of treatment--without being so exclusive as to become rigid and dogmatic and stifle broad interests and stimulating interchange. Therefore, we propose the following broad general psychoanalytic concepts as a tentative designation of the institute’s basic common orientation without implying that members would have to adhere to or accept all of psychoanalytic theory. Briefly, such precepts are seen as being: |
|
A belief in the general concept of the unconscious |
|
A belief in the concepts of resistance and defenses |
|
Acceptance of the concepts of transference and countertransference within the therapeutic situation |
|
Acknowledgement of the idea of intra-psychic processes of different levels, occurring within the individual and within groups, within a session and between sessions |
| and more generally a broad acceptance of |
|
The ideas of the importance of developmental experiences, including the ideas of psycho-sexual stages of development |
|
The usefulness of models or ideas of psychic structures such as ego, id, superego, internalized objects, etc. |
|
The usefulness and importance of some concept of psychic drives or energies of sex and aggression |
|
If you believe that you are interested in our goals of establishing a Bay Area Psychotherapy Institute, and a community of psychotherapists of similar orientation, and think that you can fit within our broad psychoanalytic orientation, we would welcome your interest and participation in helping us plan the institute. |