Extension Division Program: Year 1
Audrey Dunn, LCSW, Chair
Foundations of Psychodynamic Clinical Work in Community Mental Health Settings
This 17-week course is designed for early career and experienced clinicians practicing in diverse community mental health and social work settings who wish to strengthen their theoretical foundation. We welcome those who are interested in understanding how psychodynamic thinking can be applied in relevant ways to enhance effective and gratifying work. We also welcome those who are willing to question established notions of psychodynamic thinking so that we become more relevant to the communities we serve.
As clinicians in public and community settings, we often feel devalued and challenged by complicated circumstances in our clients’ lives and limited resources to help them. Many of our agencies cannot offer the space to think together, to support and understand our work experiences.
We offer this course as a space to think together about the clients and systems with which we work, and how a psychodynamic approach can be utilized in any public or community mental health setting. We will reconsider our ideas about our clients, what helps, and our expectations for helping. Finally, we will look at the places and culture in which we work and how the psychological milieu affects our sense of value and purpose as clinicians and providers of mental health services.
The Enrico Jones Fund for Equality and Excellence is offering a tuition credit for this program. It is available to licensed therapists and people working toward licensure who self-identify as a Person of Color for CCSW participants, at $300 per applicant. Visit the Enrico Jones Fund for Equality and Excellence webpage for details.
| Dates: | Thursdays, January 15, 2026 — May 21, 2026 |
| Time: | 07:00pm – 08:30pm |
| Sessions: | 17 sessions |
| Location: | San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis This program is in person only and does not offer a remote option. |
| Program Fee: | $ 380.00 General Admission *If you are a university student, in a pre-licensure clinical training program, or in a residency program, Readers are not included in the program fee. For details, please refer to the Readers Fee information below. |
| Maximum Class Size: | 12 to 14 participants |
| CME/CE: | This program has been approved for a maximum of 25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ for $10 per credit (for SFCP members) or $15 per credit (for non-SFCP members) |
Clinical Sensibility
In this first seminar, we set the tone by sharing together the similarities and differences in experience as clinicians working in community mental health settings. We will define and explore how a psychodynamic way of thinking can be applied, relevant, and helpful to any provider role – as clinician, case manager, supervisor, etc. You will be introduced to the concepts of what is intrapsychic, interpersonal, and collective as a way of understanding psychodynamic thinking. We intend to stimulate the clinician’s thinking and interest about one’s work and the setting in which one provides services.
Julia St. George, LCSW
Thursdays, January 15, 22, 29, 2026
Who Is This Client?
This seminar will focus on developing a multidimensional understanding of the unique aspects of each client. Formulation integrates the complex interplay of developmental history, trauma, conflict and the emergence of a unique personality. We will explore how a mind develops both as an adaptation to, and the expression of troubles in, a particular life lived. Discussion will attend to ways case formulation guides the services provided and helps shape goals of the work.
Sebastian Melo, LCSW
Thursdays, February 5, 12, 19, 26; March 5, 2026
What Helps?
This seminar will introduce and illustrate different modes of working with clients, each of which can be of help at the right moment. We will discuss the powerful urge to act on behalf of one’s client, and the pitfalls of attending primarily to behaviorally oriented interventions without keeping the whole person in mind. We will explore the importance of listening and the subtle aspects of the clinician-client relationship that foster psychological growth. A closer look at a variety of challenges that may emerge as the clinician and client deepen their alliance will also be discussed. We will explore how difficult developments within the relationship can be understood and approached in ways that facilitate mutual goals. Topics to be addressed may include: unintended responses to clients; how to understand why clients don’t appear to improve; personalizing poor outcomes; power struggles; over-identification with clients; boundary dilemmas; and “burn-out”.
Corey Datz-Greenberg, LCSW
Thursdays, March 12, 26; April 9, 16, 2026
(no meetings on March 19 and April 2)
The clients are the least of my problems:
Navigating the anxieties and defenses of public systems in community mental health work
When clinicians practice in agency settings, we are always in a triadic relationship: us, our clients, and the system in which we work. Understanding the dynamics and defenses of systems can help us to navigate them on behalf of our clients/patients and better understand how to do our clinical work amid conditions that often threaten it. In this course, we will use psychoanalytic ideas to think about our work in agency settings, and reflect on the macro forces in the US that shape them. First, we will explore the concepts of neoliberalism and racial capitalism with attention to how, from a psychoanalytic perspective, they impact our individual and collective experiences. Next, we will analyze the ways in which the settings in which we do our clinical work are structured by these macro forces – and how our clinical work is impacted by them as well. Then, we will explore the idea of anxiety and defenses as they apply to organizations, and conduct our own agency analysis. Finally, we will end with reflecting on how to sustain ourselves and our values amid organizational dynamics that challenge our capacity to do so.
Beth Kita, LCSW, PhD
Thursdays, April 23, 30; May 7, 14, 21, 2026
Readers Fee
Charges for reading material required for the seminars are not included in tuition. Your readers will be prepared by CopyCentral, and costs are based upon copyright laws and charge based on the content of the readers. The SFCP Office will inform you when your readers are available to be purchased from CopyCentral’s website. Please note that CopyCentral may take 2 weeks to print and mail the readers to you, so we recommend you to purchase them as soon as they become available.
Refund Policy
- A full refund will be issued if the drop request is received on or before January 8, 2026.
- A 20% cancellation fee will apply to drop requests received between January 8, 2026 and January 22, 2026.
- No refunds will be issued on or after January 22, 2026.
CE Attendance Policy
Please see individual course listings for the number of CE credits awarded, if applicable. Courses offering CE credit meet the requirements for CE credit for Psychologists, LCSWs, LPCCs, LEPs, and MFTs.
APA requires psychologists and other mental health professionals participating in all programs, including in long-term programs (lecture series) to demonstrate 100% attendance in order to be eligible to obtain CE credit. All participants must sign in at the beginning of each class or program and sign out at the end of the class or program. If participants miss a class in a seminar that is part of a long term program, they may be eligible to do “make-up” work for the missed class. Participants can meet with the class via Zoom or another “face to face” platform, if they are unable to attend in person. Alternatively, they can arrange to meet with the instructor, in person, to make-up the instructional time or can engage with the instructor via the “face to face” technologies, i.e. Face-time, Duo, Zoom, or others. This work must be completed within two weeks of the end of a seminar. Credit for the seminar will be awarded once the instructor notifies the SFCP office the time has been made up and the participant completes a course evaluation. No variable credit will be awarded for partial attendance.
Accreditation Statement for CME/CE Sponsorship and Disclosure Statement
Educational Objectives:
Upon completion of this activity, the learners will be able to:
- describe the primary elements of a psychoanalytic model of clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.
- examine their conscious and unconscious responses to clients, supervisors, work setting, and critical incidents in the environment through a cultural, socio-political, and social justice lens.
- apply the elements of a psychoanalytic model to any specific clinical situation, including those on sociopolitical and organizational levels, and implement ways to improve clinical support within their agency structure.
ACCME Accreditation Statement
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
AMA Credit Designation Statement
The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Disclosure Statement
The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME’s identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.
PSYCHOLOGISTS: The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Psychologists attending SFCP events approved for CE credits may report AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ toward their CE requirements. Psychologists self-certify the number of hours they have completed on their renewal form (whether online or paper).
LCSWs/MFTs: The San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis is a continuing education provider that has been approved by the American Psychological Association, a California Board of Behavioral Sciences recognized approval agency
Psychologists, Social Workers, and Marriage and Family Therapists will be awarded AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ on an hour for hour basis; see the program description for the maximum of credits awarded for each program.
Commercial Support: None
- 2024-2025 Coalition for Clinical Social Work Extension Division Program: Foundations of Psychodynamic Clinical Work in Community Health Settings – Year 1
- 2023-2024 Coalition for Clinical Social Work Extension Division Program: Foundations of Psychodynamic Clinical Work in Community Health Settings – Year 1