2025 - 2026 San Francisco Yearlong Program
Jacqueline De Lon, MFT and Patricia Marra, MFT, Co-Directors
Ben Goldstone, LMFT, Israel Katz, MD, and Maureen Kurpinsky, PhD, Committee Members
Putting Psychoanalysis on the Couch
Just what is it that we are doing in the consulting room?
How do we describe the direction of the treatment? What guides it and what are its aims? Persistent questions, never definitively answered, but questions that underlie the analytic process both for patient and clinician.
Is psychoanalytic treatment envisaged as a corrective, or a realignment of problematic repetitive patterns as determined by the clinician? If not, then what is it? If the aims are unclear, then so are the methods.
Freud directed his patients to speak freely about whatever came to mind. In the “talking cure,” if it’s words that heal, how so? Could it equally be considered a listening cure?
Or are our current aims more aligned with self-understanding and becoming more fully oneself? Questions of being and becoming? Perhaps we aim to facilitate a kind of singular freedom unique to each patient. A freedom for the patient that depends on a similar pursuit or achievement on the part of the therapist.
We certainly can’t answer these questions definitively, but in this yearlong we can think together and anew about the past, present, and future conceptions of the psychoanalytic process.
| Dates: | Fridays, September 5, 2025 to May 29, 2026 |
| Time: | 12:00pm – 01:30pm |
| Sessions: | 30 sessions |
| Location: | Online via Zoom |
| Program Fee: | $ 1,280.00 $ 1,152.00 $ 960.00 General Admission SFCP Members University Students and Trainees *If you are a university student, in a pre-licensure clinical training program, or in a residency program, please email office@sfcp.org to register and include proof of eligibility (a valid ID from your university or training program) Readers are not included in the program fee. For details, please refer to the Readers Fee information below. |
| CME/CE: | Part I of this program has been approved for maximum of 18 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ for an additional fee. The CME/CE credits fee is $10 per credit for SFCP members or $15 per credit for non-SFCP members. The cost of CME/CE credits is separate from the tuition fee and billed individually upon the request for credits at the end of the program. |
Part I
The Direction of Treatment in Lacanian Psychoanalysis — From Symptom to Singularity
This section of the yearlong focuses on the desire, function, and act of the psychoanalyst from the perspective of the clinic of the neuroses. We will examine the status and evolution of the symptom, from its precipitation at the beginning of treatment to its reduction to the sinthome at the end of analysis. We will also study the construction of fantasy, including the circumscribing of objects a in relation to the drive and the traversal of the fantasy as one marker of the end of analysis. And, finally, we will take up the position of the analyst in relation to the unconscious, and the analytic act, which touches on the dimension of singularity. How can the desire of the analyst — which is not the same as the desire to become an analyst — orient the treatment toward the singularity of the analysand? This is the central question of the Lacanian clinic and one that informs the ethics of Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Sydney Tan, PsyD
Fridays, September 5, 12, 19, 26; October 10, 17, 24, 31, 2025
(no class on October 3, 2025)
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Remembering the Future: Psychoanalysis as Asking the Question, “Who Do You Aspire to Be?”
Psychoanalysis is often considered to be a plumbing of the past, inquiring about unconscious conflicts that result from prior traumas. In this four-week course, we will consider another possible aim of psychoanalytic theory and practice, which is developing a conception of who one wishes to become. We will use a recent essay by Thomas Ogden on “ontological” psychoanalysis as a guide and incorporate clinical case material. This course aims to be a group discussion, rather than merely didactic.
Joseph Dwaihy, MD
Fridays, November 7, 14, 21; December 5, 2025
(no class on November 28, 2025)
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Part II
Establishing the Pragmatic Depth of Psychoanalysis
Uniquely characterized by its indefinite timelines, accommodation of unconscious process, rich theoretical variations, and refusal to summarize an individual human life, the field of psychoanalysis can be perceived as unconcerned with or avoidant of an earnest inquiry into its own aims and outcomes.
In this course, we will take on the very first question that the Yearlong Program poses: Just what is it that we are doing in the consulting room? Anyone involved in psychoanalytic treatment or study has this question-and-answer circulating somewhere within themselves. It will be claimed that the question itself demonstrates the ethos and the aim of psychoanalysis.
In specific, we will anchor ourselves in the view of psychoanalysis as a relational practice of developing our natural human capacity to attend deeply to what it is that we are doing right here and now. From this angle, we may translate several core objects of psychoanalytic focus (including desire, development, unconscious process, transference, and metapsychology) into more “action-based” terms and try to see for ourselves the distinct manner in which a psychoanalytic approach may be accounting for its own aims and outcomes. Selected readings elucidating the pragmatic depth of psychoanalysis will be used to complement clinically grounded discussions.
Marcus (Bo) Houston, MD, MPH
Fridays, January 16, 23, 30; February 6, 13, 20, 27; March 6, 2026
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What Are We Doing When We Do Psychoanalysis? — Finding Personal Meaning In Troubled Times
How do we conceptualize psychic space and psychic change? Is change experienced by our patients as evolutionary, the expansion of self-knowledge, healing trauma and its after- effects, or something else? How do talking and listening make change — and how does our shared social and cultural environment impact the analytic “play space”?
This class will consider these questions and discuss papers that examine the critical questions relevant to the psychoanalytic project in today’s climate, and illustrate current thinking on core concepts such as transference, resistance, and the interpersonal co-creation of meaning.
Neil Talkoff, PhD
Fridays, March 27; April 3, 10, 17, 24; May 1, 2026
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Beyond Words: Creative Approaches to Bodily Changes in the Psychoanalytic Relationship
This four-week course explores how clinicians can work creatively with patients moving through significant bodily changes often associated with female development—such as pregnancy, the postpartum period, and menopause. Readings and discussion will consider how these changes may reactivate early trauma, and how the therapist’s own body can become a site of resonance, registration, and attunement. Together, we’ll reflect on how physical change can shape psychic experience and open space for nonverbal forms of communication and connection.
Daniela Carollo, PhD and Alexandra Farber, PhD
Fridays, May 8, 15, 22, 29, 2026
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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 August 29, 2025.
- A 20% cancellation fee will apply to drop requests received between August 29, 2025 and September 19, 2025.
- No refunds will be issued on or after September 20, 2025.
Accreditation Statement for CME/CE Sponsorship and Disclosure Statement
Educational Objectives:
Upon completion of this activity, the learners will be able to:
- concerning the transference, trace the position of the analyst during the beginning, middle, and end of treatment.
- consider ways in which traditional approaches of interpretation of unconscious conflicts and analysis of the transference differ from Winnicott and Bion’s approaches.
- distinguish the analytic positions of promoting understanding versus being and becoming.
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 18 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