CLASSROOM ATTENDANCE COMMITMENT
Trainees who are accepted into the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program (‘SF-PPTP’) or Foundations of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (‘Foundations’), will be asked to make two kinds of commitments regarding attendance. Note that these commitments may differ from those required by other training programs at SFCP.
SF-PPTP/Foundations Trainees Commit to Attending Classes Consistently
SF-PPTP and Foundations consider consistent class attendance throughout the program to be crucial for developing each trainee’s coherent understanding of clinical and theoretical material, as well as for the development and maintenance of each cohort’s group cohesion and identity. Therefore:
- Enrollment in SF-PPTP requires each trainee to commit to attending consistently throughout two academic years, taking first-year classes from September 2023 through mid-June 2024 and second-year classes from September 2024 through mid-June 2025.
- Enrollment in Foundations requires each trainee to commit to attending classes consistently for the one academic year from September 2023 through mid-June 2024
If minimum class attendance requirements are not met for a particular course, a student will need either to complete make-up work for that course or to pause participation in the program until the following year, when that course can be re-taken before continuing onto subsequent courses. See the SF-PPTP Training Manual on this webpage for a full description of the Attendance Policy.
Before applying, please consider whether — barring unforeseeable and unlikely circumstances — you can make a firm attendance commitment as described above. Circumstances that have posed a challenge to attendance in the past include (1) professional responsibilities such as planned application to fellowships, demanding jobs, or call schedules that would prevent Tuesday-evening attendance more than occasionally; (2) time-consuming or unpredictable personal commitments; and (3) personal circumstances such as travel plans, planned leaves of absence, or a partner’s relocation away from the Bay Area. If you anticipate that these or similar circumstances may prevent you from beginning the program or from attending consistently throughout the program, we ask that you contact the Curriculum Chair Ruth Simon at ruthsimonphd@gmail.com or Program Chair Lara Weyland at lara@drlaraweyland.com to discuss your situation before you apply.
SF-PPTP / Foundations Trainees Commit to Attending Classes in Person at 444 Natoma in San Francisco
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, SF-PPTP / Foundations held classes remotely throughout the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years. 2022-23 cohorts were hybrids of remote and in-person attendees. Because SF-PPTP leadership believes strongly in the power of in-person presence, both in psychoanalytic therapy and in psychoanalytic group learning, the program will return to being an in-person program beginning in Fall 2023. We hope that the pragmatic costs of this approach will be outweighed by enrichment of individual learning and by a sense of enriched community. We invite and encourage anyone concerned about viral transmission to wear a high-quality mask in the building.
SFCP does have high-quality hybrid equipment in each classroom. Students may join in-person classes via Zoom when the following exceptions apply:
- Students for whom the trip to SFCP would take 2+ hours by public transportation or car (e.g., those from the Sacramento/Davis area) are required to be present in San Francisco for 9 out of 36 Tuesday evenings in each academic year, and may attend remotely the rest of the time.
- The program requires students to attend remotely if they have symptoms of a viral illness or if there is another reason to think they might have an increased risk of transmitting viral illness. SFCP’s Covid-19 FAQs contain more detailed guidance.
Students may attend remotely on rare occasions when they are unable to attend in person because of obstacles that are unpredictable and unforeseen (e.g., personal or family illness or emergency) or occasional and idiosyncratic (e.g., being on call).