Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program (SF-PPTP)

OVERVIEW OF FOUNDATIONS / SF-PPTP CLASSES

The SF-PPTP curriculum offers two years of didactic seminars and case conferences, aimed at integrating of theory and practice. Each first-year cohort is comprised of first-year SF-PPTP trainees alongside Foundations trainees. Each second-year cohort is comprised of trainees who originally applied to SF-PPTP and have completed the first year, alongside trainees who began the program in Foundations and then transferred to SF-PPTP prior to the beginning of second-year classes.

Courses are held on Tuesday evenings from 6:15 pm to 9:30 pm at SFCP in San Francisco (444 Natoma Street), from Late August through mid-June. Each evening is comprised of a 90-minute didactic seminar, a 15-minute break, and a 90-minute case conference.

Year 1 seminars review foundational principles of clinical work, with a special focus on thinking psychoanalytically about the relationships between personal experience, society, and culture.  Year 2 seminars develop a deeper understanding of psychoanalytic models of the mind, the dynamics and challenges of treatment, and creative practice. The ongoing case conference series provides the space to discuss clinical sessions with seasoned SFCP clinicians, as well as opportunities to explore how the concepts studied in seminars may be integrated into clinical work.

Throughout the curriculum, SF-PPTP coursework aims to help trainees hone their attention to ways in which sociocultural contexts influence and interact with subjective experience, within and beyond the dyadic practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

FIRST-YEAR COURSEWORK (SF-PPTP & Foundations)

Psychoanalytic Stance
12 weeks
Introduces basic psychoanalytic tenets, ethics, and attitudes as they come alive in the clinician’s ways of listening, intervening, and relating.

The History of Psychoanalytic Thought
12 weeks
Presents major psychoanalytic theories and their implications for practice.  Special attention will be paid to the historical context in which these theories developed.

Sociocultural Processes 
12 weeks
This course provides a framework for working across difference in its various aspects (gender, sexual orientation, class, race, religion, politics, etc.) within the psychoanalytic modality.

Case Conference Series
4 conferences, 8 weeks each, alongside above seminars
Case conferences provide a forum for in-depth consideration of trainees’ clinical work and for the application and further extension of ideas explored in the didactic seminars. The sequence is designed to expose trainees to different perspectives on therapeutic action and practice.

SECOND-YEAR COURSEWORK (SF-PPTP only)

Conceptualizing the Patient’s Inner World
9 weeks
Offers a deeper investigation of clinically-relevant psychoanalytic models of the mind, building upon and extending models introduced during the first year.

Conceptualizing the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Situation
9 weeks
Presents principles of understanding and working with transference, countertransference, and other psychological processes at play when patient and therapist engage in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Clinical Challenges in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
9 weeks
Presents principles of understanding and working with obstacles to change in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Creative Practice in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
9 weeks
Explores innovative approaches to engaging with patients in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Case Conference Series
4 conferences, 8 weeks each, alongside above seminars
Case conferences provide a forum for in-depth consideration of trainees’ clinical work and for the application and further extension of ideas explored in the didactic seminars. The sequence is designed to expose trainees to different perspectives on therapeutic action and technique.

Upcoming Events

Saturday, June 14, 2025
Dialogues in Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Listening Into Being: An Actor’s Invitation
Robin Weigert in Conversation with Kristin Fiorella
Fridays, September 5, 2025 to May 29, 2026
Extension Education Programs
2025-2026 East Bay Yearlong Program: Tuning into the Unspoken: Navigating the Landmarks of Unconscious Experience
Eric Miller, PhD; Elizabeth Stuart, MD; Graeme Daniels, LMFT; Marty Mulkey, LMFT; Chandra Rai, LMFT; and Luciane De Mello, LCSW
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Dialogues in Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Event title to be announced
Hannah Zeavin (presenter)
Fridays, September 26, 2025 to May 8, 2026
Extension Education Programs
2025-2026 San Francisco Yearlong Program: Continuous Case Conference
J. Marc Wallis, LCSW; Paul Alexander, PhD; Genie Dvorak, PsyD; Bronwen Lemmon, LMFT; and Walt Beckman, PhD (case conference group leaders)
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Transformation, Creativity, and the Aesthetic Experience
Notions of Psychoanalytic Transformation in the Clinical Setting: Case Presentations from a Jungian and Contemporary Object Relations Perspective
Henry Markman, MD; and Sandy Pepper, MD (speakers)
Mondays, September 29 to October 20, 2025
Coalition for Clinical Social Work
CCSW mini-Module: Working with Parents: A Complex and Essential Component of Child Psychotherapy
Lea Brown, LCSW, and Amy Wallerstein Friedman, LCSW (instructors)
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Scientific Meetings
THE RADICAL OTHERNESS OF MASUD KHAN
Ilene Philipson, PhD, PhD (presenter); Charles Fisher, MD (moderator)
Wednesdays, October 15, 2025 to May 27, 2026
Extension Education Programs
2025-2026 Seasoned Clinicians Program
 Jeffrey Sandler, MD; Clara Kwun, LCSW; Mark Swoiskin, MD; Jeanne Harasemovitch, LCSW; Michael Wagner, PhD, MFT; Joanna Wise-Bradman, LCSW, Dorian Newton, PhD; and Catherine Mallouh (leaders)
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Transformation, Creativity, and the Aesthetic Experience
Notions of Creativity in the Clinical Setting: Case Discussions from Jungian and Contemporary Object Relations Perspectives
Jan Ole Luuk, LLM (presenter); Robert Grossmark, PhD, ABPP; and Paul Watsky, PhD, ABPP (discussants)
Saturday, October 25, 2025
Child Colloquium Series
Learning to Surf: Analyzing Adolescents
Mary Brady, PhD (presenter); Jill Sallberg, PhD, ABPP (discussant)
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