Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research

Psychotherapy Programs

CPTR Trainee listens to faculty member during discussion

The Columbia Psychoanalytic Center has made the study and the teaching of psychotherapy an essential part of our academic enterprise. Our Psychotherapy Division, chaired by Eve Caligor, MD, and our Child Division, chaired by Pamela Meersand, PhD, offer four specialized psychotherapy training programs, each providing a unique integration of clinical theory and technique and taught by experts in the field. 

Our programs welcome licensed clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and nurse practitioners to apply. These programs are offered online to accommodate students across the US and internationally. In addition to the professional growth, collegiality, and intellectual enrichment our programs provide, they offer participants some of the many benefits afforded to Columbia University students, including access to the university’s libraries and the ability to enroll in Columbia Student Health Insurance. For more information about our health insurance benefits, click here. 

Programs 

  • Our Adult Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Program offers a two-year training in theory and technique of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Weekly didactic seminars cover contemporary psychoanalytic models of psychological functioning and psychopathology, along with training in the theory and technique of a spectrum of psychodynamic psychotherapies. The didactic curriculum is complemented by weekly individual supervisory sessions. Both are provided by faculty of the Psychoanalytic Center and are offered online. 
  • Our Child and Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Program offers comparable training in child and adolescent psychotherapy.
  • Our course of study in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy provides a two-year training in TFP, a manualized, evidence-based treatment for personality disorders, in particular borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. We offer two online training options.
  • Through our Parent-Infant Program, we offer a two-year training in conjoint treatment with mothers and infants. The Parent-Infant Program is open to clinical social workers and RNs as well as psychiatrists and psychologists.

Each of these programs was developed to meet the need for additional psychodynamic training increasingly experienced by many graduates of psychiatry residencies, psychology graduate programs, social work schools, and nurse practitioner training programs.

Adult Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

The Adult Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Program is a two-year clinical training program in the theory and technique of psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Trainees in a discussion

Transference-Focused Psychotherapy

The Center offers a two-year training program for Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP), a manualized, evidence-based treatment for severe personality disorders.
CPTR member reads notes during lecture.

Child and Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

The Child and Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy program is an intensive two-year clinical training in psychodynamic interventions with children, adolescents, and emerging adults.
Faculty for the Child and Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy program discuss strategy during event.

Parent-Infant Psychotherapy

The Parent-Infant Program provides an intensive two-year training in the normal development and disorders of infancy and toddlerhood, with a focus on parent-child relationships and treatments.
Parent-Infant Psychotherapy faculty members laugh and talk during event.