Course Description
This part-time 2 year programme provides a critical and theoretical understanding of the principles underlying psychoanalytic psychotherapy and contributes to the professional training necessary to undertake this therapeutic method with adults. As a clinical practice, psychoanalytic psychotherapy derives from psychoanalysis, a discipline which is based on the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud. In addition to Freud, since its inception in 1984, the course content has been strongly marked by the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901 – 1980) and his re-reading of Freud’s work, making it the only course of its kind in Ireland with this distinctive theoretical underpinning.
By way of background, psychoanalysis is a field of study informed by a therapeutic method which privileges the unconscious processes of the mind. This focus on unconscious processes and the laws governing them remains central to the clinical practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. In addition to its clinical focus, psychoanalysis has an undisputed place in contemporary culture with many of its concepts informing diverse fields of academic and artistic enquiry ranging from law, sociology, anthropology, psychology and psychiatry to philosophy, literary criticism, the arts, women’s studies and queer studies. The link between clinical relevance and contemporary cultural concerns is given emphasis in this programme.
Structure
The course is delivered in 11 modules:
- Eight of these – 4 modules in year one and 4 in year two - provide 5 credits each.
- Of the remaining 3 modules, 2 are specifically related to clinical training and assessment and run continuously throughout the two years. These are Supervision of Clinical Practice and Clinical Diagnostics and Research, each contributing 15 credits. The final module is by dissertation and contributes 30 credits.
- Attendance must be 80% or higher throughout the course
- Assessment is by continuous assessment for the taught modules and a mark for the thesis
- Total credits awarded: 100 ECTS
Modules
Supervision of Clinical Practice
The supervision of clinical practice takes place in small groups with an assigned clinical tutor in order to offer students an intimate environment and a highly focused training in the technique and practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Practical questions, such as how to commence work as a psychotherapist, how to maintain a correct position vis à vis the patient, the early sessions, the place of interpretation, the role of the transference, etc. are all looked at in detail. Central Freudian texts on technique and metapsychology are used as a basis for the discussion of ongoing clinical formation, with students presenting their active case material in rotation for peer and tutor supervision.
Clinical Diagnostics and Research
Students will attend the weekly psychiatric case conference where the attending psychiatrist conducts an interview with a patient in the presence of the multi-disciplinary group of mental health professionals. The interview itself, the related differential diagnosis, including the psychodynamic/psychoanalytic opinion and the treatment plan will inform a seminar immediately following the case conference. In addition to the refined psychoanalytic opinion formulated in the course of this seminar, questions of diagnosis and technique will be further developed in conjunction with the study of Lacan’s essay on psychoanalytic technique The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of its Power.
Psychoanalysis in Context
Psychoanalysis as a phenomenon of modern times i.e. the past 100 years or so, will be placed within the context of the history of thought as informed by three indicators 1) The evolution of philosophical thought from Descartes and the birth of modern science to the present day 2) the history of madness and its attendant sociological context 3) the development of the family and the emergence of the conjugal family as its most recent form. This broad-ranging module will address how psychoanalysis emerged relative to the above indicators and attempt to extract from them the causative factors for the neuroses of our time.
The Symptom and the Dream
In psychoanalytic theory, the dream and the symptom are the indicators of the existence and activity of what Freud named the unconscious. They are the privileged modalities for exploring this activity. This module offers an examination of these modalities by which the unconscious expresses itself, through a sustained exposure to and examination of the grammar and syntax specific to primary process thinking. Two of Feud's seminal texts, The Interpretation of Dreams and The Rat Man case history are used as essential references and are linked to clinical practice via the work of Jacques Lacan and others.
Child Psychoanalysis - Theory and Application
Three theoretical approaches will be studied in relation to the psychoanalysis of children. Freud’s contribution - as outlined in the seminal account of his treatment of phobia in a young boy Little Hans - will be examined in the contemporary light of the process of mythification at the heart of psychoanalytic cure. The pioneering work of two major theoreticians of the British School, Klein and Winnicott, will also be evaluated. Kleinian concepts to be studied include: the paranoid/schizoid and depressive positions; projective/introjective identification; unconscious phantasy and object relations, as will the principles of her play technique with children. Winnicott’s theoretical contribution will also be examined.
Psychoanalysis and Language
In psychoanalysis, how does cure through the mere act of talking come about? This module will demonstrate that the unconscious is structured like a language, thereby defining our relationship to reality. Specifically students will learn how the algorithm of the unconscious S/s (Signifier/signified) functions and its application in psychoanalytic practice. Links between this concept S/s and two of Lacan’s models for how the subject is ‘inserted’ into language and culture i.e. the Graph of Desire and Schema R will be developed. The origin of the laws of language in the work of Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure and Claude Levi-Strauss will also be privileged.
Human Sexuality and the Logic of Sexuation
Irrespective of our ‘natural’ gendered state, how, as men and women, we take up a ‘sexed’ position is at the core of our question of what it is to be human. This question has implications for the disorders of our time, ranging from sexual abuse, suicide among young men, the addictions, women as hommes manqués, etc. The contemporary reading of Jacques Lacan’s formulae of sexuation versus traditional dualistic definitions of men and women will be examined. Freud’s related teaching on infantile sexuality, sexual difference and the psychoanalytic controversies engendered by it (Ernest Jones’ contribution etc) will be assessed. The topic of perversion, particularly its epistemology will also be examined.
Transference and the Interpretation of Desire in Literature and Art
In this module, two conceptual strands converge to illuminate the formal structure of the phantasy, 1) the concept of transference as discovered and illustrated by Freud in the account of his treatment of Dora, an 18 year old hysteric and elaborated on by Jacques Lacan in his commentary - Intervention on Transference and 2) the dialectic of desire as developed by Lacan in his seminars on key literary and artistic works: Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Velasquez’ Las Meninas in particular. This intersection between psychoanalysis, literature and art further echoes Freud’s frequent direction to analysts to study the arts and literature to better train their minds about the nature of the unconscious.
Psychoanalytic Conceptions of Psychosis
This module concentrates on two of Freud’s case studies – his analysis of 1) Judge Schreber’s autobiography of his psychotic illness and 2) his treatment of the Russian émigré eponymously referred to as the Wolf Man - as reference points for a psychoanalytic understanding of psychosis. In addition, it studies Freud’s and Lacan’s theories of psychotic illness, especially, paranoia and schizophrenia (formerly dementia praecox), as they evolved and as they relate to the theories of their psychiatrist contemporaries. Attention will also be paid to questions of diagnosis and treatment of psychosis in psychoanalysis and psychiatry today.
Ethics, Research and Clinical Applications
There is a tension between `evidence-based' scientific method and psychoanalysis, wherein the `refusal' to measure the discourse effect produced in analytic work in an ‘evidence-based’ way, is ethically informed. The contemporary debate surrounding this tension will be examined with a view to formulating the nature of a scientific method that takes cognisance of the laws of the unconscious. The contribution of psychoanalytic theory and practice in three `cinderella' domains will also be addressed by professionals working psychoanalytically therein: addiction, where the role of the administration of `jouissance' in diagnosis and treatment will be explored; criminality, where the implications of an understanding of Freud's concept of criminals being criminals from a sense of unconscious guilt will be assessed and queer theory, where Lacan's concepts of desire and language offer a critique of the subject in modern culture.
Dissertation
Students will prepare and submit a 12,000 – 15,000 word thesis at the end of the second academic year. By the end of first year, they will be expected to have submitted a thesis proposal, completed the first chapter and a literature search. Direction in formulating their proposal and progressing their written work will be monitored and supported by their clinical tutor - who will also act as thesis supervisor. This work will take place in designated seminars interspersed over the two years of the clinical practice tutorial. The student’s individual clinical tutor can also provide supervision for the thesis.
