One-Year Introductory Program
in Relational Studies

The One-Year Introductory Program in Relational Studies is the first of its kind. We provide a unique opportunity to learn the fundamentals of relational theory and clinical practice from internationally recognized faculty, the founding, leading, and emerging voices in Relational Psychoanalysis.

In our program, we critically examine the shift from Freud's "blank screen" to the mutative impact of the relational matrix and the analytic relationship, interrogating race, class, gender, sexuality and the sociopolitical.

Our fall semester traces the historical precursors and current developments in contemporary Relational theory. We review central theoretical contributions from Freud and Ferenczi, Object Relations, Interpersonal Psychoanalysis, Self Psychology and Intersubjectivity, as well as feminist, queer theory and critical race theory.

Our spring semester focuses on important topics in clinical practice. Faculty present different conceptualizations of the therapeutic relationship and therapeutic action; intersubjectivity and the analytic third; enactment and impasse; race, class, and identity; shame; community psychoanalysis; mother-infant interaction and implications for the analytic relationship; the intergenerational transmission of trauma; Black embodiment; the analyst's self-care; psychoanalytic and Caribbean perspectives on relationality; gender; sexuality; and termination.

Throughout the year, faculty share clinical vignettes, and encourage students to bring in material from their own clinical work to illustrate the topics we are exploring.