Residencies with psychoanalysis focus?

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kirkirkir

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was wondering which places place more emphasis on psychoanalysis. thanks.
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As a DO student a lot of those NYC places seem off the table. Can anyone comment on that? I would love to be in NYC.
 
Chicago has a very active institute that you could access from any of the programs. That said, Northwestern and UIC have the "richest" background and affiliation with the institute.
 
One clarifying question: do you mean psychodynamic therapy generally or psychoanalysis specifically? They are related but different. Many residency programs in Boston and NYC may have a more psychodynamic bent (versus CBT or other theoretical schools). No residency program really teaches psychoanalysis as far as I know, though you can work with the psychoanalytic institute generally around doing more intensive (several times per week) psychodynamic therapy.

If you want to be a psychoanalyst you are going to have to pursue post-residency training with an institute. You should note that psychoanalysis typically involves four to five sessions per week and that becoming an analyst will mean getting your own analysis (you can do the math, it's expensive!).
 
Thanks for your replies 🙂.
I meant psychoanalysis specifically. What kind of institutes are out there? Can you name some?
 
kirkirkir said:
As a DO student a lot of those NYC places seem off the table. Can anyone comment on that? I would love to be in NYC.
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I thought psych was pretty DO friendly, even in NYC. Psych is a pretty low competition field- look at some of the NYC program resident pages and you'll see DOs, carib students, and FMGs everywhere.

If you're a DO and also have poor board score performance, NYC might be tougher, but don't write it off because of your degree. This isn't dermatology or neurosurgery.
 
Don't know any others, but Emory has a psychoanalytic institute which residents may join.
 
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kirkirkir said:
As a DO student a lot of those NYC places seem off the table. Can anyone comment on that? I would love to be in NYC.
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yes that is correct. at least those that provide more of the psychodynamically oriented training (columbia, cornell, mt sinai, nyu) are completely off the table. even SLR, Beth Israel and SUNY Downstate may have a few DOs but historically they have much preferred IMGs to DOs. Beyond that, the rest of the nyc programs are basically sweat shops are you are unlikely to get the kind of training you seek at them. there is obviously a geographical element to things too - if you go to school in the NE you have more of chance of matching in the area as they are more likely to be familiar with the kind of training you get.

Boston is also fairly psychodynamically oriented, but again many of those programs are off the table for DOs. i think cambridge health alliance has taken the occassional DO in recent years, especially if you're gay you have a shot there and it is one of the most (if not the most) dynamically oriented programs in the country. Tufts is probably more obtainable and the PD is an analyst.

regardless I am not sure if it is a good idea to go somewhere where the focus is too heavily slanted in one direction or another (be that biological or psychodynamic). You want to expose yourself to a number of different ways of seeing, and different kinds of treatments so you can decide for yourself what you think works and what kind of psychiatrist you would like to be.
 
splik said:
yes that is correct. at least those that provide more of the psychodynamically oriented training (columbia, cornell, mt sinai, nyu) are completely off the table. even SLR, Beth Israel and SUNY Downstate may have a few DOs but historically they have much preferred IMGs to DOs.
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I'm not sure if NYU is "completely off the table." Why would they interview DO students then?

As for SLR, BI, Downstate, they take their fair share of DOs relative to IMGs. I'm thinking solid applicants have plenty a good shot at these places.

So DOs, do go for it! Just hope ya'll know you can handle living in NYC. It's not all Times Square and How I Met Your Mother. (thank God!) Certainly not a place for everyone... Or even most.
 
I would think a place that did psychoanalytic training would value something like OMT.
 
You would probably have an opportunity to do it anywhere except for Wash U and Hopkins...
 
NontradCA said:
I would think a place that did psychoanalytic training would value something like OMT.
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Places that do psychoanalytic training are still trying to get their heads around behavioral based therapies. OMT wouldn't even register if you are referring to what I think you are.
 
NontradCA said:
I would think a place that did psychoanalytic training would value something like OMT.
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There's that whole touching thing that's kind of an issue. And yeah, historically, no. Not to say those places might not take DOs, but most DOs aren't that into OMT anyway, especially the ones going into psych. This also gets into the fact that cranial manipulation is I think the least evidence based part of OMT and probably the most used for MH issues by DOs.
 
NontradCA said:
I would think a place that did psychoanalytic training would value something like OMT.
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x2teur.jpg

Doctor Bagel said:
There's that whole touching thing that's kind of an issue.
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Yeah, this.
 
I have nothing to contribute, except my thoughtful (sympathetic, and just good humor) laughter. I enjoy the Psychoanalysis-critical jokes.
 
splik said:
i think cambridge health alliance has taken the occassional DO in recent years, especially if you're gay you have a shot there and it is one of the most (if not the most) dynamically oriented programs in the country.
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Wait, how does sexual orientation factor into it?
 
I think some may have missed @NontradCA 's point. Or maybe I interpreted his comment differently.

Side note: As for OMM, even a vast majority of those who regularly use OMT for MSK/pain issues find cranial to be more than suspect; I've yet to meet one D.O. psychiatrist who would even think about going down that road to "treat" his/her patients. That said, completely writing off all of OMT isn't exactly a wise stance. Call it what you may- placebo or otherwise- but I've seen more than a few patients benefit in terms of chronic pain and headache, some of whom have drastically reduced their need for medication. In the right hands, it does help some people. When wifey throws out her back, a quick session with me has the pain go POOF and ROM return to baseline in all of 10 minutes. Off-topic, but I had to drop my 2 cents.
 
Dharma said:
I think some may have missed @NontradCA 's point. Or maybe I interpreted his comment differently.

Side note: As for OMM, even a vast majority of those who regularly use OMT for MSK/pain issues find cranial to be more than suspect; I've yet to meet one D.O. psychiatrist who would even think about going down that road to "treat" his/her patients. That said, completely writing off all of OMT isn't exactly a wise stance. Call it what you may- placebo or otherwise- but I've seen more than a few patients benefit in terms of chronic pain and headache, some of whom have drastically reduced their need for medication. In the right hands, it does help some people. When wifey throws out her back, a quick session with me has the pain go POOF and ROM return to baseline in all of 10 minutes. Off-topic, but I had to drop my 2 cents.
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Definitely not writing off OMT, or anything of a similar nature - I know it's not exactly the same thing but my husband trained in Tuina massage techniques and I always found that to be extremely helpful with my back/muscle spasm problems. My response to NonTradCA's comment was purely in line with the idea of combining psychoanalytical type treatments with touch of any sort. In that circumstance I can just picture the conversation in the therapy setting going something like...

Therapist: "I see you've been experiencing a lot of feelings of stress and tension lately, an Osteopathic Manipulation Treatment can be an excellent relief for that."
Patient: "I see you're about to cross boundaries with me, a smack in the face can be an excellent relief for that too."

I don't go to therapy to get all touchy feely, if I want any sort of OMT, massage, craniosacra, myofascial, whatever else done then I'll go to someone who specialises in that who isn't a Psychiatrist/Therapist. That's just me though, maybe other patients might feel different and would feel benefited from a cross over of treatments.
 
Dharma said:
I think some may have missed @NontradCA 's point. Or maybe I interpreted his comment differently.

Side note: As for OMM, even a vast majority of those who regularly use OMT for MSK/pain issues find cranial to be more than suspect; I've yet to meet one D.O. psychiatrist who would even think about going down that road to "treat" his/her patients. That said, completely writing off all of OMT isn't exactly a wise stance. Call it what you may- placebo or otherwise- but I've seen more than a few patients benefit in terms of chronic pain and headache, some of whom have drastically reduced their need for medication. In the right hands, it does help some people. When wifey throws out her back, a quick session with me has the pain go POOF and ROM return to baseline in all of 10 minutes. Off-topic, but I had to drop my 2 cents.
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To tie the subjects together I want to see a correlational study comparing the perceived effectiveness of the OMT and the perceived empathy of the provider.
 
WingedOx said:
To tie the subjects together I want to see a correlational study comparing the perceived effectiveness of the OMT and the perceived empathy of the provider.
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Sounds like a good idea. Guaranteed there is some... even when it comes to prescribing medication (especially compliance). Anyhow, anecdotal as it may be, I have been in some grumpy moods when working on the wife (i.e. she isn't exactly the easiest of patients and I basically tell her) and it works no matter how pissed off she gets at me! Haha!
 
Ceke2002 said:
Therapist: "I see you've been experiencing a lot of feelings of stress and tension lately, an Osteopathic Manipulation Treatment can be an excellent relief for that."
Patient: "I see you're about to cross boundaries with me, a smack in the face can be an excellent relief for that too."
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Totally Agree.
 
To clear up, I was using OMT as an example because both OMT and Psychoanalysis are pseudoscience. Both waste time that could be spent on actually improving someone's health.

Oh you have LBP? Instead of coming in for an adjustment every two weeks, how bout losing some weight and talk to this PT about doing some exercises.

Oh you're depressed? How bout 3 months of CBT instead of 2 years of psychoanalysis for $700/hr.

I find both disgusting. But hey, it's just my opinion. You don't have to agree with me.

:shrug:
 
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NontradCA said:
To clear up, I was using OMT as an example because both OMT and Psychoanalysis are pseudoscience. Both waste time that could be spent on actually improving someone's health.

Oh you have LBP? Instead of coming in for an adjustment every two weeks, how bout losing some weight and talk to this PT about doing some exercises.

Oh you're depressed? How bout 3 months of CBT instead of 2 years of psychoanalysis for $700/hr.

I find both disgusting. But hey, it's just my opinion. You don't have to agree with me.

:shrug:
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Ah, okay, now I understand where you're coming from, my apologies. :=|:-):
 
NontradCA said:
To clear up, I was using OMT as an example because both OMT and Psychoanalysis are pseudoscience. Both waste time that could be spent on actually improving someone's health.
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That's what I thought. Boom. VR.
 
UTSW has a very close relationship with the Dallas Psychoanalytic Institute, with many analysts serving as therapy supervisors. The department actually houses the analytic institute and the program director is himself an analyst.
 
NontradCA said:
To clear up, I was using OMT as an example because both OMT and Psychoanalysis are pseudoscience. Both waste time that could be spent on actually improving someone's health.

Oh you have LBP? Instead of coming in for an adjustment every two weeks, how bout losing some weight and talk to this PT about doing some exercises.

Oh you're depressed? How bout 3 months of CBT instead of 2 years of psychoanalysis for $700/hr.

I find both disgusting. But hey, it's just my opinion. You don't have to agree with me.

:shrug:
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Depends on your understanding of psychoanalysis, but from my very limited reading I would have to generally disagree with you. I think carte blanche dismissing psychoanalysis as "useless" completely misses any semblance of nuance. It also dismisses the fact that some basic principles of psychoanalysis can be useful in understanding the psyche of your patients, even if you're not making explicit psychoanalytic psychotherapy a core part of your practice.
 
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NickNaylor said:
Depends on your understanding of psychoanalysis, but from my very limited reading I would have to generally disagree with you. I think carte blanche dismissing psychoanalysis as "useless" completely misses any semblance of nuance. It also dismisses the fact that some basic principles of psychoanalysis can be useful in understanding the psyche of your patients, even if you're not making explicit psychoanalytic psychotherapy a core part of your practice.
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I agree with the quoted. I am only a Pre-Med, but there is an existential phenomenon of conscious psyche that can be used to help understand a patients relationship with their surroundings. I prefer combinatory psychosomatic models, but I would hardly call Psychoanalysis, as a whole, bunk.
 
Psychoanalysis said:
I agree with the quoted. I am only a Pre-Med, but there is an existential phenomenon of conscious psyche that can be used to help understand a patients relationship with their surroundings. I prefer combinatory psychosomatic models, but I would hardly call Psychoanalysis, as a whole, bunk.
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Agreed. As a patient I come fully equipped with a rather complex set of issues (including several flavours of chronically under treated mental health diagnoses), and whilst approaches like CBT alone have helped to a degree I've found they haven't helped to the degree I've actually needed. Having a Psychiatrist who works with a combined treatment modality of CBT, MBCT, ACT, IPT, Relational and Psychodynamic/Analytical theories has achieved far greater results. I can see using something like CBT as a sole treatment for simple, uncomplicated depression, but I think the more Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytical approaches can be helpful in more complex cases. That's just based on my personal experiences.
 
Ceke2002 said:
Agreed. As a patient I come fully equipped with a rather complex set of issues (including several flavours of chronically under treated mental health diagnoses), and whilst approaches like CBT alone have helped to a degree I've found they haven't helped to the degree I've actually needed. Having a Psychiatrist who works with a combined treatment modality of CBT, MBCT, ACT, IPT, Relational and Psychodynamic/Analytical theories has achieved far greater results. I can see using something like CBT as a sole treatment for simple, uncomplicated depression, but I think the more Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytical approaches can be helpful in more complex cases. That's just based on my personal experiences.
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Again, I am no experienced Physician or Psychiatrist. But, I tend to dismiss my personal beliefs if it means helping the patient. There is nothing wrong with having a breadth of knowledge, a sharp set of tools in the ersatz conscious toolbox.

That said, Psychoanalysis is a new model in comparison to the fact that CBT and other therapies are based on models several hundreds of years old.
 
Psychoanalysis said:
That said, Psychoanalysis is a new model in comparison to the fact that CBT and other therapies are based on models several hundreds of years old.
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Psychoanalysis is actually older than any of the alphabet soup therapies, which were all developed in the 20th century. In fact, many of them arguably rely on some aspects/assumptions of psychoanalytic theory.
 
NickNaylor said:
Depends on your understanding of psychoanalysis, but from my very limited reading I would have to generally disagree with you. I think carte blanche dismissing psychoanalysis as "useless" completely misses any semblance of nuance. It also dismisses the fact that some basic principles of psychoanalysis can be useful in understanding the psyche of your patients, even if you're not making explicit psychoanalytic psychotherapy a core part of your practice.
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I didn't say these things were completely useless. I said they're pseudoscience and gave specific examples of other tools we have in healthcare that they take away from. And another point is that both those practices add stigma to their respective profession.

I'm a DO student by the way. Change from within man.
 
I can't speak for the classic psychoanalysis, but its more commonly practiced offspring, psychodynamic psychotherapy, has been empirically shown to be about as effective as CBT (which is traditionally seen as an empirically proven therapy mostly because Beck and his collaborators were smart enough to perform empirical studies early in the development of the therapy) for some simpler issues and possibly even more effective for more complex issues. The fact that there are fewer studies on the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy doesn't imply that it's not effective, it's just that 1) it's harder to standardize psychodynamic therapy for research than, eg., CBT; 2) empirical studies of psychodynamic therapy are recent; in a sense, as far as empirical evidence is concerned, psychodynamic therapy is playing catch up with CBT now.
 
The fact that one form of treatment has been empirically validated and another has not, does not provide any comparative evidence about which one is more effective than the other. If you studies synthetic Vitamin C as a treatment for scurvy and were able to validate its effectiveness, would this cast doubt on “Natural” sources of Vitamin C? It is probably only a matter of getting the work done so both can have the same claim.
 
Amygdarya said:
I can't speak for the classic psychoanalysis, but its more commonly practiced offspring, psychodynamic psychotherapy, has been empirically shown to be about as effective as CBT (which is traditionally seen as an empirically proven therapy mostly because Beck and his collaborators were smart enough to perform empirical studies early in the development of the therapy) for some simpler issues and possibly even more effective for more complex issues. The fact that there are fewer studies on the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy doesn't imply that it's not effective, it's just that 1) it's harder to standardize psychodynamic therapy for research than, eg., CBT; 2) empirical studies of psychodynamic therapy are recent; in a sense, as far as empirical evidence is concerned, psychodynamic therapy is playing catch up with CBT now.
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While empirical data is grand, especially for the pure natural sciences, I am also aware that the Psychodynamics/Analytic research groups are trying to gather empiricle data, but refrain from being lumped with the positivists. For this reason, and even Freud's influence from Hegel shows, that Dialectical thesis-antithesis based thought actually supports both Psychodynamic/Analytic work and CBT, etc. very strongly.

Just free information.
 
There is a huge difference between theory and practice, which is why in clinical practice it is prudent to rely on empirically proven approaches. (Though I 100% agree with MacDonaldTriad that if something is not proven to be effective it doesn't mean that it's not.)

No need to be patronizing; I've taken my share of philosophy classes, as I'm sure other particants of this tread have. It's important to remember that this is a medical forum; we're not armchair philosophers here, we're discussing things that can have very real effects on very real people aka patients. If you're interested in philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, by all means pursue your admirable intellectual interests; however, they may have very little to do with actually alleviating suffering of mentally ill.
 
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Yeah, if you begin to say things about rejecting logical positivism, people who understand what you are saying are not going to listen to anything else you say about evidence-based medicine.
 
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