Master of Arts Degrees

MASTER OF ARTS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

Program description
The two year Master of Arts in Psychoanalysis program provides an understanding of how people develop and operate, how they are motivated and how they interact. Students from backgrounds as varied as art, business, medicine, law, education, gerontology and engineering, to name a few, have found their careers enhanced by an understanding of psychoanalysis.

Learning occurs in the classroom, during the fieldwork externship and in the training analysis. In order to understand how the mind develops from the very beginning, students have the opportunity to sit with regressed patients in inpatient settings once a week for three semesters. As they do this, the faculty helps them to understand not only the nature of primitive mental functioning, but also how they themselves block against awareness of these early states. Content emanates from emotional experience throughout the 48 credit master’s curriculum.

Students interested in applying the Master’s program studies toward eventual licensure as mental health counselors take an additional module of four counseling courses and do an externship meeting counseling practicum and internship requirements.

Those who wish to continue their graduate studies to become psychoanalysts may use the Master of Arts in Psychoanalysis credits toward fulfillment of requirements for the Doctorate in Psychoanalysis in Boston.

Degree requirements
Graduation from the Master of Arts program requires successful completion of the 48 credit curriculum which includes 16 courses, the 400 hour Field Placement Externship with accompanying supervision groups, presentation of fieldwork cases indicating adequate understanding of case dynamics, and an accepted research paper or thesis. Students are required to engage in a training analysis throughout the program.

Fieldwork Externship
Students in the Master of Arts program complete a three semester Field Placement Externship. The externship offers direct contact with regressed patients in mental hospitals or comparable settings, giving students the opportunity to observe extremes of pathology at the earliest levels of fixation or regression. First semester courses and training analysis prepare the student for the externship experience. The Field Placement Externship includes 400 hours in placement-related activities, including ongoing individual contacts with psychotic patients, administrative supervision and team meetings. The externship is undertaken in conjunction with the seminar on Clinical Experience in Institutional Settings (PT185a,b,c) for three semesters. Students engage in small group supervisions of Field Placement cases (PT 111) throughout the externship. The experience culminates in presentation of fieldwork cases and completion of a case study paper.

Research
The research curriculum at the Master's level consists of two methods courses and the completion of a Master's paper or thesis. The Master's paper or thesis demonstrates the student's ability to integrate psychoanalytic theory with empirical data in relation to a research topic. A student may opt to write a Master's paper while taking the Master's Paper seminar in the fourth semester, or choose to write a Master's thesis, usually a more extensive project, under the supervision of two readers.

Bulletin
Official Certificate and Masters Bulletin.pdf

Research Projects
Abstracts of Masters theses

Locations
Boston and New York