Find your path in psychoanalytic training

What is psychoanalytic training?

Psychoanalytic training is a multi-year process combining personal analysis, supervised clinical work, and theoretical study. Unlike most graduate programs, training institutes operate outside the university system — they are professional societies that set their own standards and grant their own credentials.

The core of every training is a personal analysis: the trainee undergoes psychoanalysis themselves, typically at three to five sessions per week, for the duration of their training. This is considered the most essential part of becoming an analyst.

Trainees also see their own patients — called control cases — under close supervision from a senior analyst. The theoretical curriculum varies widely by institute; some are rooted in a single tradition, others are deliberately pluralistic.

The New York landscape

New York has more psychoanalytic institutes than any other city in the world. They differ along several dimensions:

Theoretical orientation — Freudian, Relational, Interpersonal, Lacanian, Jungian, Self Psychology, and pluralistic programs all exist here.

Credential — Some institutes offer a certificate. Others offer a New York State Licensed Psychoanalyst (LP) program — a clinical license that allows non-clinicians to practice. This distinction matters enormously depending on your background.

Admission requirements — Some institutes require an MD or PhD; others accept any licensed clinician; still others are open to people with no prior clinical training.

See the glossary for definitions of terms used across this site.