Women's Therapy Centre Institute (WTCI)

The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute (WTCI) is a nonprofit postgraduate training institute in New York City that offers clinical training in feminist relational psychotherapy to mental health practitioners, together with educational programming for the general public ^[3][2]. It was founded in 1981 by Carol Bloom, Luise Eichenbaum, and Susie Orbach, building on the Women’s Therapy Centre that Eichenbaum and Orbach had co-founded in London in 1976 ^[4][5][6]. The institute states that its work is grounded in an intersectional feminist framework and that it occupies a position "at the nexus of the psychotherapy community, feminist movements, and the public at large" ^[3]. Its founders’ writing is associated with the early development of feminist relational psychoanalysis ^[4][7].

History

WTCI was founded in 1981 in New York by Carol Bloom, Luise Eichenbaum, and Susie Orbach, building on work Eichenbaum and Orbach had begun at the Women’s Therapy Centre in London, which they co-founded in 1976 ^[4][5][6][8]. According to the institute, the founders sought to integrate psychoanalysis with feminist thought in order to examine women’s psychological lives and the ways social and cultural forces — including gender, race, class, sexuality, and body norms — shape identity and emotional experience ^[4].

Early activities included:

• The Friday Night Lecture Series on Women and Psychology, held at the New York Academy of Sciences in 1982 ^[4].
• The first Speak Out, also in 1982, an open forum later renamed InDwelling ^[4].
• A three-year training program in feminist relational psychotherapy, first launched in 1989, followed by additional programs on the body, culture, and relational life ^[4].

In 2004 the institute established a social action project called Connect and Change, through which women who had experienced intimate partner abuse were offered long-term weekly pro bono psychotherapy ^[2]. As of 2016, the two-year postgraduate clinical training program was titled "Minding the Body: Disruptions and Possibilities — Eating, Sex, Surgery, Subversion, and Creativity," and the institute described itself as known for work on women’s relationship to food, feeding, and their bodies, developed in the 1994 text Eating Problems: A Feminist Psychoanalytic Treatment Model ^[9].

The institute’s website states that the word "women" in its name reflects its origins rather than a boundary on participation, and that people of all gender identities and expressions are welcome ^[4].

Training programs

• Minding the Body: Culture, Feminisms & Relational Psychotherapy — a two-year postgraduate training program in intersectional feminist psychotherapy, with a 2026–2028 cohort beginning September 10, 2026 ^[10][3][11].
• Body Talk: Nourishment, Embodiment, Technology, Illness, Aging — an annual online seminar for practitioners; the 2025 edition ran weekly from February 28 to April 4, 2025 ^[12].
• Continuing education workshops and public events — CEU workshops for New York State mental health practitioners alongside lectures and events open to the general public ^[11][13].

The two-year program is described by the institute as educating postgraduate clinicians from a trans-inclusive feminist relational perspective, with academic content centered on class, race, and gender ^[10]. The curriculum is organized into units covering sociopolitical contexts and the "psychopolitical subject"; foundations of feminist psychodynamic thinking, including British object relations and transference and countertransference; traumatic inheritances, cultural context, and clinical binds; eating, food, feeding, and embodiment; and transforming, conforming, and resisting bodies ^[10].

Students choose between two tracks:

• The Clinical Track, a practice-oriented option using weekly consultation and clinical tools such as process recordings ^[10].
• The Applied Track, in which students develop a project in writing, program development, research, or community-based application, submitted one month before the final class ^[10].

All students work with two faculty consultants, completing twenty weeks with one before transitioning to another, and must complete forty consultation sessions over the two years in order to graduate ^[10]. For the 2026–2028 cohort, classes are held on Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 8:15 p.m., cohorts are typically 8–12 students, and the program is hybrid, with about a third of classes offered virtually ^[10][3][11]. Orientation is scheduled for September 11, 2026, and graduation for May 4, 2028 ^[10]. Attendance policies limit students to no more than three missed classes per calendar year and six over the two years, and classes are not recorded ^[10].

An earlier three-year postgraduate program is referenced in graduate biographies and provider listings ^[14][15].

Admissions

Applicants to the two-year program submit a completed application, which is reviewed by the WTCI Training Program Committee ^[10]. Selected applicants are invited to an initial interview with a faculty member and then a second interview, after which the WTCI Admissions Committee meets to discuss each candidate before acceptance decisions are communicated by letter ^[10]. The institute holds open house sessions describing the program curriculum, expectations, and offerings ^[16][9]. Financial aid applications are accepted through the institute’s website ^[10].

Tuition and fees

• Program fee — payable through the training program page, which also hosts the financial aid application ^[10].
• Body Talk seminar (2025) — general admission $250.00; WTCI member fee $212.50 ^[12].

The 2025 seminar was capped at 15 participants and offered 8.5 continuing education credit hours to qualifying practitioners ^[12].

Affiliations and accreditation

• New York State Education Department Office of the Professions — approved entity holding waiver number 254 for professional services including licensed psychoanalysis, licensed clinical social work, licensed mental health counseling, licensed creative arts therapy, licensed marriage and family therapy, and psychology ^[17][18][19].
• New York State Board for Psychology — approved continuing education provider for licensed psychologists, #PSY-0049, approval period March 19, 2021 to March 31, 2027 ^[1][15].
• New York State Board for Social Workers — approved continuing education provider for licensed social workers, #SW-0361 ^[10][15].
• New York State Board for Mental Health Practitioners — approved continuing education provider for licensed mental health counselors, #MHC-0102, and creative arts therapists, #CAT-0018 ^[10][15].

The institute’s continuing education courses are registered for live in-person and live online delivery, and the psychology provider registration does not include ethics coursework ^[1]. The institute notes that while participants may join from outside New York, its recognition as a continuing education provider is limited to the New York State boards listed above ^[10]. State records list the training program under separate additional-setting certificates, including addresses at 128 West 82nd Street and 530 West End Avenue in New York ^[17][18].

Clinical services

The institute states on its website that it is not a healthcare provider or clinic, and directs those seeking treatment to contact WTCI-trained clinicians in private practice directly through its provider directory ^[14]. Its published mission statement describes pro bono support to people who have experienced intimate partner abuse as part of its activities, delivered through the Connect and Change project ^[2].

Governance and finances

WTCI is a 501(c)(3) public charity with EIN 13-3355159 ^[20][2]. As listed on its website, the Board of Directors comprises Carol Bloom, LCSW; Luise Eichenbaum, LCSW; Rebecca Stern, LCSW; Andrea Gitter, MA, LCAT, BC-DMT; Leah Kramnick, LCSW; Kay Gimmestad, LCSW; Lela Zaphiropoulos, LCSW, ACSW; and Debra Kram-Fernandez, PhD, LCSW, MS-DMT ^[3].

The institute states that it relies on donations to fund scholarships, educational programs, and community initiatives, and that many who would like to take part in its educational programs require substantial financial assistance that it has been unable to provide ^[20][2]. It also holds fundraising events, including a documentary film screening and Q&A scheduled for October 2, 2026 ^[3][11].

Publications

The institute maintains a list of articles and books by its board members and affiliated providers ^[21]. Listed articles include Relational Psychoanalysis and Feminism: A Crossing of Historical Paths (2003) by Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach; Structural Racism Considered: The Women’s Therapy Centre (2020) by Joanne Clark, which examines structural racism as reflected at the institute; and Engaging Aging: Clinical Considerations of Late Life Paradoxes (2025) by Debra Kram-Fernandez and Lela Zaphiropoulos ^[21]. Listed books include Susie Orbach’s Fat is a Feminist Issue and Eichenbaum and Orbach’s Between Women: Love, Envy and Competition in Women’s Friendships (1987) and What Do Women Want: Exploding The Myth of Dependency (1983) ^[21].