Psychotherapy Training (ACAPP)

Adult and Child/Adolescent Advanced Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Distance Learning is available via video-conferencing for all ACAPP classes.

When:	September to May Mondays 6:45 – 9:45 p.m.
Where:	Ann Arbor and Farmington Hills as scheduled
Application Deadline:	June 30th every year
Tuition:	$2520 ($1260 for Developmental Sequence only) + $200 MPS dues
	ACAPP students are required to join the Michigan Psychoanalytic Society, dues $200/year. Includes access to PEP-Web, a comprehensive database of articles on psychoanalysis, readings and symposium registration.

Adult and Child/Adolescent Advanced Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

ACAPP is a one- to three-year program, designed to improve therapists’ clinical skills and to demonstrate the usefulness of applying contemporary analytic thinking in a wide variety of situations. ACAPP welcomes social workers, psychologists (including interns), psychiatrists (including residents), psychiatric nurses, and other qualified professionals. This program may also be of interest to non-mental health professionals who wish to apply the psychodynamic perspective to their own field of work. Certificates are given to students completing at least two years. Distance learners can attend the program through video-conferencing.

Curriculum

The ACAPP curriculum integrates theory with technique to explore how people think, make choices, adapt to inner conflicts, and relate to others. Courses are taught through the lens of multiple psychoanalytic perspectives with an eye towards treatment implications and application. There are four sequences of classes, the Developmental Sequence, the Assessment and Beginning Treatment Sequence, the Adult Topics Sequence and the Child Topics Sequence.

The Developmental Sequence studies the continuities and discontinuities of developmental transitions that organize an individual’s character and personality structure.

The Assessment and Beginning Treatment Sequence provides an in-depth study of psychodynamic assessment and diagnosis and their importance in early therapeutic work. The complexities of the treatment relationship and how to engage the collaboration and curiosity of the patient are explored in a continuous case conference with the second year class. Each course attempts to address current controversies and includes rich clinical material

Adult Topics focuses on the application of psychodynamic therapy to specific clinical issues such as ethics, dreams, trauma, termination, couples work and addictions. Throughout the program there are opportunities for students to present their own clinical process material.

Child Topics addresses many different aspects of working with children and adolescents, including topics such as parent work, play therapy, developmental traumas, and gender development. This sequence is only offered in years with sufficient interest.

Sequences	Timetables
Developmental	Six courses over one or two years.
Assessment and Beginning Treatment	Nine Courses in first year. Not offered as a stand-alone sequence.
Adult Topics Child Topics	After the first year, most students take Adult Topics (9 courses). In years when there is sufficient interest, students may opt to take Child Topics (9 courses) instead. Whichever topics sequence is taken first, the other can be taken as a third year of classes.

Clinical work and Consultation

Each clinician in the program is required to see at least one patient in psychodynamic treatment and to have weekly consultation with an MPI faculty member or candidate to discuss patients being seen in psychodynamic therapy. Times, locations and fees of consultations are arranged individually. A typical fee has been $50.

Treatment

It is strongly recommended that each program participant be involved in their own personal psychodynamic psychotherapy or psychoanalysis concurrent with the program, in order to increase the sensitivity of the participant to the workings of unconscious forces and to enable them to engage most effectively in work with patients. Personal treatment increases immersion in the educational experience and provides a place to work on the many feelings inevitably stirred up when learning psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Michigan Psychoanalytic Society (MPS)

Membership in MPS is required for all ACAPP students. This includes access to PEP-Web for course readings, free CME/CE credits for classes and all MPS events, and the registration fee for the Annual Symposium.

Licensure

Each clinician in this program must be licensed to practice psychotherapy in the state(s) in which they practice and must have professional liability insurance.