Two Year Training Program

• Admission Requirements and Procedures
• Tuition and Fees
• Curriculum
• Training and Evaluation
• Courses
• Faculty and Supervisors
• Student Advisor

Download this information:

• Two Year Training Program brochure (PDF)

To apply:

• Application for Two Year Program

For more information, call TRISP at 212 828.1042 or click here to email.

The TRISP Two Year Training Program is open to mature mental health professionals with at least a Master's degree who are willing to engage in serious inquiry with other students and faculty members. Applicants are required to submit a completed application form and two letters of recommendation. When all application materials have been received, interviews will be arranged. The applicant will be interviewed by two members of the TRISP faculty. A non-refundable application fee of $50 must accompany the application form. After they have registered, students will receive written Student Guidelines, including a Grievance/Appeals Procedure.

Tuition is $300 per 8 week course and $150 per mini-course. There is also a $50 annual registration fee. Tuition is due before the beginning of each course. If a full year’s tuition is paid in advance by September 30, tuition will be $900 for the year. Fees for supervision, which range from $75 to $100, are determined by the student and supervisor.

Year 1

• Applying the Theories of Self Psychology and Intersubjectivity to the Therapeutic Process: An Overview
  Lynn Preston, MA, MS
• The Role of Empathic Attunement and Responsiveness in Developing a Therapeutic Relationship
  Louisa Livingston, PhD
• An Intersubjective Perspective on Transference and Countertransference
  Ellen Shumsky, CSW

• Dream Images and Sandplay: Explore the Wonder of Nonverbal Communication.
  Liz Baring, MSc. LP, LCAT

Year 2

• Challenging Therapy: Creative Approaches for Working with Conflicts, Impasse and Aversive Interaction
  Michele Schwartz, LCSW
• Implicit Self and Interactive Regulation: The Findings of Infant (and other) Research on
  Communication Without Words or Awareness
  Arline Fireman, PhD
• A Self Psychological/Relational View of Trauma
  Ann Eisenstein, LCSW

• Applying What We've Learned.
  Lynn Preston, MA, MS, and faculty 

Students are encouraged to give feedback to the faculty in each course. In addition, they will meet twice a year with the student advisor to give and receive feedback. They will also receive written feedback from the instructor.

Applying the Theories of Self Psychology and Intersubjectivity to the Therapeutic Process:
An Overview
This course offers a preview of some of the essential ideas that guide, ground and enliven a self psychological therapy.

The Role of Empathic Attunement and Responsiveness in Developing the Therapeutic Relationship
The relationship between patient and therapist is essential to therapeutic action and change. The surprisingly complex process of empathic attunement and its contribution to verbal and nonverbal responses within this relationship is examined. Clinical examples of empathic attunement and empathic failure will be drawn from readings and from clinical practice.

An Intersubjective Perspective on Transference and Countertransference
The ideas of Robert Stolorow and his collaborators are used to explore therapeutic healing as an experiential process that is co-created by therapist and patient.

Dream Images and Sandplay: Explore the Wonder of Nonverbal Communication

Explore the wonder of nonverbal communication, using dream images and sandplay. This course will discuss Kohut's concept of the "self state" dream. It will also cover current contributions to dream interpretation and meaning. All viewed through a self- psychological lens. To reveal the power of non-verbal communication that uses images, candidates will have the opportunity to experience sandplay first hand.

Challenging Therapy: Creative Approaches for Working with Conflicts, Impass and Aversive Interaction
Self psychology theory developed largely through Kohut's work with "difficult" patients. This course will explore the ways in which working intersubjectively in a "challenging" therapy dyad can lead to growth and healing for both patient and therapist. Readings include such issues as shame,aggression, dissociation, conflict and the effect of "early trauma" in both patient and therapist.

Implicit Self and Interactive Regulation: The Findings of Infant (and other) Research on Communication Without Words Or Awareness
In any dyad, a person's experience is thought to depend on both that individual’s capacity to regulate his/her inner state (self-regulation) and the simultaneous influence of each partner on the other (interactive regulation). These generally operate without awareness through non-verbal (implicit) communications. Research on infant-caregiver interactions reveals how self and interactive regulations occur not only in infancy, but in the therapy dyad and relationships throughout life.

A Self Psychological/Relational View of Trauma
This course will explore the literature on trauma, focusing on the impact traumatic experience has on the patient’s sense of self and on his/her experience of others. We will focus on how these effects manifest themselves in the treatment situation. The role of the therapist's subjectivity in relation to trauma, as it interacts with the patient's, will be addressed. Clinical material will be used to enrich discussions of the readings.

Applying What We've Learned

As the last class in our two-year sequence, these sessions will attempt to review and clarify the major concepts of curative process from a self-psychological/intersubjective systems theory viewpoint. This will also be considered in the context of termination issues both in analysis and in the here and now of the class.

Liz Baring, MS, LP, LCAT
Student Advisor, TRISP two-year program; NAAP-certified psychoanalyst in private practice; registered and board-certified art and sandplay therapist; TRISP graduate;member of the Care Group at Manhattan's Rudolf Steiner School, and the Sandplay Therapists of America, among other affiliations. Experienced in medical and psychiatric settings with children and adults.

Ann Eisenstein, LCSW
ICP-certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in private practice. Supervisor and faculty member at ICP and PPSC. Author of presentations at the International Conference on the Psychology of the Self, including most recently, "Kohut Meets Kaplan: God as Collective Selfobject." Publications include "Midrash and Mutuality in the Treatment of Trauma: A Joint Account," co-authored with Kathryn Rebillot, C.S.W. in Psychoanalytic Review, 89(3), 2002.

Arline Fireman, PhD
Co-chair, Admissions Committee, TRISP two-year program; clinical psychologist; NAAP certified psychoanalyst in private practice; co-director Psychology Fellow program and supervisor, NIP; Member, Program Committee and Member-At-Large of the Coordinating Committee, Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology; areas of interest include non-verbal and non-conscious communication, infancy research findings and mutual influence phenomena.

Louisa Livingston, PhD
Co-director, TRISP two-year program; licensed clinical psychologist; NAAP certified psychoanalyst in private practice; faculty and supervisor, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health Group Therapy Training Dept.; co-chair, Coordinating Committee, Assoc. of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology; editorial board, GROUP; author of publications on individual and group therapy, including "Reflections on Selfobject Transferences and a Continuum of Responsiveness," Progress in Self Psychology,
Vol. 16 (Analytic Press, 2000).

Lynn Preston, MA, MS
Co-director, TRISP two-year program; certified psychoanalyst in private practice; supervisor, Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy; focusing trainer, New York Focusing Institute; author of publications, including "Expressive relating: The intentional use of the analyst’s subjectivity," Progress in Self Psychology, Vol. 14 (Analytic Press, 1998).

Michele Schwartz, MA, LCSW
Co-chair, Curriculum and Admissions Committees, TRISP two-year program; clinical social worker; NAAP certified psychoanalyst in private practice; supervisor, Institute for Human Identity and Identity House; Coordinating Committee Member, Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology; faculty, Institute for Contemporary

Psychotherapy; consultant, The Family Center; conference presenter.

Ellen Shumsky, CSW
Co-chair, Admissions Committee, TRISP two-year program; clinical social worker; certified psychoanalyst in private practice; faculty member, Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy; Coordinating Committee Member, Assoc. of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology; author of publications on the development of theory and treatment, including "The development of the dyad: A bi-directional revisioning of some self-psychological concepts," Progress in Self Psychology Vol.16 (Analytic Press, 2000).