The Fellowship Program of the American invites a wide variety of talented mental health professionals throughout the country to participate in an innovative educational program. Many local institutes have supported the American's Fellowship winners and applicants by providing mentors and local courses. But one of the unexpected side effects of this national endeavor has been the creation and emergence of separate local psychoanalytic fellowship programs organized by training institutes in such cities as Chicago, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
These local fellowship programs have followed the lead of the national program by emphasizing the mentoring relationship as the keystone of the fellowship experience for local psychiatric, psychology, and social work talents. In most instances, the local fellows and mentors meet monthly while didactic or clinical courses are offered to expose the fellows to psychoanalytic thought and involve them in the psychoanalytic community. Often the local fellows are also invited to scientific sessions and other programs sponsored by the institutes. Local fellowships fill a unique educational role for clinicians and trainees who want a greater understanding of psychoanalytic concepts but are either not interested in or not ready for formal psychotherapy or psychoanalytic training. These programs have proven to be a “user friendly” way for training institutes to demonstrate their willingness to attend to a wide range of educational needs within the clinical community in a personal and meaningful manner. The overall expense to organize and maintain these local fellowship programs is nominal and typically requires no tuition fee from the fellows.
The process of developing the Psychoanalytic Fellowship Program at the Institute of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis has paid unforeseen dividends for our institute, fellows, students, teaching programs, and morale. As with other institutes, we saw a local fellowship program as a vehicle to educate and reach out to a wide range of clinicians. In early 1995, we began to organize a fellowship program for the 1995–96 academic year. A Subcommittee for Psychoanalytic Fellowship was established through our Medical Liaison Committee, and I was appointed chair. Subcommittee members-include Deena Adler, Frederick Fisher, Emanuel E. Garcia, Michael P. Kowitt, Eva G. Loeb, Franklin G. Maleson, and Harvey J. Schwartz. While we were organizing ourselves to start mentoring local psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, happenstance sent good fortune to reward our hard work.
We were contacted by Lori Lefkovitz, an assistant professor of English at Kenyon College in Ohio who was relocating to Philadelphia to direct the Womens' and Gender Studies Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Penn. Lefkovitz was writing a book on sisters and sisterhood and wanted to speak with several psychoanalysts in order to better understand female psychology and relationships for her book. When she learned of our fellowship initiative, she asked if she could participate. We learned she was known as a superb teacher, a scholar with an emerging national reputation, and a citizen whose voice was attended to, so we decided to listen. We realized that she could learn from us and we could learn from her. This compelled us to rethink the structure and function of our program.
We decided that the psychoanalytic fellowship sponsored by the institute would be an academic honor awarded to applicants who show outstanding interest in psychoanalytic studies. The one-year fellowship would be highly selective and carefully screened by the subcommittee. We found that many fellows wanted to maintain their involvement with us, and we now offer a second year of fellowship. Beyond the second year, fellows can become fellowship associate members, which entitles them to be listed in our catalogue, attend scientific meetings, use our library, and form an alumni organization.
The fellowship includes clinical exposure to psychoanalytic concepts through discussion with psychoanalytic mentors. The mentors are selected from the faculty of the institute who have generously given their time for mentoring and teaching. Each fellow has defined a specific focus of study for the year and meets monthly with his or her mentor to study and discuss selected specific topics during the year.
The fellowship has three tracks:
An academic track for non-clinical scholars and academics.
A clinical track for psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.
An honorary track to recognize academic leaders who have worked collaboratively with psychoanalysts in education, clinical, or research areas. This track does not include formal mentorship.
A workshop to discuss “local” Psychoanalytic Fellowshipswill be be held at the spring meeting in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 13, from 10:00 a.m. to noon. The workshop will introduce different approaches taken by several local fellowship programs . The agenda includes several models of local fellowships and the positive effects they have had on local psychoanalyt ic teaching, learning, and morale. In addition, the workshop will cover how to recruit local fellows, how to set up didactic work for fellows, and costs and benefits. Any interested members and representatives from local societies or institutes are welcome.
The fellowship emphasizes our psychoanalytic organization and psychoanalysis as a valued resource for the academic community. We want to enrich the fellows' views and knowledge of psychoanalysis and enrich ourselves by their presence.
In addition to the mentorship, fellows are invited to attend scientific sessions, classes of their selection in the Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Training Program, Extension Division programs, and Women's Study Division programs.
In the 1995–96 academic year, we assumed we would begin our fellowship program with only Lori Lefkovitz as an academic fellow. To our delight and surprise, word spread throughout the institute and we received several impressive applications. We accepted four clinical fellows: a primary care internist who studied the application of psychoanalytic concepts in her medical practice, a psychiatric resident who applied psychoanalytic principles to consultation and liaison psychiatry, a recent graduate from psychiatric residency who studied and pursued her interest in psychotherapy and developmental issues in the college population, and a Jungian psychiatrist/therapist who used the fellowship to compare and contrast Jungian theory and technique with classical psychoanalytic theory and technique. We also recognized Michael Vegane, chair of the psychiatry department at Albert Einstein Medical Center and Jefferson Medical College, with
Bruce J. Levin, M.D., is vice-president of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis. He is an associate faculty member of the Institute of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis and chairs its Subcommittee on Psychoanalytic Fellowship. He is also a member of the American's Fellowship Committee. For more information on the Philadelphia fellowship program, e-mail him at .
an honorary fellowship. He was honored for his life-long professional and personal commitment to the support of psychoanalysis and dynamic psychiatry.
In the first year, we found the mentorship worked best when each fellow had two mentors. It broadened the fellow's exposure to different styles and approaches to applied psychoanalytic thinking and increased the probability of a good “match” in the mentoring relationship. The possibility of good pairing of fellow and mentor was also enhanced in our application process. Each applicant would submit an essay (with a curriculum vitae) that outlined the specific topics of applied psychoanalysis he or she wanted to study for the year. When these goals were described in detail in the essay and elaborated upon during two interviews by subcommittee members, it was easier to find a mentor-analyst who had similar interests.
Our second year of fellowship built on the success of the previous year. The professional diversity and areas of interest expanded within the overall group of fellows.
The 1996–97 academic fellows:
An associate professor of psychology and computer science who is an expert in computer models of cognition.
A professor of German whose scholarly pursuits include translation of Freud's twelfth metapsychological paper, “Overview of the Transference Neurosis” and who is an official translator for the Sigmund Freud Archives of the Library of Congress. He used the fellowship to explore the psychohistorical and psychodynamic underpinnings of Freud and Ferenczi's relationship for his academic research.
The chief assistant district attorney for the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit in the Philadelphia district attorney's office. She used the fellowship to study family violence and examine psychodynamic motivations that underlie abusive family relationships. She completed the fellowship and is currently a candidate.
In 1996–97 we also accepted one clinical fellow: a psychiatric resident who used the fellowship to gain a better understanding of psychodynamic listening.
At the end of the second academic year of the psychoanalytic fellowship, there was “growing recognition by our psychoanalytic organization and by our fellows of a need to dialogue with each other in some areas of applied psychoanalysis that were ripe for mutual enlightenment,” as Richard Cornfield wrote in our newsletter. We organized a fellowship panel discussion on “Applied Psychoanalysis: Psychoanalytic Concepts in Communication with Other Fields.” Our panelists, all fellows, included Lori Lefkovitz; Peter Hoffer, a professor of German at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia; assistant district attorney Mimi Rose; and Arthur Caplan, chair of the bioethics department at the University of Pennsylvania, who discussed psychoanalytic thought as applied to literature, history, law, and bioethics, respectively. Harold Kolansky, who played an instrumental role in establishing our local fellowship as chair of the Medical Liaison Committee, moderated the scholarly presentations and a lively and inspiring discussion among our panelists and audience.
Inspiration was also found among the fellowship recipients for 1997–98. The academic fellows:
An assistant professor of philosophy interested in academic debates about the validity of psychoanalytic therapy who is particularly critical of the Freud-bashing in academic circles. He used the fellowship to gain greater didactic knowledge and understanding of psychoanalytic ideas, with the ambition of entering those academic debates.
An assistant defender in the Defender Association of Philadelphia (a colleague of the fellow who is an assistant district attorney) who used our program to increase his understanding of psychiatric problems and psychodynamic issues troubling his clients in the Public Defender's Office.
The principal of a private suburban elementary school who appreciated the complex transferential reactions of parents to him in his role as school leader. He used the fellowship to gain an understanding of how child psychoanalysts approach parents, family members, and the transferential reactions in these relationships.
We accepted one clinical fellow in 1997–98. He is a recent graduate of psychiatry residency who has an interest in applying psychoanalytic concepts to research and forensic psychiatry. We also honored Caplan with an honorary fellowship for his intriguing interests in the bioethics and psychodynamics of physician-assisted suicide, in-vitro fertilization, and cloning.
The cornucopia of interesting and accomplished academicians and clinicians chosen as fellows for the 1998–99 academic year continues to add to our enthusiasm for this creative educational endeavor. The 1998–99 academic fellows:
A highly acclaimed author and journalist specializing in mental and physical health issues whose last book, A Brilliant Madness: Living With Manic Depressive Illness, which she wrote with actress Patti Duke, was on the New York Times best seller list for three months. She will use the fellowship to explore the role of psychoanalysis in the treatment of people with specific neurotic problems and personality disorders and hopes to incorporate this knowledge into her writing.
An artist and owner/director of a well-known Philadelphia art gallery, who will use the fellowship to focus his thinking about the sources of creativity as it affects fine artists. He is especially intrigued by the relationship between neurotic conflict and artistic motivation and creativity.
A Ph.D. candidate in sociology who will examine the psychodynamics and nature of social solidarity and isolation of individuals in the white working-class and poor neighborhoods she observed in her dissertation research fieldwork.
An associate professor of education who is a teacher educator. She will use the fellowship to enhance her understanding of psychoanalytic views of child development, learning processes, and unconscious factors in the student/teacher relationship.
Clinical fellows for the 1998–99 academic year:
A sex and couples therapist who will use the fellowship to gain a deeper understanding of how individual character pathology and conflicts affect troubled relationships. He hopes to learn more about intrapsychic conflict, transference, and countertransference in his approach to marital and sexual difficulties.
A psychiatric resident who is also an attorney, who will explore the use of psychoanalytic concepts in forensic psychiatry.
A primary care physician who often cares for patients with eating disorders and other illnesses that have a strong psychological component. She is interested in how unconscious processes play a part in choosing particular symptoms.
Local psychoanalytic fellowships can fill an important niche within a psychoanalytic institute. Their unique educational role complements existing psychotherapy and psychoanalytic training programs. They are also an important vehicle for community inclusion, outreach, and public education. These local programs have led to lasting friendships and alliances in the community. Our local fellowship “ambassadors” often show their appreciation for the privilege of learning from psychoanalysts by “spreading the word” about their positive experiences with the psychoanalytic organization.
The connections and professional relationships with fellows typically extend beyond their formal educational year. In some instances, fellows transform mentorship into a supervisory relationship. In other instances, fellows continue to participate in talks, seminars, or courses as students, guest instructors, or speakers. Their unique perspectives from different academic and clinical disciplines has proven to be invigorating and refreshing for students and instructors.
Local fellowship programs have been created in a handful of cities, and in each instance the experience has added optimism and hopefulness to the psychoanalytic community. In light of our experience in Philadelphia, I can only suggest, “If you build it, they will come.”