We are delighted to announce that the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute (MPI) now has scholarship grants available for academicians (professors, scholars, teachers, and graduate students in non-clinical fields) who are interested in obtaining psychoanalytic training.
The first grant has been awarded to Jorgelina Corbatta, professor of Hispanic literature at Wayne State University. Corbatta began her psychoanalytic studies at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute in September.
Colleagues and friends set up a memorial fund to honor Alexander Grinstein who died last year. He was a well-known Freud scholar and a prolific writer and researcher with a strong interest in literature and applied psychoanalysis, who achieved prominence in the psychoanalytic world both nationally and internationally. Grinstein compiled the Index of Psychoanalytic Writings, which was the only way to do research in the field before the Internet. Interdisciplinary work by scholars trained in psychoanalysis was dear to his heart. He was passionately interested in seeing that academic or Committee on Research and Special Training (CORST) candidates who could not afford analysis and training would be helped financially to be able to do so. Most academics who might be interested cannot afford to undertake training.
An anonymous donor, who knew of Grinstein's desire to promote scholarship through training academic or CORST candidates and became aware of the fund's existence through the memorial obituary which appeared in MPI's newsletter, has generously donated $200,000 to the fund. The generous support of this groundbreaking grant will pave the way for future donations and programs to attract academic candidates.
These funds will be used to help to defray training expenses of personal analyses, tuition, membership dues, and conference travel for academic candidates. MPI has had a small academic program for years to train academics, but few could undergo the training because of the financial burden. This donation makes it possible to give grants (not loans) to interested academics.
The generous support of this groundbreaking grant will pave the way for future donations and programs to attract academic candidates.
The fund offers need-based grants of up to $20,000 over four years to those applicants who have been accepted as academic or CORST candidates at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. There are provisions for extensions of the grant and waivers for tuition if training continues beyond the four years.
Our Academic Associate training track consists of personal analysis plus a curriculum of theoretical and clinical seminars. We also offer full clinical training that includes a personal analysis and the experience of conducting clinical psychoanalysis under supervision. Flexible training schedules are available.
Graduates of both programs are eligible to apply for the appropriate membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association.
The intent of these programs is to qualify its graduates to undertake more psychoanalytically-informed research, teaching, and scholarly work in their primary discipline through their study of psychoanalysis in depth.
This fruitful educational endeavor enhances the interdisciplinary work of academics in their primary field of study as well as enriching our clinical candidates' education as they hear academics reason out analytic concepts and bring material from their areas of expertise. Our hope is that the scholars who obtain this dual training will be a living bridge between psychoanalysis and other disciplines. Thus psychoanalysis, as a vital intellectual discipline, will be closely tied to present-day clinical practice and not be viewed simply as an intellectual theory divorced from clinical practice.
Deanna Holtzman, Ph.D., is a former chair of CORST, training and supervising analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute (MPI) where she chairs Academic Programs. She is president of Sigmund Freud Archives and serves on the faculty of Wayne State University.