MPSI Psychotherapy Center

Training Opportunities

Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship, Graduate Social Work Internship, and Post-Graduate Clinical Fellowship

Program Goals: The MPSI Psychotherapy Center Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship, Graduate Social Work Internship, and Post-Graduate Clinical Fellowship Program is designed for students who possess a strong desire to develop their clinical skills by learning to apply psychoanalytic theory and technique to their work with clients. Psychoanalytically informed therapy is based upon the idea that clients can be significantly helped when the therapist focuses on the client’s presenting problems, significant developmental past, and emergence of presenting problems in the relationship with a therapist (i.e., transference). Understanding unconscious dynamics, resistance, early attachment, and core relationship patterns are all particularly important when working from a psychoanalytic perspective in psychotherapy.

Selection Criteria: Applicants for the MPSI Psychotherapy Center must possess personal maturity and integrity, as well as a commitment to the highest personal and professional ethical standards and practices. Applicants should be intensely interested in developing skills in psychoanalytic theory and technique but need not have a background in psychoanalytic thinking and practice, although experience with psychoanalytic ideas is desirable.

Requirements Specific to the Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship and Graduate Social Work Internship

MPSI Psychotherapy Center sponsors a Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship and Graduate Social Work Internship for students who are passionate about their work and committed to developing their skills as psychodynamically informed clinicians. Candidates for the internship are current graduate students who are completing clinical level field placements.

Eligibility: The internship is open to students who are currently working toward their masters or doctoral degree and are committed to developing a practice that is committed to clinical excellence.

Time Commitment: Interns provide between 7 and 9 clinical hours of direct client care per week. The internship is half time, approximately 20 hours per week.

Requirements Specific to the Post-Graduate Clinical Fellowship

MPSI Psychotherapy Center sponsors a Clinical Fellowship for psychotherapists who are passionate about their work and committed to developing their skills as psychodynamically-informed clinicians. Fellows are generally either recent graduates who are working toward accumulating hours toward licensure or mid-career therapists who want to deepen their clinical skills.

Eligibility: The Clinical Fellowship is open to therapists who have earned their masters degree and have demonstrated their commitment to clinical excellence.

Time Commitment: While the fellowship is designed to be a half-time position, a full-time option may be considered. Fellows provide 7 to 9 hours of direct client care per week. Clinical fellowships are awarded annually for a one-year appointment that begins in the fall.

Additional Information about MPSI Internships and Fellowships

Benefits: Interns and fellows will receive two hours of group supervision and two hours of individual supervision per week. Interns and fellows will take three ten-week classes per trimester in the Minnesota Psychoanalytic Society’s Two Year Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program (PPTP). Classes are on Friday afternoons from 12-4:30pm. Classes that are part of the two year psychoanalytic training program include: Development; Assessment and Formulation; Ego Psychology; Free Association/Analytic Process; Object Relations; Therapeutic Listening; Self/Relational Theories; Case Conference; Transference/Countertransference; and Dreams.

Compensation:
The MPSI Psychotherapy Center does not offer compensation. The Center relies on volunteers to keep costs low and to assure that underserved populations have access to affordable psychoanalytically informed therapy.

Applications: Application materials include three letters of reference and at least one face-to-face interview. Each applicant will be asked to share an example of their clinical work with a client (disguised to protect confidentiality) to help assess the applicant’s level of clinical sophistication and to assure that the applicant’s clinical direction and developmental needs are consistent with what the internship or fellowship offers.

Non-Discrimination Statement. The Minnesota Psychoanalytic Society and Institute which sponsors the MPSI Psychotherapy Center does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion or creed, gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status in admissions and administration of its educational programs, employment, or in any of its activities or operations.

For more information or to request an application, please contact Hal Steiger, PhD, at (612) 824-2619 or steiger.hal@gmail.com