Argosy University
COURSE SYLLABUS
PP8203
Psychotherapy Seminar
Fall 2011
Faculty Information
Faculty Name: Peter A. Reiner, Ph.D.
Campus: Chicago
Contact Information:
Office phone number: 312.822.7277
Email:
Office Hours: By Appointment
Short Faculty Biography:
Peter A. Reiner, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and is licensed both as a clinical psychologist and as a marriage and family therapist. He also maintains faculty appointments at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine and The Family Institute at Northwestern University.
Dr. Reiner was Coordinator of Clinical Training at The Family Institute and has been faculty at Michael Reese Hospital, Loyola University of Chicago, The University of Illinois—Chicago Circle, DePaul University, and Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
His interests include long-term psychodynamically-oriented psychotherapy and systemically-oriented psychotherapy. He maintains a private practice in downtown Chicago of psychoanalytically- and systemically-informed individual, couple, and family therapy.
Course Catalogue description:
The two years (four semesters) of practicum provide supervised clinical field experience. In addition to the required hours working at the assigned training site, students enrolled in practicum meet weekly in a practicum seminar led by a core faculty member. The overall practicum experience may be structured such that either the first year of practicum experience (Practicum I and II) will focus on assessment issues and the second year on psychotherapy (Practicum III and IV), or that both assessment and intervention experience will be intermixed over the two years of practicum.
Course Pre-requisites: PP8201 – Diagnostic Seminar; PP8202 Psy.D. Practicum
Required Textbooks: As noted previously, various required articles or chapters will be assigned during the ten-month seminar. They will be available “on reserve” in the library, or distributed in class, or made available electronically.
Technology: Argosy University encourages the use of technology throughout the curriculum. Seminar participants may use some or all of the following items: audiotapes, videotapes, CD’s, DVD’s, digital audio recorders, and so on. Examples of hardware or software that may be needed for the seminar include the following: Pentium III CPU/ Windows 98; 128MB RAM printer; Microsoft Office: Acrobat (full version); Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 (PC), 5.0 (MAC), or Netscape Navigator 4.08; Norton Antivirus.
Course length: 30 Weeks (per entire academic year)
Contact Hours: 1.25 hours per week + practicum hours
Credit Value: 3.0
Objective Table:
Course Objective / Program Goal / Method of AssessmentTo establish a therapeutic alliance, demonstrating a capacity to communicate empathy, acceptance, and understanding. / Goal 2 -Intervention / · Clinical presentations
· CEC
To develop the capacity to listen attentively and analytically, to follow client material closely on both the manifest and latent levels. / Goal 2 - Intervention / · Clinical presentations
· Participation in group consultation
· CEC
To learn various intervention “techniques,” including reflection, clarification, confrontation, silence, reframing, paradox, and psychoanalytic interpretation. / Goal 2 - Intervention / · Clinical presentations
· CEC
To begin to identify and manage transference and countertransference dynamics within the therapeutic interaction; to build therapist capacity for “holding” and “containment.” / Goal 2 - Intervention / · Clinical presentations
· CEC
To promote sensitive awareness of, and response to, issues of diversity as they impact the clinical interaction. / Goal 3 –Diversity / · Clinical presentations
· Participation in group consultation
· CEC
· Brief written summaries of clinical material
To be able to communicate clearly (in both oral and written forms) one's theoretically-grounded holistic understanding of the client, the nature of the “problem” and the rationales for particular interventions, including being able to support hypotheses using specific data from the individual's history, present functioning, and the therapeutic interaction. / Goal 2 –Intervention
Goal 5 - Scholarship / · Clinical presentations
· Written assignments
· CEC
To deepen the therapist’s capacity for self-reflection and to develop open, non-defensive, and accepting attitudes towards clients, one’s self, and peers. / Goal 2 -Intervention / · Clinical presentations
· Participation in group consultation
· Brief written summaries of clinical material
To be able to reflect on one's own performance, make a realistic appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses in the therapeutic interaction, and to use these self-critical capacities to improve interventions in later work. / Goal 2 - Intervention / · Clinical presentations
· Brief written summaries of clinical material
· CEC
.To further refine one’s identity as an ethical psychotherapist and professional psychologist. / Goal 2 – Intervention
Goal 3 – Diversity
Goal 5 - Scholarship / · Full participation in seminar
Instructional Contact Hours/Credit
Students can expect 15 hours of instructional engagement for every 1 semester credit hour of a course. Instructional engagement activities include lectures, presentations, discussions, group-work, and other activities that would normally occur during class time. Instructional engagement activities may occur in a face-to-face meeting, or in the eclassroom.
In addition to instructional engagement, students can expect to complete 30 hours of outside work for every 1 semester credit hour of a course. Outside work includes preparing for and completing readings and assignments. Such outside work includes, but is not limited to, all research associated with completing assignments, work with others to complete a group project, participation in tutorials, labs, simulations and other electronic activities that are not a part of the instructional engagement, as well as any activities related to preparation for instructional engagement.
At least an equivalent amount of work as required in paragraph above shall be applied for other academic activities as established by the institution, including laboratory work, internships, practica, studio work, and other academic work leading to the award of credit hours.
Outcome Assessment:
As part of the expectation that students learn and practice from an evidence-based approach, students will be expected to collect outcome data on the effectiveness of their clinical interventions. The specific assessment(s) to be used during the training year will be discussed during the first 1-2 meetings of the seminar and will be selected in collaborating with the seminar leader and practicum site supervisor. Students will be responsible for collecting data, discussing the data in seminar, and making decisions about treatment using these data (and supervision) as relevant sources of information regarding the effectiveness of the treatment and the trainee’s interventions.
Description:
The psychotherapy practicum seminar is required and is composed of a small group of students, led by a faculty member, (optimally) participating in similar practicum experiences. The goal of the seminar is to teach clinical skills in conducting psychotherapy and in case formulation so that students reach or exceed the competency level required to pass the psychotherapy CEC task by the Spring semester.
This weekly seminar will focus on the exploration of the general issues that arise in clinical practice as well as the development of specific skills in conducting psychotherapy. Participants and the seminar leader will review students’ clinical work together in the hopes of assisting students to acquire, to develop, and to refine essential skills in listening, in formulating case material, in intervening, and in self-supervision.
Please note that this seminar does not constitute “supervision.” It is an adjunctive learning experience supplementing the supervision each student receives at her or his practicum site. Thus, the seminar is not a substitute for on-site supervision, namely weekly face-to-face meetings with a licensed clinical psychologist. The seminar provides a structure within which students receive additional consultation and training as they progress through the practicum year. Your site supervisor remains your sole supervisor, and holds responsibility for your clinical work throughout your practicum experience. At times, students find themselves confused because of differences in perspectives or approaches of the seminar group and the site supervisor. This is common during training, and it is important to discuss this directly and openly in the seminar. Please keep in mind that you are not at liberty to disregard the direction of your on-site supervisor, because that supervisor takes clinical responsibility for you.
Site supervisors have been informed that they may contact the training department in order to raise any questions or concerns. Personnel at the practicum sites complete a written evaluation of students’ performances each term. In addition, each term, the seminar leader will evaluate students’ progress, both in terms of their own presentations and their overall contributions to the group discussion. The seminar leader will also evaluate students' written work that is presented to seminar members.
Please note: In addition, various required articles or chapters will be assigned during the course of the seminar. They will be available “on reserve” in the library, or distributed in class, or made available electronically.
Seminar Format, Schedule, and Expectations
The seminar will meet 30 times over the course of the year, distributed across the fall semester, the spring semester, and the first summer semester. Please note that seminar will not meet on Monday, 10 October 2011, which is Columbus Day.
Our seminar will focus on the psychotherapeutic treatment of adults, couples, and families from psychoanalytic, “systemic,” and integrated perspectives. As much as possible, please choose cases for presentation that are in keeping with this focus.
Students will take turns presenting recordings of psychotherapy sessions in the seminar.
Approximately one hour of each seminar meeting will be devoted to reviewing a student’s recorded psychotherapy session. Brief summaries of information about the clients (suitably disguised to protect clients’ identities) who will be presented are required in advance. This will be discussed more fully in the seminar, and guidelines will be provided in writing. Material presented in seminar is confidential; the fact that identities are disguised does not alleviate the responsibility of all participants to treat both client and therapist material in the most sensitive and confidential manner. Please do not discuss client material and therapist interventions outside of the seminar.
Each week, brief discussion of issues of general concern (including those of advisement) will precede students’ presentations.
At times, always with advance notice except in emergency, students’ presentations may be superseded by discussions of technique, theory, and so on; by clinical simulations (role plays); by discussions relating to specific assignments (viz., the CEC), to professional development or ethical issues, to the assigned readings; and so on.
In seminar, please feel free to raise issues for advisement and discussion, as well as any feedback regarding your experience of the seminar.
Grading Criteria:
Students will receive feedback in an ongoing way during seminar meetings. At the end of Fall Semester, I will provide additional feedback on your progress. Such feedback will likely include—but not necessarily be limited to--observations of your listening skills, your empathy, your ability to formulate case material, your intervention skills, the quality of your participation in seminar meetings, your brief written summaries of clinical material, your openness to supervision, your sensitivity to issues of difference, and your self-awareness. (Please see “specific goals and objectives” below for additional criteria used to assess students’ progress.) If at any time you would like to meet to clarify or to discuss your progress, please contact me.
Students are expected to attend every seminar and to be punctual. Not only is attendance essential as an aspect of your learning experience, it is central to your developing professionalism and your respectfulness of your colleagues. Be sure to notify me if you must miss a seminar. Students who miss more than one meeting during the semester will not pass the seminar. Students who are chronically or frequently tardy will not pass the seminar. In addition, students whose attendance, professionalism, or academic honesty is in any way questionable will be referred to the appropriate committee (e.g., SPDC, SCC). Students’ transcripts, or materials maintained by the training department, or both, may indicate the recommendations and findings of such committees, of the training department, and so on.
The major, formal evaluative task, due in the spring of 2012, is the Psychotherapy Clinical Evaluation Competency (CEC). This task will be discussed in the seminar. In addition, please carefully review the guidelines on your own; they can be found at the following website:
http://www.auconnection.net/chicago/ispp/practicumInfo/pr_practInfo.asp
If you anticipate any difficulties whatsoever in completing this assignment, please discuss them with me as soon as possible. Please note the following regarding the CEC:
1) the psychotherapy CEC submission must be a psychotherapy session with an adult, couple, or family
2) the case must be approved by me
3) the specific session that is submitted may not have been previously presented in the seminar
4) the case must be conceptualized and treated from a psychodynamically-oriented, “systems,” or integrative theoretical perspective
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Title / Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioner’s guideAuthor(s) / McWilliams, N.
Copyright / 2004
Publisher / NY: Guilford
ISBN / 1-59385-009-3
Edition / 1st (first)
Title / Integrative problem-centered therapy
Author(s) / Pinsof, W.
Copyright / 1995
Publisher / NY: Basic Books
ISBN / 0-46503328-8
Edition / 1st (first)
Title / A guide for beginning psychotherapists
Author(s) / Zaro, J., Barach, R., Nedelman, D., & Dreiblatt, I.
Copyright / 1977 (latest reprint: 2003)
Publisher / Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
ISBN / 0 521 29230 1
Edition / 1st (First)
Title / Principles of psychotherapy
Author(s) / Weiner, I.
Copyright / 1998
Publisher / NY: Wiley
ISBN / ISBN-13: 978-0471191285
Edition / 2nd (second)
Title / Resolution of inner conflict: An introduction to psychoanalytic therapy
Author(s) / Auld, F., Hyman, M., & Rudzinski, D.
Copyright / 2005
Publisher / Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association
ISBN / ISBN-13: 978-1591471950
Edition / 2nd (second)
Library Resources
Argosy University’s core online collection features more than 21,000 full-text journals, 23,000 electronic books and other content covering all academic subject areas including Business & Economics, Career & General Education, Computers, Engineering & Applied Science, Humanities, Science, Medicine & Allied Health, and Social & Behavior Sciences.All electronic resources can be accessed through the library’s website at www.auchicagolib.org. User IDs and passwords are distributed during orientation, but can also be obtained at the circulation desk, calling 312-777-7653, or by e-mail at .