Starting a Private Practice:
Frame Considerations & Professional Identity in a New Era
For new therapists transitioning into private practice, this can be an exciting moment to carve out a space of one’s own. The last few years have shaken up many traditional ways of thinking, and the field of psychoanalysis seems to be shifting, grappling, and expanding with the changing tides.
But the transition to private practice — even in the least turbulent times — is often a solitary endeavor. Many important questions are left to one’s own best judgment without sufficient space for exploration. How do we set fees, screen patients, create policies? How do we think about in-person and remote therapeutic work? How do we think about our strengths and limitations, our professional boundaries and needs? How can we create a solid, alive, thoughtful frame?
This small, in-person seminar offers a much-needed space to talk through some of the questions that arise in starting a private practice, particularly in this challenging time.
NCSPP is aware that historically psychoanalysis has either excluded or pathologized groups outside of the dominant population in terms of age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, gender, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, and size. As an organization, we are committed to bringing awareness to matters of anti-oppression, inequity, inequality, diversity, and inclusion as they pertain to our educational offerings, our theoretical orientation, our community, and the broader world we all inhabit.
Presenters Response:
This course focuses on a professional development process that is always already loaded with cultural meanings and implications. For example, decisions about fees are rooted in the current economic realities of a therapist's life, our relationships to the communities we serve, and often involve powerful echoes of our personal and familial class histories. The move into private practice also involves a relationship to one's own sense of legitimacy, as well as the legitimacy that is culturally conferred upon us or denied to us. The course will take up the complexity of therapists' intersectional identities and will problematize the institutional norms and assumptions embedded in our field.
Clara Brandt, Psy.D., is a psychologist in private practice in Oakland, where she works with adult individuals and couples. She teaches and supervises at Access Institute and is the former chair of the Education Committee at NCSPP.
This course is for psychoanalytically-oriented clinicians (or clinicians with at least some background in psychoanalytic approaches) who are actively preparing for or adjusting to the private practice setting. This could include post-docs/post-grads, community mental health providers, etc.
Enrollees who cancel at least SEVEN DAYS prior to the event date will receive a refund minus a $35 administrative charge. No refunds will be allowed after this time. Transfer of registrations are not allowed.
For program related questions contact Grace Kiriakos at gkiriakos@drgracekiriakos.com or 510-619-0342.
For questions related to enrollment, locations, CE credit, special needs, course availability and other administrative issues contact Michele McGuinness by email or 415-496-9949.
Education Committee
The Education Committee is responsible for the development of a variety of courses and workshops given throughout the year in San Francisco and the East Bay.