What
is SIPP?:
The Suffolk Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis is the only Long Island-based psychoanalytic institute that offers eclectic, relationally-oriented training programs for members of the various mental health professions (Masters level and beyond). The Four Year Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis is designed to help candidates discover and develop their own individual professional-therapeutic identity and style through intensive participation in course work, supervision, and personal analysis. Completion of this program marks the attainment of the requisite knowledge of theory and practice to be worthy of the title "psychoanalyst." In addition, SIPP also offers a One-Year Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, which has been designed to provide mental health professionals with a less intensive experience than the Four Year Program, but one that teaches them how to think "analytically," and to use those skills in working with people, whether they are clients, patients, colleagues, or co-workers, in the wide variety of settings in which they work and live. Each of SIPP's training programs is clinically-oriented, "user-friendly," and will be enormously helpful in expanding your therapeutic skills, allowing for more fulfilling and "deeper" work. SIPP is provisionally chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. Classes are held in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
What is the significance of psychoanalysis today?:
Although built upon the framework of Freud's original search for making the unconscious conscious, contemporary analysis has evolved into an approach to treatment in which both analyst and patient are mutually involved in the therapy process, with the analyst an active participant instead of the silent observer or infrequent interpreter of the patient's unconscious, which is the commonly-held stereotype of psychoanalysis. In the new "relational" approaches to psychoanalysis, the therapeutic relationship provides a framework in which the patient can "use" the relationship with the analyst to discover more fulfilling and satisfying ways of relating and living in the world. Psychoanalysis is the only treatment modality which delves deeply into the most primitive of human struggles, early losses, traumas and other painful life experiences, and contemporary analytic approaches are best suited to our helping our patients truly resolve these problems.
Why undertake such a commitment?:
Psychoanalytic training prepares the therapist to work with even the most challenging patients in a variety of settings. It enriches our understanding of the human condition by fostering greater empathy for our patients' experience and greater awareness of our own, as participants in the therapy relationship, providing us with priceless tools above and beyond whatever we've obtained on route to our academic degrees. By engaging in these training programs, you have a unique opportunity to grow personally and professionally, regardless of your professional work setting. You will develop the skills to gradually build a private practice while simultaneously connecting to a community of like-minded colleagues. This is vitally important in a field which is notoriously isolating.
Why choose SIPP over another institute?:
At SIPP, our approach to training is not bound to one theory or theorist, but instead is rich with numerous viewpoints and theoretical perspectives within a broadly "relational," contemporary framework. As a candidate at SIPP, you have the ability to practice and network in your own geographical area on Long Island, as opposed to traveling into New York City. Our classes are held in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and you have the option of working with an analyst and with supervisors who live and work on Long Island. Supervision is available with senior analysts for a low fee. We have regular functions, workshops and a professional Society, which allow ongoing contact with colleagues and faculty even beyond graduation. SIPP offers a friendly, supportive network, which serves as the foundation for personal and professional growth and connectedness for everyone who is part of the SIPP Community
