Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research
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'Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research' was the first psychoanalytic institute to be developed within a university. An offshoot of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, Columbia has developed a reputation for being unusually eclectic in both its educational framework and in the careers carried out by its graduates. While many have gone on to full-time private practices, a large percentage have gone on to work within academic medical centers in a wide variety of roles. This eclecticism is applauded by those who appreciate its flexibility and academic productivity but criticized by those within the field who view Columbia as having veered from traditional psychoanalytic precepts.
Like other analytic institutes, Columbia is charged with training future psychoanalysts. The curriculum averages 5-7 years and generally begins after the candidate has completed all other training (e.g., a psychiatry residency for physicians and clinical internships for psychologists). The candidates attend classes, conduct analyses, read, obtain supervision, and do their own analysis. Unlike most other analytic institutes, Columbia's trainees remain overwhelmingly psychiatrists. This likely derives from Columbia's location within a medical center so that a significant percentage of the psychiatry residents from Columbia go on to do analytic training. In addition, an equivalent percentage of the trainees from Cornell's psychiatry training program go on to do training at Columbia, largely because of the many Columbia faculty who are part-time faculty members at Cornell's Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic.
Several dozen of its faculty are well known within psychoanalysis and psychiatry. These include Arnold Cooper, Robert Glick, Otto F. Kernberg, Roger MacKinnon, Robert Michels, and Roy Schafer.