Four-Year Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training program
We are recognized by and meet all the standards and requirements of the College of Registered Psychotherapists (CRPO).
CICAPP provides training in the theory and technique of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for professionals working with children, adolescents, and youth. Candidates are trained to assess for normal functioning and psychopathology and to conduct psychotherapy. The training qualifies graduates to consult, supervise, and teach in agencies concerned with child, adolescent, and youth mental health.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy child, adolescent, and youth therapists trained in the CICAPP program attempt to examine the inner world of the client and to understand their organized ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting.
Training Program Goals
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Integrate Psychoanalytic Theory: Candidates will learn to integrate psychoanalytic theory as it has evolved for over a century, with the discoveries of contemporary observational research in infant to youth development.
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Affection of Interaction: Candidates will come to understand how temperament and infant – caregiver relationships interact to affect personality development and relational patterns.
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Common Presenting Problems: Candidates will learn about common presenting problems, therapeutic action, and the therapeutic relationship.
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Achievement: Graduate with a diploma in child, adolescent, and youth psychotherapy, with the option to apply to the College of Registered Psychotherapists (CRPO).
Training Program Details
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A new class intake begins once every two years. The next program will begin in September 2026.
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Involves a curriculum of academic seminars, infant/toddler observations, and supervised clinical work. Instructors focus on key issues in development, the therapeutic relationship, assessment, and therapeutic interventions. Please see further details in our entrance requirements and our Curriculum and Clinical requirements.
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Length: Four years part-time; 30 weeks of three-hour seminars/week per academic year for a minimum of 360 hours of education/training.
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Schedule: 6:30 PM – 9:45 PM on Tuesdays from September to May.
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Location: 427 Vaughan Road, Toronto, ON, M6C 2P1
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Distance Learning is available; please contact the administration office for more details.
Training Program Fees
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Annual Academic Fee: $10,500/year. Breakdown:
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Tuition: $5,500/year
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Supervision: $5,000/year
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Additional supervision fees will be required following the four-year contract.
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Post-Academic fee (paid per year following the four-year contract until graduation): $300/year
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Upon acceptance into the program, $500 deposit towards first year Academic fees.
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Payment options of one instalment in September or two instalments; one in September and one in January.
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A tax receipt T222 will be provided for annual Academic fees (tuition & Supervision).
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Click the button below to pay fees with a credit card through GiftTool. Please note: paying via credit card will result in an administration fee of $85/year.
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Payment is also accepted by e-transfer to payments@cicapp.ca
Extension Programs
The Paternal Function in Anorexia Nervosa Presenter: Dr. Tom Wooldridge The role of the father, both flesh-and-blood and symbolic, is explored in a subset of families of patients with anorexia nervosa. In these families the mother’s narcissistic investment in her child makes separation-individuation difficult. A factor potentially influencing whether the child goes on to develop anorexia nervosa is the strength of the paternal function, which optimally helps the child learn how to appropriately deploy his aggression in the service of separation-individuation and as a means of developing “the experience of agency”: the phenomenological experience of oneself as having an intentional impact. The role of the paternal function in developing the experience of agency is illuminated by the metaphor of rough-and-tumble play, which encapsulates the kind of experience with early objects that facilitates or forecloses the child’s capacity for experiencing agency. In the families of these patients, the father is frequently described as passive or absent and the paternal function as compromised, which arguably leads the anorexic-to-be to relegate his experience of agency to his body, which he subjugates through omnipotent control.
Covid, Guns, War and the Normal Losses of Everyday Life: Looking at Bereavement in Childhood Through the Psychoanalytic Lens Presenter: Dr. Corinne Masur “Death will no longer be denied; we are forced to believe it; People really die; and no longer one by one, but many, often tens of thousands in a single day. And death is no longer a chance event”. Freud wrote these words during the First World War, yet they might as well have been written today. During the Covid-19 pandemic the population of the entire world has either been sick, dying or grieving. And meanwhile, in many parts of the world, war and other kinds of epidemics including that of gun violence have also run rampant. So, we are particularly aware of loss and grief at this moment in time as well as of the need to assess not only how they are affecting each of us but also how they are affecting and shaping the children we treat. In this talk we will think together about the psychoanalytic theories of loss, the question of whether children can grieve and the effect of various kinds of loss on children at each age and stage of development.
Psychoanalyzing Adolescents: Liminal Creatures in a Changing World Presenter: Dr. Carol Owens This seminar will explore the contours of the contemporary adolescent psychoanalytic clinic, focusing upon the knots and tensions immanent and emergent in the work, and mobilising an investigation of the manner in which adolescent symptoms – those pertaining by definition, to what we may think of as ‘the liminal’ – may be understood as specific responses to a rapidly changing Symbolic order.
The Development and Evaluation of a Comprehensive Care System to Improve the Mental Health of Children Affected by Armed Conflict Presenter: Dr. Mark Jordans, Ph.D. This talk will focus on addressing the psychosocial support and mental health care needs of conflict affected children, especially in humanitarian settings. It will address how situations like conflict affect children and adolescents, and what we have learned so far in how we mitigate the negative impacts. I will provide an example of how research and practice come together in a program of work that aims to develop a multi-sectoral, multi-level system of care for children affected by war that addresses children’s needs across different ecological levels. This system of care is complemented by mechanisms to ensure access and quality of care, and a focus on ensuring evidence-based principles can be developed and implemented in such a way that they are scalable and can achieve actual real-world impact, despite the complexities and challenges of working in low-resource humanitarian settings.
The Challenge of Prevention & Early Intervention in Children’s Mental Health Presenter: Dr. Paul Ramchandani The case for prevention and early intervention in mental health is well established and the potential benefits in health and economic terms are frequently stated. Yet, progress in the widespread implementation of effective psychotherapeutic treatments for prevention is slow and challenging. In this talk I wish to examine some of the evidence for prevention and early intervention drawing on a range of evidence, including findings from a new randomised controlled trial of a Video Feedback Intervention (ViPP-SD) (the Healthy Start Happy Start trial) and the inclusion of positive everyday interventions such as play. Early intervention and prevention efforts have to go beyond specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. As well as trying to help those at higher risk, we also have to examine ways to promote behaviours and environments that promote positive factors.
Teen & Torn: Outsiderness in Adolescence Presenter: Dr. Gurmeet Kanwal, M.D. Adolescence is a time of identity formation, which is a process that is highly dependent on interactions with family, peers and community. Adolescents from minority backgrounds can feel especially torn between belonging and outsiderness. What do we mean by identity? What are the dynamics of identity formation that might particularly impact adolescents from minority backgrounds? What might be the impact of cultural factors on the development of identity? This class will explore the experience of adolescence in the context of being a minority in one’s community.
The Malignant Ambiguity of Incestuous Language Presenter: Dr. Dana Amir This presentation discusses the malignant ambiguity typical of incestuous language: the ambiguity of revealing and concealing, which creates a language that pretends to produce meaning and enable links whereas, in fact, constitutes a violent attack on linking. Through a detailed description of two clinical cases, the formation of two defensive positions is demonstrated: one involves the overall flattening of three-dimensionality, and the other is a defensive pseudo-phallic position employing various modes of ejection by way of fending off penetration. Finally, the article focuses on the inherent ambiguity of the therapeutic scene and the critical role of the therapist’s work of reverie as enabling the reclaiming of both the patient’s and the therapist’s psychic polyphony.
Longing to be known: Twins and Identity Presenter: Dr. Vivienne Lewin Twins are siblings of a particular kind with their own unique dynamics that begin before birth and that create an indelible twinship. The prenatal and early postnatal preverbal somatic experiences between twins will endure in the twin relationship as a binding unconscious sensate memory for both of them. Melanie Klein wrote about essential loneliness, a longing to be known, longing for a soulmate, a twin of oneself who will provide perfect understanding. This perfect soulmate, would be so much part of the self that it would represent no threat of invasion of the self, experienced as a violation of the self. This longing creates a persistent fascination with twins that is based on the deep unconscious factors within ourselves that we project onto twins. While the phantasy is that twins experience such oneness without discord or judgement, the reality is of course very different. The otherness of the other twin is both a safety net, and a threat and frustration. The thin-skinned relationship between the twins enables the belief that the twinship will alleviate the essential loneliness of each of them, while the thick skin around the pair may isolate them from external mature containment/understanding. The ideas of a developmental sequence of the self from dyad through triad to group is disrupted in twins who are born into a group of four. Perhaps the ideas of developmental sequences do not stand up in reality, and instead we have developmental input from multiple sources all the time, each source having particular characteristics. The earliest somatic experiences, laying as they do, the foundation of deep, indelible sensate, proto-mental, non-verbal memories closely linked with the sense of the self and inexpressible by ordinary conscious means of communication, would be one source. Through development, we create a personal narrative about who we are, a sense of identity. The narrative is developed through “dreamwork” (Bion, Ogden, Ferro), and is an expression of the unknowable unconscious processes presented in a manageable way, that is manageable to both the teller and the listener. But the longing to be known is always only partially satisfied. For twins, the presence of the other twin is an essential part of identity for each of them.
Clinical Supervision Training Program: Winter 2020 CICAPP and CAPCT are offering supervision training in Winter 2020. This program is for mental health professionals interested in expanding their skill set to become a clinical supervisor. Participants will learn how to supervise those who are working with children, adolescents or parents in both the private and public sectors. The program is taught by experienced supervisors with specialized training. A range of psychoanalytic theories will inform the spectrum of supervisory approaches and techniques. This training meets the CRPO 30 hours of directed learning in providing clinical supervision.
Thinking of Children: A Psychoanalytic Perspective A 15-session extension program This program is designed for those interested in learning the principles of psychoanalysis as they apply to understanding children and their worlds. Professionals already working with children and adolescents will feel enriched by the concepts and theories that depth psychology can offer on development, parenting, pathology and treatment. The weekly seminars will help prepare those interested in applying to the four-year Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program at the Canadian Institute for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Prior knowledge of psychoanalytic theories is not required. Applications are due December 15, 2017. The program will be delivered through weekly two-hour seminars.