Utah Psychoanalytic-Friendly Universities

Department of Psychology
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Telephone: (801) 581-4463
Fax: (801) 581-5841
Lorna Smith Benjamin, PhD

Survey Response

Is your doctoral program accredited by the American Psychological Association? 
Yes

Is your program considered open to and inclusive of Psychoanalytical/Psychodynamic theory and practice? 
Yes

Does your program have any faculty that are certified psychoanalysts, or in psychoanalytical training? 
No

Does your program have psychoanalytically-oriented faculty, and include psychoanalytical thought in their courses? 
Yes

Does your program require introductory courses on psychoanalytical theories and psychotherapy? 
No

Which psychoanalytical theoretical perspectives does your Program offer?
Freudian/Classical, Ego Psychology, Object-relations, Self-psychology, Other perspectives [Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy (IRT) combines psychodynamic and CBT variants]

Does your program cover special topics from psychoanalytical perspectives such as treatment of severe psychopathology, race, class, gender/sexuality, dreams, supervision, transference/counter-transference? 
Yes

Does your program require courses on short-term psychotherapy and crisis intervention that include psychoanalytical perspectives? 
No

Program Description Provided by the Institution

Although the focus of Utah’s clinical program is on training students in evidence-based practice and the majority of the core faculty teach cognitive and behavioral approaches to treatment, there are opportunities for students to be exposed to psychoanalytic theory in our graduate program.  In particular, our faculty includes clinicians and researchers who are inspired by the work of psychoanalyst John Bowlby, the originator of the attachment construct. Quality of attachment has a well-documented impact on normal and abnormal development and Bowlby’s ideas have many applications to child and family work as well as to individual psychotherapy with adults. One of many simple but important ideas from the attachment literature is that our ways of relating to family follow us through life, including into marriage, relationships at work, and psychotherapy. For students especially interested in relationship factors in psychotherapy, one of our faculty members, Lorna Benjamin, is a specialist in interpersonal theory and measurement, with an emphasis on work with personality disorder and treatment-resistant complex cases.