ADOLESCENT UPHEAVAL Curriculum / Required Courses


Class 1 –
I’m Not a Child Anymore:
A Developmental Interpersonal Approach to the Transition to Adolescence


February 13, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will become familiar with the basic concepts of interpersonal developmental theory.
2. Participants will understand the differences between classical developmental conceptions of adolescent development and Interpersonal conceptions of adolescent development.
3. Participants will understand how Interpersonal concepts of adolescent development can be applied to individual psychotherapy with adolescents.

Instructor Biographies:

Robert Gaines, Ph.D. obtained a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from New York University and a Certificate in Psychoanalysis from William Alanson White Institute. He is a Supervising Analyst, Past Fellow, and faculty member at the William Alanson White Institute. He is also Co-Founder, Former Director, Current Director of Curriculum, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program, William Alanson White Institute. Dr. Gaines is also a faculty member and Supervisor of the Child and Adolescent Program at Westchester Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is an Executive Editor for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and is an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy. He is the author of articles and book chapters on various aspects of psychotherapy with children and adolescents. Dr. Gaines is in private practice in NYC and Westchester.

Wendy J. Panken, L.C.S.W is a graduate of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program of the William Alanson White Institute and member of its Executive Committee and faculty. She has been studying psychoanalysis in private study groups and supervision for many years. Her special interests include adolescence and the relationship between the personal biographies of psychoanalysts and their theories and the relationship between feminism and psychoanalysis. She is in private practice and for many years has been seeing children, adolescents, and adults on the Upper West Side of NYC.

Class 2 –
Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll –
What’s Lost and What’s Gained in Adolescence


February 13, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to name three developmental tasks of adolescence.
2. Participants will describe two experiences of necessary losses in adolescence.
3. Participants will be able to describe two theoretical understandings of adolescence.

Instructor Biographies:

Seth Aronson, Psy.D., is Training and Supervising Analyst, Director of Training, Fellow at the William Alanson White Institute (WAWI), where he has also served as Director of Curriculum. He is on the teaching faculty of the psychoanalytic and child psychotherapy training programs at WAWI. At Long Island University’s doctoral program, he teaches child and adolescent psychopathology and psychotherapy. He has facilitated process groups for rabbinical students at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah for 18 years. He serves on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Quarterly and Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. Beyond these formal roles, he has also presented and taught in many venues around the world, including Japan and Israel, and has led a study program for mental health professionals and clergy for seven years. Dr. Aronson has written extensively on a variety of topics in the field, with a focus on issues pertaining to children and adolescents, and ethical, practical, and emotional concerns of those in clinical roles. Together with Craig Haen, he is co-editor of The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy (Routledge, 2017). He is in private practice in New York City.

Class 3 –
I am Not Your Son:
The Function of Negation and Negativity in Adolescence


March 13, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will appreciate the significance of adolescence as the culmination or fulcrum of the traumatic antecedents into a developmental arrest, as well as the historical and creative momentum of negation in the life cycle.
2. Participants will learn how, according to André Green, the concept of negation is foundational to psychoanalytic theorizing throughout its history.
3. Participants will understand the distinction between the creative potential of negation and its pathological vicissitudes, which are referred to as negativism.

Instructor Biographies:

Pascal Sauvayre, Ph.D., is faculty, supervising analyst and training analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. He writes and publishes at the interdisciplinary borders of psychoanalysis. His recent projects include contributing to and editing Culture, Politics and Race in the Making of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis (2022: Routledge), and contributing to and editing The Unconscious: Contemporary Refractions in Psychoanalysis (2020: Routledge). Other projects include contributing to Renewing Hermeneutics: Thinking with Paul Ricoeur (2021: Inschibboleth), editing the English translation of Tomàs Casado’s and María Herrero’s Early Relational Trauma and the Development of the Self (2022: Routledge), contributing to Cultural Analysis Now (Edited by Katharina Rothe, Steffen Krüger, and Daniel Rosengart; 2022: The Unconscious in Translation), and translating Jean Laplanche’s The Analyst’s Tub: Transcendence of the Transference (est. 2023: The Unconscious in Translation). He has a private practice in New York City.

Class 4 –
Electronic Communication:
A Challenge for Adolescent Psychotherapists in the 21st Century


April 10, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to describe benefits and drawbacks in the use of social media in adolescence.
2. Participants will realize ways they can use social media in remote and in-person psychotherapy.

Instructor Biographies:

Daniel Gensler, Ph.D. is Director of Training and of the Externship at the Child Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program at the William Alanson White Institute as well as training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. He is co-author of Relational Child Psychotherapy (2002) and has published many articles and chapters in the professional literature. He is a clinical psychologist in private practice doing psychotherapy, supervision, and psychoeducational testing.

Class 5 – Controversies in Treating Transgender Children and Adolescents


May 8, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify three current, differing treatment approaches for children with Gender Dysphoria in Childhood.
2. Describe the controversies in the wider culture regarding the treatment of gender dysphoric children and adolescents and how they affect clinical practice and research.
3. Prepare for appropriate treatments, consultations and referrals of children and adolescents with Gender Dysphoria.
4. Critique and revise binary thinking about gender and gender identity.
5. Compare diagnostic criteria of the DSM-5-TR gender diagnoses with those of ICD-11.

Instructor Biographies:

Jack Drescher, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. Dr. Drescher is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Faculty Member at Columbia’s Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health. He is a Senior Psychoanalytic Consultant at Columbia’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. Dr. Drescher is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Past President of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry and a Past President of APA’s New York County Psychiatric Society. He presently serves as a corresponding member on APA’s Council on Communications.

Class 6 – Race, Identity, and
Social Unrest for Adolescents


June 12, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will understand several conceptual models for racism and the concept of intergenerational transmission of the trauma of slavery.
2. Participants will become familiar with the particular form the denial of American slavery takes, the phantom form.
3. Participants will appreciate the necessity of collective mourning for recognition and healing of the collective trauma of slavery.

Instructor Biographies:

Carol Valentin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and a graduate of the Division 1 Psychoanalytic Training Program at the William Alanson White Institute. She graduated from the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology from the City University of New York in 1984 and became the Clinical Director of the Sheltering Arms Therapeutic Nursery in Harlem where she continued the legacy of Dr. Margaret Lawrence, one of the first African American psychoanalysts in New York City. The nursery served children ages three to five who exhibited the behavioral manifestations of psychological, physical, and sexual trauma. Since the closing of the nursery in 2019 Dr. Valentin now treats young adults and adults in her private practice in Princeton, New Jersey, and in New York City. She is a co-founder of the Race & Psychoanalysis Study Group at the William Alanson White Institute and was a member of its Center for Public Mental Health. She has supervised doctoral level psychologists, clinical social workers, caseworkers, and educational staff at both private and public institutions.

Wendy J. Panken, L.C.S.W is a graduate of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program of the William Alanson White Institute and member of its Executive Committee and faculty. She has been studying psychoanalysis in private study groups and supervision for many years. Her special interests include adolescence and the relationship between the personal biographies of psychoanalysts and their theories and the relationship between feminism and psychoanalysis. She is in private practice and for many years has been seeing children, adolescents, and adults on the Upper West Side of NYC.

No Summer Classes in July and August


Class 7 – Self-Injury:
Adolescent Solution to Psychic Pain


September 11, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to define and differentiate non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) from suicidality in adolescents.
2. Participants will be able to describe variables central to non-suicidal self-injury, including the roles of emotional dysregulation and self-derogation.
3. Participants will identify NSSI as a communication through the body and learn ways to facilitate emotion regulation and deal with negative internal states, through interpersonal exchanges, developing a language for emotions, and using countertransferential experiences in the clinical work with adolescents.

Instructor Biographies:

Jacqueline Ferraro, D.M.H., is Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program (CAPTP) at the William Alanson White Institute, faculty and supervisor; Executive Committee member, faculty and supervisor in the Eating Disorders, Compulsions and Addictions Service (EDCAS), the William Alanson White Institute. Dr. Ferraro is in private practice in Manhattan.

Class 8 – Sex and Technology:
An Interpersonal Perspective on Sexual Development in the Technological Age


October 9, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to identify multiple ways that technology is being used by teens to express aspects of sexual development and sexual and interpersonal relatedness.
2. Participants will be able to identify how new technologies are used by adolescents to manage interpersonal anxieties.
3. Participants will learn new skills in using the detailed inquiry to assess for safe use of technology for sex and dating and help teens navigate these difficult interpersonal tasks.

Instructor Biographies:

Joseph (JT) Mikulka, LCSW-R is a soon-to-be graduate of William Alanson White Institute’s Certificate Program in Psychoanalysis and a graduate of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program. JT graduated from Hunter College School of Social Work and has published and presented his work on play therapy, working with severe pathology, severe trauma, adoption, gender transition, and on helping kids recover from war and armed conflict. JT is on the faculty at NIP and the William Alanson White Institute. JT is also an associate editor of the Journal of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and President Elect of Section II, Children and Adolescents, of Division 39. He is in private practice in New York City.

Class 9 – The Struggles of
Parenting Adolescents


November 13, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will have a better understanding of the conflicts that parents experience while raising and caring for adolescents, as well as the stresses on the couple and siblings.
2. Participants will develop skills for helping parents gain perspective on their teens’ emotional needs and then be better equipped to make sound decisions about limits and consequences.
3. Participants will learn how to use their countertransference reactions in their work with parents of adolescents.

Instructor Biographies:

Lisa Dubinsky, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist, with a special interest in early childhood and children on the autism spectrum. She is a consultant with mainstream preschools and works with children of all ages, parents, and adults in psychotherapy. She is a supervisor and faculty member of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program at the William Alanson White Institute.

Class 10 – Existential Issues for
Adolescent College Students and Interpersonal Psychotherapy


December 11, 2023

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will understand what is meant by a semiotic cultural psychological analysis of college aged adolescents.
2. Participants will be able to identify four existential relational positions of college aged adolescence.
3. Participants will have a deeper appreciation of the need to view psychological development as an open-ended process.

Instructor Biographies:

Philip Rosenbaum, Ph.D, is a clinical psychologist, supervising psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute and the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services at Haverford College. He is the editor of the book Making Our Ideas Clear: Pragmatism and Psychoanalysis, and an emeriti editor of the Journal of College Student Psychotherapy. He is the co-author of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Adolescents: College Student Development and Treatment (Routledge, 2022). He is in private practice in Philadelphia.

William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis & Psychology 20 West 74th Street, New York, NY 10023 | (212) 873-0725