The Psychotherapy Institute is a nonprofit organization of mental health professionals that was founded in 1972. Members come from many disciplines: marriage, family, and child therapy, social work, psychology, psychiatry, and nursing. We’re united by dedication to psychodynamic approaches to therapy and interest in professional development and growth. The Institute is governed by committees of volunteer Institute members. Our education program provides continuing education to the professional community. Through our training programs and moderate-fee state-licensed clinic, we provide high-quality, affordable psychotherapy to residents of the Bay Area.

We believe that The Psychotherapy Institute is unique in providing a setting for clinicians from many disciplines and orientations to find common ground and a professional home.

Since 1984, The Psychotherapy Institute has offered a training program in the theory and practice of supervision. One of the oldest such programs in the nation, it is the only one of its kind in the Bay Area. The program combines readings and seminar instruction with a program that includes weekly individual and once monthly small-group consultation.

The mission of the program is to help participants develop a sense of personal authority as teachers within the profession. Supervision is presented as a separate, intimate, and complex process, distinct from psychotherapy and requiring special attention and study.

The Supervision Training Program utilizes a psychodynamic relational approach to learning and teaching, that focuses on developing understanding of the relationship dynamics in the consultant/supervisor, supervisor/therapist and therapist/client relationships and the parallels that may exist. Exploring transference and countertransference is an essential vehicle for helping your supervisees to deepen their clinical work.

A partial list of covered topics:

• Styles of teaching and learning

• Differences between supervision and psychotherapy

• Phases of supervision

• Establishing a supervisory relationship

• Utilizing parallel process, transference, and countertransference

• Timing and content of supervisory interventions

• Assessing supervisees’ learning and dealing with learning difficulties

• Working with differences in the supervisory & therapy relationships

• Therapists who wish to learn about supervision, sharpen their teaching skills, or develop a better understanding of the process of teaching psychotherapy

• Therapists interested in making the passage to a more advanced level of practice as supervisors, mentors and tachers

• Therapists in positions of authority who want to become more effective in a leadership role

• Supervisors working in community agencies who are needing more support, and are interested in deepening their knowledge of supervision and sharpening their skills.

Applicants must:

• Applicants who are LMFT’s and LCSW’s, in accordance with the Board of Behavioral Sciences, must have been licensed to practice psychotherapy/counseling independently for a minimum of two years (as of October 1st, when the SSP begins).

• Applicants who are Licensed Psychologists, in accordance with the Board of Psychology, must have been licensed to practice psychotherapy/counseling independently for a minimum of one year (as of October 1st, when the SSP begins).

• Applicants must be supervising or consulting at the time they begin the program (September). TPI can suggest supervisory opportunities for program participants who are not already supervising or consulting. However, the arrangements are the responsibility of the individual SSP participant.

Applicants will be supervising or consulting when or shortly after they enter the program. The Selection Committee can suggest supervisory opportunities for program participants who are not already providing supervision or consultation.

Participants enrolled in the program may provide supervision to staff therapists in TPI’s pre and post graduate psychotherapy training program, as well as to licensed therapists in the community through the Institute’s professional consultation service

This can vary according to your practice or work situation, but for maximum learning, we recommend that you supervise two or more clinicians.

Participants in training receive individual consultation from senior clinicians who have closely studied and applied the supervision process. Participants also work in a small group with a group consultant, studying the literature and sharing supervisory experiences, to better understand the complex relationships between consultant and supervisor, supervisor and supervisee, and supervisee and patient.

You should estimate 3-4 hours per week for individual consultation, reading and supervision that you do. Twelve times per year, on Saturdays, there will be a 3-hour seminar and a 1.5-hour consultation group twice a month.

The training program begins the first week in September and runs for one full year. There is usually an orientation meeting held before the start of the program.

Right now everything takes place via Zoom.

In terms of time, you may need to adjust your work schedule for the individual consultation and for your supervision of therapists if you are not already supervising. In terms of work quality, participants find that the learning process clarifies and deepens their other clinical work and professional identities.

Yes, The Psychotherapy Institute is approved by the California Psychological Association (CPA) to provide continuing professional education for psychologists, MFTs, LCSWs, and LPCCs (provider number PSY005). The Psychotherapy Institute maintains responsibility for these programs and their content. Continuing Education will be given for the monthly seminars.

• Attendance and participation in all required meetings;

• Supervising, and presenting your supervisory work in both individual & group consultations.

Some training cohorts have maintained contact after graduation, forming the nucleus of a professional supervisors network. Supervisors who maintain their TPI membership find that TPI provides a vibrant professional community.

Activities such as committee work, case conferences, and our monthly Making Connections Forum are just a few of the possible ways of getting involved in TPI.

A $50 (US) application fee must accompany the application.

The fee for the one-year program is $400/month. Scholarships are available.

Participants in the Supervision Study Program also become members of The Psychotherapy Institute; membership fees are waived while enrolled in the program.

Participants set their own fees for their private practice consultees and collect those fees themselves. There are additional opportunities to supervise trainees in TPI’s two-year post-graduate training program and through TPI’s Consultation Service, available to licensed therapists in the professional community at large. Fees collected through the Consultation Service accrue to TPI while you are in the Supervision Training Program.

No. STP students receive TPI membership as part of their tuition while they are enrolled in the program, but applicants do not need to be current members in order to apply.