Universal Psychology Postdoctoral Directory

At Access Institute you are taught and supervised by contemporary thinkers who have evolved psychoanalytic practice in meaningful ways. This intensive program trains 9 postgraduate fellows over a 13-month period, during which time fellows provide clinical services and receive training and supervision from some of the Bay Area’s top clinicians. Our fellowship provides over 10 hours of intensive training each week, including didactic training, in-depth supervision, theoretical instruction, technical development, and specialized training seminars. Fellows spend 25 hours per week providing direct clinical services and conducting phone intakes. All fellows provide psychotherapy services to adults and couples at the Hayes Valley community clinic. The psychoanalytic approach allows for more intensive treatments and many patients are seen at the clinic two or three times per week. Fellows also work off-site providing services at one of our partner programs. Fellows receive 2,000 hours toward licensure. Fellows are placed in one of two programs: Elder or School-Based.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have shifted our training and clinical work to remote meetings. Charting and paperwork will be done through an electronic health record system. We have included new classes that take up the challenge of telehealth work, and make space for those discussions in supervision and case conferences. Fellows are able to access the Hayes Valley clinic, should they wish to have in-person meetings, or a physical space from which to work.The following descriptions of our two programs are of the in-person experience.

Bringing culturally sensitive, psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy to marginalized communities is the hallmark of this track. Elder Program fellows compliment their clinic hours with work in senior-service agencies in Bayview-Hunters Point where they provide individual, group, and milieu therapy to primarily African-American seniors. This population is marginalized not only by virtue of race and socioeconomic status, but also by being old in a culture that devalues and disavows aging. Fellows examine how this ethos impacts their clients as well as their own work. Fellows participate in a clinical case conference and receive group supervision and didactics on psychodynamic/ person-centered elder care in addition to training on consultation and collaboration with agency staff (nurses, social workers, physical therapists, etc.) Fellows can expect to wrestle with the question of how to hold an internal frame while modifying traditional features of therapy to meet their clients' needs. Trainees interested in cultivating an internal psychodynamic frame in tandem with creative and agile technique adapted to complex factors (culture, non-traditional setting, wide range of functional levels and capacities) are encouraged to apply to the Elder Track.

Fellows in the School-Based Program provide care for children at school and by doing that become part of the school environment. We talk to teachers, social workers and principals. We walk the halls, visit the cafeteria, and encounter our clients’ classmates and peers. Our impact on our clients is not simply during the clinical hour, but throughout our time on campus. This requires thoughtful consideration of our multiple roles at the school, and the development of an internal frame that supports our clinical thinking. Fellows in the school-based track receive training focused on developing a flexible internal frame. They will receive training in consultation and collaboration, as well as in psychodynamic play therapy. This training is in the form of three weekly individual supervisions, a clinical case conference, and a group supervision focused on school-based work. In addition to working at a school, fellows will also provide therapy to adults, couples, children, adolescents, and families at our Hayes Valley Community Clinic. 

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