Minding the Body: Culture, Feminisms and Relational Psychotherapy

An Intersectional Feminist Psychotherapy Two-Year Postgraduate Training Program
2026-2028

Description of Program:   

Our decades of experience reading the body in multiple and complex ways has evolved a theory and practice that widens and deepens our understanding of how psyche, soma and institutionalized power relations construct our psychologies. We see the body as the living vital center of feelings and experience and as a canvas where power relations, multiple forms of control, creative expression and protest are taken up and expressed. WTCI’s two-year program educates postgraduate clinicians from a trans-inclusive feminist relational perspective.  

It is our top priority, and an ongoing one, to center academic content around issues of class, race and gender, the experiences of underrepresented voices. We have developed a theoretical guideline for practice informed by our commitment to social justice, with a deep understanding of how the personal is political and how that enters the consultation room. Our overall mission and thus the mission of the training program is to amplify an intersectional feminist voice in the evolving dialogue of contemporary relational theory. 

Upcoming Open House:

  • Sunday, September 7th 4:00- 5:00

WTCI CURRICULUM 2026-2028: MINDING THE BODY: CULTURE, FEMINISMS AND RELATIONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY

SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXTS AND THE PSYCHOPOLITICAL SUBJECT

A Social Model of Privilege and Oppression: Corruption and Courage

Capitalism and Racism Through the Lens of Reconstruction

Patriarchy and Capitalism: Mutually Reinforcing Systems of Oppression

From Early Capitalism to Neoliberalism to Fascism

Patriarchy and the Cultural Invitation to Violence

FOUNDATIONS OF FEMINIST, PSYCHODYNAMIC THINKING

History of Relational Psychoanalysis – Beginning of Object Relations

British Object Relations (Klein, Winnicott, and Fairbairn)

The Living and Breathing Frame

Feminist Contributions to Psychoanalysis and the Relational Turn

Transference and Countertransference

Therapeutic Action and the Role of Enactment

TRAUMATIC INHERITANCES, CULTURAL CONTEXT, AND CLINICAL BINDS

Trauma and the Body

Introduction to Neurobiology

Internal Family Systems and a Psychodynamic Frame

EATING, FOOD, FEEDING, AND EMBODIMENT

Hunger, Food, and Satiation

Experiential Group

Causes of Disembodiment: Clinical Discourse and the Reparative Stance

Fat Bodies

Medical discourses of the body: “The Obesity Epidemic”, BMI, Bariatric Surgery, and Injectable Weight Loss Medication

Somatic Cognition: The Visual Body and the Visceral Body; Reading the Body: Movement Signatures and Somatic Temperaments

Code Switching in the Clinical Encounter

Somatic Countertransference: Bringing the Therapist’s Body into the Room

TRANSFORMING, CONFORMING, AND RESISTING BODIES

Adolescent Embodiment of Culture

Sexual Bodies

Reproductive Bodies/Justice

Transgender Embodiment

Intersectionality & Disability

Illness & Body Narratives

Aging: Cultural Demands, Personal Experience, and Clinical Practice

Presentations - Applied and Clinical

PROGRAM POLICIES

Orientation & Graduation:

Classes will be held in person on site. Students should plan to attend Orientation on January 8, 2026. Orientation will be held in person. Students should also plan to attend Graduation on January 13, 2028; precise date, location and time are to be determined.

Attendance:

Students are expected to attend all scheduled training program class sessions over the two-year period, including colloquiums, as well as Orientation and Graduation. If a student is unable to attend a class session for any reason, please contact the instructor and administrator in advance. Students may miss no more than three classes per calendar year. Students who miss more than six classes over the two-year period will not be eligible for graduation/certificate. Students who arrive more than 15 minutes late will not receive credit for having attended the class. Please refrain from personal smartphone use during class. Due to the fact that classes are in person and due to privacy and confidentiality concerns, students will not be allowed to record classes. Also, WTCI does not record classes.        

Students must attend the full forty sessions of consultation over the two years in order to graduate. Students must provide one-week advance notice of a consultation meeting cancellation and are expected to reschedule missed sessions. If a student is more than 15 minutes late to a scheduled session, the session will not be counted towards the total required for graduation.

Qualifications for receiving certificate of continuing education:

While participants are welcome to join from outside of New York, WTCI is recognized only by the New York State (NYS) Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for NYS licensed mental health counselors #MHC-0102 and creative arts therapists #CAT-0018, by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Workers as an approved provider of continuing education for NYS licensed social workers #SW-0361, and by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for NYS licensed psychologists #PSY-0049. Please reach out to the applicable authorities in your locale to determine how you might receive credit for participation in this and other WTCI practitioner training programs.

Required readings: 

Readings will be made available for download in advance of each class meeting, with the exception of assigned readings in books you have purchased for the course. If using more than two chapters in a book, we request that students purchase the book.

Tuition and Payments: 

  • We require a non-refundable $75 application fee upon application submission.

  • We require a non-refundable $600 deposit upon enrollment into program, we ask for payment in full by the program start date. 

  • $2,500 per year, plus $75 per consultation session (20 consultation sessions a year).

  • Requests may be made for a payment plan, but the default option will be payment in full. 

  • Students may not carry a balance for tuition and educational consultation.

Our Financial Aid Application is available here.

$75 Dollar Application Fee can be made here: https://square.link/u/uaGU0kiB

Other Payments may be made here: https://square.link/u/folRmw7b

Track Options: 

Education consultation may be focused in one of two ways: The Clinical Track or The Applied Track. Students must determine their track preference (Date TBD). Students on the Applied Track must submit a preliminary project proposal in writing to their consultant (Date TBD). Students on the Clinical Track must submit a minimum of 10 process recordings to their educational consultant per twenty-week cycle in order to be eligible for graduation/certificate. The final project for students on the Applied Track must be submitted to your educational consultant one month prior to the final class in order for you to receive your certificate.

Students will have the opportunity to work with two different faculty members and must successfully complete twenty weeks of consultation with one faculty member before being assigned to a second faculty member.

Evaluation Procedure: 

Students will receive an evaluation to be completed after each course. Faculty will also complete evaluations of students; these will be a part of the student’s file.

Grievance Procedure: 

WTCI is committed to the ideal of resolving conflicts collegially. The grievance process must be initiated within thirty days of the incident. It is first addressed in informal discussion between the immediate parties in the dispute. If this discussion fails to produce a resolution, the student may seek the advice and assistance of their educational consultant, or another member of the faculty. If this does not produce a resolution, the Training Program Committee will review the matter promptly in a manner deemed appropriate to the case and will report any recommendations to the parties. WTCI reserves the right to dismiss a student who is unable to abide by the professional ethics and standards of their profession or who is unable to abide by program policies and procedures.

Withdrawal and Refunds: 

Students who withdraw from the program prior to the first orientation meeting will receive a refund of their first tuition and education consultation fees minus the $600 deposit. Students who withdraw at any time from the program during the first year are responsible for the first year’s tuition as well as educational consultation fees. Application fee is non-refundable.

CONTACT

training-program@wtci-nyc.org

LOCATION

In-Person, New York, NY

 TESTIMONIALS


 

Previous 2022-2024 FACULTY

 

Ruchi Amin, LCSW
Linda Arbus, LCSW
Eve Blatt, LCSW-R
Barbara Buloff, LCSW, ACSW
Joanne Clark, LCSW
Kathy Conway, Ph.D., LCSW
Suzanne Daly, LCSW, DSW
Andrea Gitter, MA, LCAT, BC-DMT
Susan Gutwill, MS, LCSW

GUEST FACULTY

S.J. Langer, LCSW-R
Reji Mathew, PhD, LCSW, REAT
Laura Kogel, LCSW, ACSW
Leah Kramnick, LCSW-R
Debbie Liner, Ph.D.
Joanne Messina, LCSW-R
Wendy Miller, Ph.D.
Julie Nemeth, Ph.D.
Rebecca Stern, LCSW
Anne L. Wennerstrand, LCSW-R
Lela Zaphiropoulos, LCSW, ACSW


 

TRAINING PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Carol Bloom, LCSW
Joanne Clark, LCSW, Training Program Co-Director
Andrea Gitter, MA, LCAT, BC-DMT
Laura Kogel, LCSW, ACSW
Joanne Messina, LCSW-R
Rebecca Stern, LCSW, Training Program Co-Director
Lela Zaphiropoulos, LCSW, ACSW


 

WTCI ASSOCIATION — FOR ALUMNA

The WTCI Alumni Association is an inclusive group for graduates and faculty of The WTCI. Together we explore the intersection of psychoanalysis, gender, race, culture, class, religion, and LGBTQ issues through readings, discussions, committee work, media, and social activities. We gather three times a year for presentations by members of our own community or to learn from an invited guest. One of these meetings focuses on a book chosen as the Summer Read.

Our smaller working committees—made up of WTCI Alumni Association members—include the Archive, Activist, Diversity, 6-week Eating & Embodiment, Online Seminar, and Program committees.