Mission Statement

The Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (MIP) was founded in 1987 to provide high-quality training through a comparative approach to psychoanalysis. We train graduate clinicians in all the mental health fields as well as academic scholars. MIP recognizes psychoanalysis as a field that has and continues to change. We strive to establish a spirit of questioning and inquiry in our curriculum and various programs. Committed to the alleviation of human suffering, MIP seeks to expand the application of psychoanalysis to an ever-widening, more diverse range of individuals and cultural settings.

The curriculum is designed to impart a solid knowledge of the major psychoanalytic approaches while encouraging, open dialogue, multiple points of view, and the continual exploration of the definition of psychoanalysis and the relationship between psychoanalysis and other forms of psychotherapy. As an independent institution, we differ from traditional psychoanalytic institutes as we do not have a training analyst system that would designate a limited group of training and supervising analysts. This more open system provides our candidates with a wider freedom of choice in selecting their supervisors and analysts. It also broadens opportunities for our faculty to be chosen and to serve as supervisors and personal analysts.

To further expand the range of our thinking and clinical training, one of the three control (supervised training) cases is designed to be a “non-traditional case.” Broadly defined as focusing on work with patients who seem clinically ready for analysis but may not readily fit the traditional criteria for analytic treatment (in terms of culture, age, diagnosis, or other criteria). Our goal is to provide a chance for the close examination of a wide range of clinical experiences that will challenge and expand our conception of analysis and the populations of patients who may benefit from a psychoanalytic treatment.

MIP is committed to a process of understanding racial bias and inequality in our institution. We are committed to understanding what may be barriers at MIP to becoming a more racially and culturally diverse program in which we make strides toward becoming a welcoming community to people with diverse backgrounds.