Weekend Training Program
The Center for Group Studies strives for diversity, equity, and inclusion. We seek a rich range of students who work in social service, educational, organizational and private practice settings. Support for the Weekend Training program is available.
The Center for Group Studies offers a Weekend Training Program as an alternative or addition to our on-going Training Program. It began in 1990 as an offsite pilot project in group training to students from all over the world outside of New York City. The weekend program was founded and designed under the co-leadership of Dr. Alice Brown and Dr. Lena Furgeri and has expanded to include local New York students.
This program provides training in modern group process: an integration of traditional methods and modern techniques developed by Dr. Louis Ormont, a licensed psychologist with over 40 years of experience leading groups. Our approach is psychodynamic and interactive with particular emphasis on interventions for difficult and pre-oedipal personalities.
PROGRAM OF STUDY
This three-year Training Program, culminating in a Certificate of Completion in Group Leadership, consists of the following components:
1. Training Weekends
We offer three training weekends each year which run sequentially over a three-year period. A total of nine weekends are required to meet the criteria for completion of the program. Each weekend consists of five psychodynamic process groups, two lectures and/or workshops, a supervision group, and a training group. Readings and other materials are sent upon registration of each weekend.
2. Coursework/Reading *
The curriculum consists of nine blocks/units of readings which is a guided and monitored reading program paralleling the themes of weekend trainings. A reading block consists of 16 readings spread over a four-hour time period mutually agreed upon between student and reading mentor. The student works with the assigned faculty mentor in person, by email, telephone and/or by teleconference. A faculty advisor is assigned to each student for a three-block segment, for a total of three different reading mentors over the course of the program. Each student keeps an ongoing log of his/her reactions to the readings, tapes and other experiences, to which the student's faculty advisor responds.
3. Supervision
Four supervision segments are required, which can take place during the second and third years, after the completion of three weekend trainings and the first three reading blocks. Each segment consists of six one-hour sessions with an assigned supervisor.
4. Personal Group Experience (encouraged)
Students are strongly encouraged to participate in their own ongoing modern analytic treatment/therapy/process group. The personal development that comes from immersion in the modern analytic model is essential to successful modern group leadership.
* Nine blocks of readings: Each block consists of sixteen readings.
Block 1 The Essence of Modern Group Process
Block 2 Forming a Group
Block 3 Introduction to Group Resistances
Block 4 Transference/Countertransference Issues in Group
Block 5 Technical and Special Issues in Group Psychotherapy
Block 6 Working with Pre-oedipal Patients in Group
Block 7 Specialized Topics in Countertransference
Block 8 Working with Unconscious Material: Dreams, Symbolic, and Non-verbal Communications
Block 9 Resolving Transference Resistances and Termination Issues
Weekend Training Program (2024 - 2025)
Registration Deadlines
October Training Program — September 20, 2024
January Training Program — December 20, 2024
May Training Program — April 4, 2025
LOCATION
In-person events take place at the Michelangelo Hotel located at:
152 W 51 Street, New York;
Online events take place via Zoom
** All times listed are in Eastern Time Zone **
** All times listed are in Eastern Time Zone **
The Welcome Meeting and Student Faculty Meeting will occur as simultaneous, hybrid meetings.
First time students may attend a 2-session mentoring Zoom group the Thursday before & Monday following the weekend, to orient & debrief.
The last 15 minutes of each Process Group, Supervision and Workshop will be used to complete logs and evaluations and to have an opportunity to ask additional questions of the faculty leader.
In order to receive a certificate of completion, participants must attend the entire workshop and submit all paperwork.
The Center for Group Studies reserves the right to add, change or amend the schedule or faculty on as needed.
Continuing Education
The Center for Group Studies is approved to offer continuing education hours (nationally for physicians and locally for most mental health professionals). Click Here to view our continuing education page to learn about our CE offerings.
For All Weekend Training Students: Descriptions and Definitions
Process Group
The Weekend Training Program, while it may be therapeutic for participants, is not designed to serve as therapy. The process group is designed as a “here and now” experience focusing on how a person functions in the immediate moment. We ask that all thoughts and feelings towards the other members be put into words. Origins of these thoughts and feelings are also explored. In this venue we are studying resistances to Oedipal level communication. We study how patterns of group form and reform themselves as the members observe both themselves and others within these group patterns. The group leader demonstrates modern group interventions which aim to resolve resistances and foster progressive emotional communication and, when appropriate, explains the underlying theory and the timing of the intervention.
Workshop
The workshop focuses specifically on some aspect of the theme of the weekend using a
combination of didactic presentation and experiential material. A reading is assigned for each workshop. The leader then, in whatever way he or she chooses, demonstrates the concepts from the reading through active group process. Specific questions about the theoretical material and how it relates to group leadership are welcomed.
Supervision
In a supportive and collaborative environment, the organizing focus of supervision is the
presentation of case material by students. Participants study induced feelings and use parallel process to facilitate the uncovering of where the unidentified resistance lay. The group helps the presenter understand how to move the treatment forward. Associations to the current weekend learning theme as well as discussion of the underlying theory for a particular intervention might be included as it relates to a better understanding of the patient or the group.
Training Group
In the training group the focus is on the development of the professional ego. Interactive
responses of the members in a training group are treated as induced feelings. Explorations are directed to identifying these feelings as objective countertransference reactions and then saying “the right things.” These include maturational responses, further explorations, associations and so forth. The training group is designed to help each member to help the other group members to become a better group leader.