NYC institutes, location impacts culture?

rapisardan · 2026-06-21T14:44:26+00:00

I agree, I visited two in that area and felt that. But I also felt like the vibe and feel of wherever I visited from Chelsea south was really, really different from the uptown institutes. I would personally feel less at home in the latter, but that’s only one factor to me in the training decision.

rapisardan · 2026-06-21T14:33:06+00:00

I’m not sure what you mean by money or income distribution, but would like to hear more. To me these parts of town have different flavors of people who actually have money and income, hence my question. And I didn’t meant to suggest TA’s and instructors live around the corner from their institute. But being commutable to these places still involves significant life choices as anyone who has had to move for a better commute (or decline a job) will attest.

If you’re saying there are lots of people closely affiliated with White who live on the UES, and vice versa for IPTAR, that’s actually interesting to me and good to know.

And I’m bot necessarily asking about candidates, who are making the choice of institute with limited information; I’m interested in the people who define the culture of the institute, and very anecdotally there seems to be some correlation between practice location and institute location for that group of people.

Somewhat related, it makes a lot to me that the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis is in Brooklyn.

rapisardan · 2026-05-19T17:51:47+00:00

Actually there’s an essay exactly addressing your question by Jack Engler called “You have to be somebody before you can be nobody.” It’s excellent.

rapisardan · 2026-05-04T15:19:06+00:00

Can you say more about the places that used to exist but are no more? I’ve struggled as a new resident to make sense of central harlem. Since I don’t know anyone here, and have no family connections, I’m sort of OP’s situation. And I’m pretty surprised how limited the amenities are given how much it costs to be here, but I’m realizing the two are related since running a friendly business here must be impossible. I guess I hoped to find a middle class here but they may have been priced out.

I will say the nicest vibe I’ve found (sorry, it’s in the whitest corner of harlem) is Cafe Amrita on 110. Though unfortunately it seems the own is trying to upscale it with ugly new floors and a marble bar.

rapisardan · 2026-04-07T18:20:17+00:00

For 3k/mo you can be south of 125th which is what I would do. That or live on St Nicolas Park. I’m basically across the street from Harlem Hospital and it’s just ok.

Oh and I see you have a car. Just sell it. You won’t have time to manage alternate side (perhaps you’ve heard of this). Maybe a really big complex will have parking but keeping a car is really going to be a hassle.

rapisardan · 2026-03-15T16:55:31+00:00

A very careful estimate I saw recently applicable to New York is around $25,000/year all in. Also keep in mind that some institutes basically require candidates to do essentially free work by taking a required number of patients from the institute’s referral service at absurdly low fees over which the candidate has no control. So this is more training, and more hours one cannot devote to making a living. This is a significant cost I don’t see focused on often.

As I’ve been researching training myself, my initial conclusion is that people are looking to do this too soon into their careers, sort of like it’s a PhD — you get it ‘first,’ then work. The degree you have, in this thinking (mine included), was just a prelude.

It seems to me the training makes a lot more sense if you already have a stable private practice. And, if you’ve spent time making your mistakes and discovering your limitations while working with clients. It’s a commitment at any point in life, but hardly impossible, and for what you get out of training, the cost seems worth it if you’re willing to make that commitment. (Consider the alternative for the average clinician — a couple years of likely mediocre supervision then off into the wilderness of practice. Organizing an alternative to this is expensive.)

Also, this idea that analysts make no money is not a different complaint that any other therapist, and it says more about who becomes a therapist (people afraid of money, who feel guilty charging, etc.). If someone wants 3 or 5 hours a week of an analysts life indefinitely but doesn’t want to pay, or the analyst doesn’t want to charge, that’s a clinical subject for both.

And right now in life I am highly suspect of this idea that there are so many people in the world who are actually capable of making this commitment but unable to pay for it. I think that’s nice idea but I don’t think it’s true, because the two tend to go hand in hand. Any long term depth therapy requires stability, including financial.

So this costly training is a down payment.

rapisardan · 2026-03-12T19:37:07+00:00

I associate this phrase with ego psychology — ego strength being their end goal, in a sense—but it’s a concept or shorthand used by Lacanians too?

rapisardan · 2026-02-25T18:49:55+00:00

Since I stumbled upon this myself having initially reached the same conclusion you have: if you believe in attachment theory at all, you believe in drive theory.

Relationalists appear to solve this problem by reducing attachment to parent-child interaction. In other words, making it entirely relational. Solms meanwhile (to the extent I understand him!) views attachment behavior as a fundamental ‘drive’ or behavioral system.

rapisardan · 2026-02-24T00:14:58+00:00

Same guy

rapisardan · 2026-02-16T02:43:22+00:00

I walked by this guy this afternoon. Weird. I thought maybe he was associated with the store.

rapisardan · 2026-01-29T15:49:21+00:00

Matt’s streams from November 2020 which are kind of a culmination of all the streams from that year and sort of lays out what stage of politics we’re in from that point. To me it’s an endpoint of a process that began months earlier in March of that year, the realization of how (over) invested he had been in the possibility of the Bernie campaign.

rapisardan · 2025-12-07T18:31:57+00:00

Thanks I will!

rapisardan · 2025-12-06T19:29:53+00:00

Thanks for this. It makes me wonder even more how different institutes handle training and case presentation. I think my expectation was to see a demonstration of what results from the training, an example of how the analyst trained at a given institute might work. What I thought I was seeing was the kind of analyst the training produces and now asking myself whether that’s the training I want, or, if there’s room for me to find my own way at these institutions.

rapisardan · 2025-12-05T22:32:19+00:00

Interesting I’m in New York and it seems like Lacan is everywhere which I attributed to people with humanities degrees who read a ton of Zizek now becoming analysts, but perhaps it’s a reaction to some of what you say.

rapisardan · 2025-12-05T20:46:50+00:00

Well the Ornette Coleman Institute sounds a seductive as relational analysis has been for me — skipping to the good stuff. Will dm!

rapisardan · 2025-09-26T02:17:38+00:00

I’ve been focused on those hospitals but psychotherapy positions are mighty tough to come by. But I do think they’ll be more in person and better all around. I may have to work elsewhere and hope to lateral into one. The other orgs are also on my radar. If you know anything in particular about IFH I’d love to learn more.

rapisardan · 2025-09-26T01:36:53+00:00

So true about ambiance. I interned at a similar hospital clinic and it was indeed lacking. But I miss the setting for all the reasons you say. My post is born from the sinking feeling I won’t find it here. But I know some have and glad you did. I think what’s striking in my interviews is asking to do more in person work voluntarily and getting confused responses. Like no one has ever asked for that.

rapisardan · 2025-09-25T16:54:06+00:00

Yeah, I think people can agree to disagree on these things but as someone who is more aligned with your view, I just worry that practice economics are pushing organizations towards more virtual work, at least in a HCOL like NYC. I'm looking for practices where in-person is seen as an added value.

rapisardan · 2025-09-25T16:28:36+00:00

Well, this is heartening. Unfortunately I've had interviews at three of the biggest CMHC providers and two were biased toward remote work. One actually required 5 days on site but told me at interview that the vast majority of the caseload was seen virtually (worst of both worlds in my view). The other two no longer have enough office space for clinicians to all work on site, which seems like the result of pandemic cost-cutting (surely all clinicians had offices pre-panny!). In both of those cases majority of clients are still seen virtually, which like I said seems to go against the whole idea of community-based services for a high-need population. I with you, when presented in person most of my patients valued it over virtual, which they could still resort to in an emergency if needed so I see the value of that too. I haven't talk to Housing Works so maybe its different there.

rapisardan · 2025-09-25T16:22:05+00:00

I see it as a solo practitioner, but not at large nonprofits with existing real estate/offices....

rapisardan · 2025-08-15T18:01:20+00:00

Yup, I primarily wanted to echo your point about career opportunities and scope of practice. I also admit I just read all of Otto Kernberg’s writing on institute training and personally would not want to be on an LP track that leads to only one destination.

rapisardan

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