Course Description

This class includes two two-hour sessions representing an overview of foundational types of talk therapy, including cognitive-behavioral models, contextual models (such as feminist, cross cultural, and Marxist psychotherapy), humanistic and existential models, attachment and trauma models, and psychodynamic perspectives including psychoanalytic and Jungian traditions in context.

Learning Objectives

Differentiate psychodynamic perspectives—including psychoanalytic and Jungian traditions—from other talk therapies by identifying their distinctive approaches to unconscious process, meaning, transference, and developmental history.
Analyze how cultural, relational, and power-laden contexts (e.g., feminist, cross-cultural, and Marxist perspectives) intersect with intrapsychic formulations, enabling clinicians to integrate sociocultural awareness without abandoning depth-oriented conceptualization.
Apply a comparative theoretical framework to clinical material in order to select, justify, and flexibly integrate interventions that are coherent with a psychodynamic formulation while remaining responsive to client needs and treatment context.

The Aion Institute is approved by the California Psychological Association to provide continuing professional education for psychologists. The Aion Institute (AIO279) maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

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AION 102 Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in Theoretical Context