The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

Date: Feb 13 2014
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
I graduated from BGSP over ten years ago and have come to understand some important issues about this school since. I have seen how other psychodynamically-inclined academic institutions and organizations function, and how other psychoanalytic training institutes do their business. While they all have their faults they dwarf in comparison to BGSP's egregious practices. Let me try to outline why I'm making such an extreme statement. BGSP walks a fine line by requiring students to partake in "psychoanalytic treatment" to obtain an academic degree. I can already hear the grunts and dismay and arguments against, because every other psychoanalytic institution in the city requires a training analysis. It's not the same. If you know anything about psychoanalysis you are already affirmatively shaking your head. If you are up in arms, then BGSP likely feels to you like a home, like family, and maybe BGSP saved you in one way or another. This is fine but it's not what everyone signs up for. When you mix grades with psychoanalysis and, the same people that teach and grade are the same people that psychoanalyze, it is a sure recipe for disaster. Breaches of confidentiality were common when I was at BGSP. Yes, it happened to me and many other people I know. Student's problems were commonly discussed in the classroom. Fine. I guess some people need this kind of nonsense mixed in with their academic experience. There is a thing called informed consent. If BGSP intends to treat people while educating them, then prospective students should be informed and agree to such an experience. When you go to a psychoanalytic training institute you know that the training analysis and supervision will constitute the bulk of your required activities. This is why U.S. Federal education loans are not offered in psychoanalytic institutes, because clearly it is not their intention to provide a traditional education. When you approach an educational institution—such as BGSP promotes itself both nationally and internationally—that accepts U.S. Federal funds to provide educational loans, grants international student visas and offers degrees that qualify for professional licensure, I think most people are expecting an education. A reasonable enough assumption I gather. So all I can say is that following my BGSP experience, I?m baffled why this place still exists. My hypothesis is that yes, it has some characteristics of a cult, as others have noted, but I have also come to believe BGSP is a perverse institution. It becomes whatever it needs to become in order to survive: It has found a way to qualify for federal educational funds because it pretends to educate; and it fulfills all the LMHC licensing requirements because that attracts more students, not because they really believe in that type of practice. In fact, I walked away sensing that BGSP's only true objective was to try to shock with its fringe technique called Modern Psychoanalysis, which is so wild that sure, it's bound to make some people feel better (so does ECT)… Many faculty (anyone who has been at BGSP knows who they are) love to shock students with their shocking interventions that have miraculous and transforming effects on patients ?so they claim. No theory, no thoughtful discussion, just a theatre of the absurd gone awry…