Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology

The American Board and Academy of Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology (ABAPPP) is a member Specialty Board of the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). The examination in Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic (PA/PD) Psychology is intended to certify that the successful Candidate for Board Certification has completed the educational, training, and experience requirements of the Specialty, including a performance examination designed to assess the competencies required to provide quality services in the Specialty.

A primary responsibility of the ABAPPP is to establish a Board Certification process that recognizes, certifies, and promotes Specialty-level standing in the field of PA/PD Psychology and Subspecialty-level standing in Psychoanalysis. Specialty-level standing indicates competence beyond that which is certified by jurisdictional licensure, but within the reach of most practitioners of professional psychology contingent on specialized education, training, and practice. Specialty-level board certification in PA/PD Psychology is a prerequisite for Subspecialty-level certification in Psychoanalysis, which requires additional education, training, and practice experience.

The Specialty of Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology denotes a level of training beyond doctoral and internship requirements. While Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychology involves a wide range of modalities and settings (e.g., group, couples, and families, school, assessment, organizational), supervised experience in individual psychotherapy is a foundational component of the educational and training requirements for board certification in PA/PD.

The ABAPPP will review each applicant’s materials to determine the extent to which doctoral and post-doctoral education, training, supervision, and post-licensure professional experiences reflect sufficient breadth and depth in the Specialty. APA first recognized PA/PD as an official post-doctoral Specialty in 2022, so many ABPP applicants may not have acquired training in a formal Psychoanalytic or Psychodynamic postdoctoral training program. The ABAPPP Board recognizes that training often occurs through multiple pathways and at varying levels of intensity through the course of a career. For example, some applicants may have received extensive PA/PD Psychology supervision during a doctoral-level practicum or internship, whereas another applicant may have begun PA/PD training only at the postdoctoral or post-licensure stage of training. The ABAPPP welcomes applications with any of these training backgrounds.

Stages and levels of training in the PA/PD Specialty and the Psychoanalysis Subspecialty are organized within the framework of a Taxonomy of Education and Training (Education and training guidelines: A taxonomy for education and training in professional psychology health service specialties and subspecialties (APA, 2020) link here. The Taxonomy clarifies the logic and structure of the distinction between Specialty and Subspecialty and is used to characterize levels of opportunity for specialization in at each of the stages of training (doctoral, internship, postdoctoral, and post licensure). The terms defined in the Taxonomy describe the types of program requirements that will be used to establish a pathway to training in PA/PD Psychology.

For information regarding the Subspecialty in Psychoanalysis, link here.