Community Psychoanalysis Certificate Program

Monisha Nayar-Akhtar, PhD, obtained her Masters and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Later, she trained at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute in adult and child/adolescent analysis. After practicing for over twenty years in Southfield, Michigan, she relocated to suburban Philadelphia. Currently, she is affiliated with the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia where she is a Training and Supervising Analyst. She is an active member of the American Psychoanalytic Association where she served as a member of the Program committee till 2020 and as chair of the Clinical Workshop on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis till 2018. Dr. Akhtar has a keen interest in Applied Psychoanalysis and in promoting psychoanalytic thinking in India, her country of origin. In 2011, she began working with Udayan, an orphanage based in New Delhi and continues to do so to date. Her current projects include providing ongoing clinical training workshops in trauma and attachment to psychotherapists, social workers and others, working with children and adolescents. In 2018, she established the Indian American Psychoanalytic Alliance in Philadelphia, a non-profit organization that provided a two-year distance learning program in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Her current project includes training therapists in early intervention and establishing a Therapeutic Play Center to provide therapies for disturbed children between the ages of 2 and 6. She has edited two books. One titled, Play and Playfulness, and the other titled, Identities in Transition. Dr. Akhtar is the editor-in-chief of a journal “Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond,” which she, as its editor in chief, helped launch in May 2014. This peer reviewed journal published by Sage Publications, presents papers from the SAARC region on issues pertinent to children and adolescents who are orphaned or in need of care and protection. She is on the editorial board of the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child and Adolescent as well. She is a recipient of the Ticho Award and presented a paper titled ‘Psychic Space, Structural Space, Cyber space, Desire and Intimacy in a Digital World,’ in Chicago, 2016, during the spring meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Akhtar is in private practice and has an office in Center City, Pennsylvania.

Sharon Alperovitz, LICSW, is in private practice in Washington, D.C. She is a Teaching Psychoanalyst and a faculty member of the Psychoanalytic Studies Program and the Observational Studies Program at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. She was active for many years, co-leading Work Discussion groups at Jubilee JumpStart Daycare Center in Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C

Elizabeth Hersh, MD, is a psychiatrist in Washington, DC. She is a training analyst at the WPCP and a faculty member of the Observational Studies Program at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. She has also been active for many years, co-leading Work Discussion groups at Jubilee JumpStart Daycare Center in Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C

Joel Kanter, MSW, LCSW-C, is in private practice of psychotherapy and clinical case management in Silver Spring, Maryland. Recognized as a Distinguished Practitioner by the National Academy of Practice in Social Work, he is an Instructor in Psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine and is a Consulting Editor of the Clinical Social Work Journal. He serves on the Board of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work. He has published over 40 articles and book chapters—many on community care of persons with severe mental illness–in diverse social work, psychoanalytic and psychiatric journals. His major publications include Coping Strategies for Relatives of the Mentally Ill (NAMI, 1984), Clinical Studies in Case Management (Jossey-Bass, 1995), and Face to Face with Children: The Life and Work of Clare Winnicott (Karnac, 2004).

Katherine Knowlton, PhD, is a Seattle psychologist retired from several decades of private practice in individual psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy. Since 1995 she has maintained an affiliation with the University of Washington, where she leads Balint groups for Family Medicine, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and specialized surgical teams for Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her Balint work also includes holding private groups for mental health providers and training leaders nationally with the American Balint Society.

Albert Lichtenstein, PhD, received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Michigan State University. He has served as Director of Behavioral Services at the Guthrie Weight Loss Center for 12 years. Before that, Dr. Lichtenstein was the Behavioral Science Director at the Guthrie Family Medicine Residency. He is currently a Professor of Psychiatry at the Neuroscience Institute of the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. One of Dr. Lichtenstein’s main interests is in using the Balint Method to help physicians, and other healthcare providers, work through difficult relationships with their patients in order to provide compassionate care. He has been President of the American Balint Society and currently serves as General Secretary of the International Balint Federation. 

Kathryn McCormick, MA, LMFT, CMHS, EMMHS, is a bilingual (Spanish) child analyst and an advanced candidate in adult training at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.  She has worked for over two decades in a northwest tribal community as a clinician, including for over 10 years as the Administrative Clinical Supervisor of a tribal Child, Youth and Family (CYF) Mental Wellness Program. For the past six years, she has served as the Administrative Clinical Supervisor of the tribes’ Birth to Five Center, and as the head and lead clinician in the psychoanalytically informed, evidence-based Reflective Network Therapy (RNT) program for children (aged 2½-5) challenged with trauma, developmental delays and/or social, emotional and/or behavioral difficulties. Internationally, Kathryn has held numerous administrative and executive positions with IPSO (the candidate organization of the IPA) including as the former IPSO VP Elect of North America – 2013-2015, IPSO VP of North America – 2015-2017, IPSO President Elect 2017-2019, and most recently IPSO President, 2019-2021. Additionally, she has held several positions in the IPA both on the IPA IPSO Relations Committee (IIRC) from 2013-2020, IPA Health in the Community Committee. Kathryn currently serves on the IPA Education in the Community Committee. 

Regina Pally, MD, is retired from private practice as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and currently engaged in helping the community. She is author of “The Reflective Parent: How to do less and relate more with your kids,” which emphasizes that building and maintaining a strong parent-child relationship is the single most important thing a parent can do for their child. She is Founder of Center for Reflective Communities (CRC), which provides training and educational workshops designed to help parents and other care providers build strong relationships with children by enhancing their capacity to be reflective. She currently is working on a grant to bring Reflective Parenting into the Antelope Valley CA, African American Faith Based Community. Reflective capacity is the uniquely human ability that enables us to make sense of what is going on inside another person and inside ourselves. Regina maintains that being reflective in our relationships with children, leads to greater empathy, understanding, and acceptance and less stress, anger, and aggression, all of which ultimately promotes healthier child development and strengthens families. Additionally she emphasizes that being reflective in ALL our relationships builds more connected and safe communities. Regina has 3 adult children, 7 grandchildren and lives with her husband in Santa Monica. 

Susanne Walker Wilson, MSW, LCSW, LCAS, IMH-E, has been a therapist, parent educator, early intervention specialist, consultant and trainer in inner-city Washington DC, Colombia, South America, and across Appalachian communities in North Carolina for more than 25 years. She is a licensed clinical social worker and a reflective supervisor with a private practice in Asheville, NC. Her focus is the intersection of early relational health, resilience, and public health prevention. Susanne is endorsed as an Infant Mental Health professional at the Clinical Mentor level and offers reflective consultation through the NC Infant Mental Health Association. Susanne describes Circle of Security as continuing to inform and transform her work and her own heart. She facilitates COSP groups across diverse contexts (rural and urban, with caregivers living near harm and those who experience privilege) and utilizes the Circle as a framework for systems change and leadership development. Through the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas she anchors statewide systems change and collective impact that invites North Carolina leaders and policy makers to hold the centrality of attachment in mind. Through the nonprofit Resources for Resilience, Susanne coordinates an initiative with local government funding to bring COSP groups and ongoing COSP “reunions” (by parent request) to child welfare-involved parents and to the professionals who serve them. She and others have also been bringing COSP groups to North Carolina’s Early Intervention workforce statewide. Susanne is a co-founder and leadership partner of the Attachment Network of North Carolina. As a COSP Fidelity Coach and reflective consultant with professionals around the world, Susanne appreciates the chance to be with and learn from colleagues committed to mentalization models that support increased adult reflective functioning.