The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis was founded in 1973 by Ethel Goldwater Clevans and Phyllis Whitcomb Meadow. Since its inception, the school has opened its doors to the study of psychoanalysis and its deeper meanings—our desires, fears, and dreams—to motivated students from all walks of life. It started with a class of seven; now it has expanded to three campuses, offering degrees in ten programs, all centered around psychoanalysis. In 2005, BGSP opened the New York Graduate School of Psychoanalysis in New York City, offering a Master of Arts in Psychoanalytic Studies.
The founders of NYGSP chose to follow Freud’s philosophy that people from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds, demonstrating talent and motivation, should be eligible for education as psychoanalysts. Academically qualified applicants who show the capacity and desire to learn are welcomed from all disciplines.
The school’s innovative approach to education is based on the idea that the freedom to be oneself, a basic principle of psychoanalytic treatment, may be applied to the teaching and learning of psychoanalytic concepts. Resistance to emotional learning is the greatest handicap to understanding psychodynamics. The use of dynamics in the classroom to illuminate concepts being taught involves students in emotional learning. Emotional learning fosters self understanding and tolerance for feelings induced by others. NYGSP students rise to the challenge by observing directly the full range of psychological disorders while researching the inner workings of the human unconsciousness.
NYGSP is accredited by NECHE, the New England Commission of Higher Education through its main campus, BGSP.