CME Program Mission Statement

Purpose
The purpose of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Center for Psychoanalysis (SFCP) Continuing Medical Education Program is to provide high quality lifelong learning opportunities for mental health professionals who practice in the area of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. These educational opportunities are designed to increase mental health professionals’ knowledge and competence, and promote the ethical treatment of patients engaged in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. These goals are integral to SFCP’s overall mission of education, research, and public service dedicated to advancing the vitality and enduring value of psychoanalysis in Northern California.

Content Areas
The SFCP CME Program offers a wide variety of educational activities each year. The content of these programs provides a diverse choice of topics in the areas of psychoanalytic theory and practice. Psychoanalysis is a pluralistic field, both theoretically and technically. Based on SFCP faculty expertise as well as invited experts in the field, we offer programs that enhance our learners’ knowledge of the different theoretical perspectives and as well as provide opportunity to develop and update clinical skills. We offer programs to address clinical problems in the populations our learners serve and make every effort to comply with CA Assembly Bill 1195 by incorporating appropriate cultural and linguistic competency elements into the educational content of CME activities.

Target Audience
The SFCP CME program targets a diverse audience of learners, both in terms of professional background and practice environment. The audience is comprised of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, nurses, and MFTs who are members of SFCP as well as practitioners in the community. Every effort is made to comprise the CME Committee of members from all the mental health disciplines in order to meet the educational needs of these professionals.

Our first and most important goal is to ensure that the SFCP membership has the most up-to-date scientific knowledge and clinical skills to provide the highest quality patient care. Our next most immediate target audience is mental health practitioners from the San Francisco Bay Area. These practitioners function in a wide variety of public and private practice environments. The classes and conferences offered by the SFCP CME Program are developed based on needs assessments drawn from within SFCP and from the larger audience.

Types of Activities Provided
The general types of activities offered include conferences and lectures planned to accommodate the need for varied formats, teaching methods and participant and faculty exchange. Activities range from one or two hours duration to longer symposia of one or more days in length to yearlong intensive study groups that include several courses. Methodologies used include didactic teaching, interactive demonstration of techniques, panels, case conferences and study groups.

Expected Results of the Program
We expect to improve and advance the professional knowledge and skills of our learners in the areas of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. We expect our learners to report that they have acquired new knowledge in a particular topic area or have updated their skills or acquired new and/or advanced skills that they intend to apply in their practices. Our goal is to enhance our participants’ level of competence in their practices of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy and in doing so, to improve their performance in their practices and treatment of their patients.