The American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) has honored Yale Psychiatry's Dr. Stanley Possick with its Edith Sabshin Teaching Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions as an educator of students who are not members of the psychoanalytic profession.
Dr. Possick has been an active teacher and mentor of non-analyst trainees since the beginning of his distinguished career. He has served as the Education Coordinator for the Long Term Psychotherapy Program at Yale. This comprehensive program ensures that every psychiatry resident at Yale and every psychology intern at Yale-New Haven Hospital has an intensive training experience in psychodynamic psychotherapy by pairing each trainee with one or two patients and a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy supervisor. The trainee meets with each patient once or twice a week and with a supervisor on a weekly basis. Currently, Dr. Possick oversees a program that has more than sixty trainees and fifty faculty supervisors.
Dr. Possick regularly co-teaches "Introduction to Psychoanalytic Theory," popularly called "The Freud Course," an elective on psychoanalytic theory for Yale psychiatry residents and psychology post-doctoral fellows. He has also taught a course on psychoanalytic approaches to the borderline patient and a number of sessions on the "difficult patient" to trainees at the Yale University Health Service.
Dr. Robert Rohrbaugh, the Department's Deputy Chair for Education and Career Development summed up Dr. Possick's influence on the Department, “For Decades, Dr. Possick has had a profound impact on trainees here at Yale. Dr. Possick is a naturally gifted and patient teacher with a friendly demeanor that makes him easily approachable by students and colleagues alike. Trainees frequently identify him as an outstanding teacher and consistently give him the highest possible rating. He has inspired numerous students to pursue advanced psychoanalytic training.”
In recognition of his outstanding abilities and dedicated service to the Department, Dr. Possick was awarded the inaugural Steven Fleck Award as "exemplary physician and clinical teacher," the Clinical Faculty Award, and the Malcolm Bowers Clinical Teaching Prize, voted by the Department’s residents. These awards signify the depth of appreciation felt by the Department and by residents who have benefitted from Dr. Possick's teaching.
For more information: American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA)