This, we believe is in contrast to the current climate in mental health care. While the whole field of mental health is hard hit by managed care excesses, psychoanalytic work is particularly sensitive to these adverse conditions, in which individuals have fewer and fewer degrees of freedom to choose. For these reasons, the Society has established a Referral Service in an attempt to provide a public service to the community by making psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for adults, adolescents and children accessible to the community. We also provide an alternative source of referrals from managed care companies for the mental health professionals in our network. All of our members are skilled, credentialed clinicians who are graduates of a psychoanalytic institute approved by either the American Psychoanalytic Association or by the International Psychoanalytic Association, or are candidates completing advanced studies at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute.
Psychoanalysts are clinicians with the most extensive training in the mental health field.
They receive an average of five to six years of post-graduate training in psychoanalysis following their education as psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers or marital and family counselors. Many have faculty appointments at major universities in Los Angeles and its vicinity. The Referral Service connects prospective patients with a diverse pool of psychoanalysts who treat the whole spectrum of emotional disorders. Patients can seek our services for anxiety and depressive disorders as well as a wide variety of issues such as obstacles to productivity, unexplained limitations in career and personal advancement, emotional crisis, life-cycle problems, sexual disorders, difficulty in adjusting to life's changing demands, and problems with marriage, family and other relationships. Treatments may last from weeks to several years, depending on the patient and the problem.