Parent-Infant Psychotherapy

The Parent-Infant Psychotherapy (PIP) Program, under the direction of Talia Hatzor, PhD, provides an intensive, online, two-year training in the normal development and disorders of infancy and toddlerhood, with a focus on parent-child relationships and treatments. A foundational component of this program involves weekly one-hour in-home baby observation; this unique experience, wherein PIP participants follow a newborn through the first two years of life, is based on the internationally renowned Tavistock method. In addition, each student who is clinically licensed in the U.S. will be assigned an individual supervisor and will gain experience intervening with a parent-child dyad. We facilitate the matching of PIP participants with both infant observation settings and clinical placements.

Monday evening coursework comprises two sections. The first class, from 6:00-7:30PM, is a seminar devoted to the ongoing experience of infant observation. The second class, which is shared with CAPP participants for the first semester, meets from 8:00-9:30 and is organized around a series of scholarly and clinical topics. Attendance at no less than 75% of the program’s sessions is required to qualify for the Certification of Professional Achievement at the completion of the program.

In year 1, we read and discuss a range of psychoanalytic and attachment-based theories about early mental life and begin to examine dyadic and other interventions that enhance parent-infant relationships and support babies’ developmental progression. Our syllabus includes readings from and conversations about major theorists and researchers (e.g., Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bion, Mahler, Bowlby, Stern, Fonagy, Maine, Salomonsson, Lebovici, and more).

In year 2, we look more closely at the potential challenges and psychopathologies of parenting and early childhood, including topics such as problems of pregnancy and the postpartum period, developmental issues, grief and mourning, the emergence of separation anxieties, intergenerational trauma, and disorders of eating and sleeping. Specific techniques in the clinical work with parents and infants will be taught. 

The Parent-Infant Psychotherapy program welcomes clinicians and scholars from several backgrounds who are interested in gaining in-depth knowledge of and experience with 0-3 populations and their parents; past participants have included psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, occupational therapists, and pediatricians. We welcome clinicians who work with children and are interested in expanding their knowledge and skills to work with under-threes, and clinicians who work with adults and are interested in expanding their understanding of how to work with the infant-parent relationship. 

Infant Observation

The Tavistock Model of Infant Observation is a distinctive method of learning through the naturalistic observation of an infant within its family setting. Its purpose is to deepen understanding of early development and to cultivate in students the capacities that form part of the psychoanalytic attitude. This experience provides a foundation for later clinical work in parent–infant psychotherapy, as well as in psychoanalytic practice with children or adults.

Each student visits a family with a baby for one hour each week, beginning shortly before the birth and continuing until the child is about eighteen months old. During these visits, the observer maintains a background stance of friendly attentiveness—quietly taking in the ordinary flow of family life without taking notes. The focus is on the observer’s learning experience rather than on intervention.

Through this sustained and intimate observation, students develop a capacity to witness how a mother and baby live through and resolve both ordinary and challenging situations in their own ways. In the accompanying seminar, observers are helped to understand babies and their unfolding experiences, and to reflect on the feelings and judgments that arise in themselves when anxieties are stirred. Often, the observer’s calm and containing presence proves beneficial to the parents, who may experience the visits as supportive and benign.

Alongside cultivating sensitivity and precision in observation, the course encourages students to think inductively from lived experience—to develop hypotheses grounded in what they have seen, and to begin to imagine how the developing infant is coming to make sense of the world.

In addition to the professional growth, collegiality, and intellectual enrichment our program provides, it offers participants many of the benefits afforded to Columbia University students, including online access to the university’s libraries and the ability to enroll in Columbia Student Health Insurance. Graduates earn a Certification of Professional Achievement from Columbia University and may claim a maximum of 30 continuing education credits (see below).

To Apply

Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Program Application

Our program admits a new cohort every other year. Applications to the Parent-Infant Psychotherapy program are now open for the class entering September 2027. Applications are processed on a rolling basis and will close when all spots are filled or on April 15, 2027, whichever is sooner.

With your application, you will be expected to upload a copy of your CV and include documentation of your current licensure and adequate malpractice coverage. In addition, we require a letter of recommendation from the director of the residency training program or internship from which you graduated, and two additional letters from previous psychotherapy supervisors.

Recommenders should be able to offer an independent, professional evaluation of your clinical work. Letters from individuals with close personal relationships to the applicant (e.g., family members, partners) are not appropriate.

Please ask each of these references to send a letter supporting your application to the Psychoanalytic Center via email to psychoanalysis@cumc.columbia.edu. 

For more information about the Parent-Infant Psychotherapy training, contact the program chair, Dr. Talia Hatzor, at thatzor@gmail.com or 917-439-8714.

Program Fees

Tuition for the Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Program for the 2026–27 academic year is $5,016 per year. Tuition is payable in two installments at the beginning of each term and is subject to incremental annual increases.

In addition to tuition, Columbia University charges a one-time document fee of $105 and a per-term technology fee of $240.

All students are eligible to enroll in Columbia Student Health Insurance for an additional fee. For more information, please click here.

Tuition and fees listed here and elsewhere on this website are subject to change without prior notice.