ABOUT US
The Potential Space for Continuing Education in Psychology and Psychotherapy, PLLC is a private center established in 2008 by Dr. Simha-Alpern for the purpose of providing continuing education in psychology and psychotherapy to licensed mental health practitioners who provide psychotherapy to patients, and/or clinical supervision to other mental health practitioners. Our focus is to help deepen and increase the necessary competencies of mental health providers, in an atmosphere of collegial discussion, in order to improve services to the public and enhance contributions to the mental health profession.

ABOUT THE NAME
The “potential space” was a concept introduced by the English pediatrician/psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott (1896-1971) representing a space between the internal reality of one’s subjective self and external objective reality. This space is neither simply subjective nor objective. That is, the potential space allows individuals to simultaneously experience their own internal fantasy as it relates to their experience of external reality. The “potential space” has been used as a metaphor to describe an optimal therapeutic environment, where play, imagination, and creativity contribute to change and development. This concept reflects our approach to professional development as a process by which one engages in both self exploration and assimilation of new knowledge. Our style of teaching is geared to encouraging a productive playing with ideas. Seminar discussions focus not only on the meaning of theoretical concepts but particularly on their application to clinical issues and therapist/patient interactions.