Specialization
Specialization School in Integrated Clinical Psychotherapy
S.S.P.C.I.
Duration: four years
Cost: €4,000
Students: max 20 per year
Admission: interview
The SSPCI aims to train future psychotherapists in developmental and relational interventions aimed at emotional and psychosomatic regulation. The goal is to learn best evidence-based practices for regulating patients' emotions and bodily sensations (self-regulation and autonomic regulation), and for promoting psychosomatic well-being both in private and interpersonal relationships (intimacy regulation). This biopsychosocial intervention model is open to the constantly emerging innovations in clinical psychology, clinical psychiatry, affective neuroscience, and psychosomatic medicine, currently focused on attachment theory, developmental and complex trauma, and PTSD, offering new possibilities for integrating the dynamic clinical model with the interpersonal cognitive-behavioral model.
The theoretical and applied orientation of the SSPCI is therefore aimed at a clinical intervention that utilizes an integrated approach to the therapeutic relationship with the patient: promoting empathic listening and the therapist's unstable attention, evaluating and assessing the patient's mental, relational, and somatic functioning for psychopathological reasons, and sharing both their psychological suffering and the progressively achieved results of the therapeutic process. The purpose of this integrated bottom-up/top-down intervention is to promote, together with the patient, the application of the most up-to-date third-generation psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral procedures to promote mentalization, reappraisal, and change through the therapeutic alliance and clinical strategies with clear objectives, especially those connected to the patient's motivation and needs.
In this direction, emotional and psychosomatic regulation psychotherapy (selfregulation and autonomic regulation) is an integrated body trauma-oriented psychotherapy, in which the psychodynamic model is integrated with the relational cognitive-behavioral and psychosomatic models, with the aim of treating and transforming dysregulated emotions and sensations, promoting the patient's mentalization and autonomic regulation (Levine, 2010; Porges, 2017), and fostering a greater sense of safety and social engagement.
Description
Scholarships 2026
The call for applications for four scholarships, two for each year of the program, is now online for students enrolled in the School of Specialization in Integrated Clinical Psychotherapy in 2026.
Goals
The SSPCI model aims to train psychotherapists capable of carrying out an integrated clinical intervention based on consolidated europhysiological, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, relational and psychosomatic cornerstones, on attachment theory and internal working models (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1979, 1980), on the transference/countertransference relationship in the setting (Caligor et al., 2018; Racker, 1968; Rosenfeld, 1986), on the construction and repair of the therapeutic alliance (Safran & Muran, 2019; Lingiardi, 2002; Perdighe & Gragnani, 2021). In this direction, emotional and psychosomatic regulation psychotherapy (selfregulation and autonomic regulation) is an integrated body trauma-oriented psychotherapy, in which the psychodynamic model is integrated with the relational cognitive-behavioral and psychosomatic models, with the aim of treating and transforming dysregulated emotions and sensations, promoting the patient's mentalization and autonomic regulation (Levine, 2010; Porges, 2017) and fostering a greater sense of safety and social engagement.
Recipients
Graduates in Psychology or Medicine and Surgery registered with the relevant professional association.
Title obtained
Diploma of Specialization in Psychotherapy
Students
A maximum of 20 students are admitted per year, subject to passing the admission interview with the Director and coordinators of the School.
Structure
Director
Prof. Lisa Saskia Arduino, Full Professor of General Psychology at LUMSA.
Teaching, internship and supervision coordination
Prof. Andrea Fontana, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and President of the Degree Program in Clinical Psychology, Lumsa University. Psychotherapist with a psychoanalytic orientation.
Prof. Lucia Sideli, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Lumsa University. Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist.
term
Four-year duration. An average of 530 hours per year, divided into:
- a maximum of 128 hours per year of theoretical study through academic lectures, reading and critical analysis groups, and group discussion and assessment;
- a minimum of 222 hours per year of practical training based on theoretical lessons and practical activities which progressively increases over the years;
- 168 hours of clinical material supervision activity over the years;
- 150 hours of internship to be completed at facilities affiliated with the school;
- 6 hours of verification tests.
During the four-year period, theoretical insights, clinical case supervision, practical training and internship hours are distributed for a total of at least 2000 hours (excluding those relating to individual psychotherapy).
Plan
First year
314 hours of in-depth theoretical and applied theoretical study on: the foundations of general and developmental psychology, general psychopathology, the foundations of psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and psychosomatic models, case formulation, and intervention based on the self-regulation model in an integrated perspective. The program also includes 150 hours of professional internship, 30 hours of personal analysis, 6 hours of seminars, and 36 hours of practical exercises.
Second year
350 hours of theoretical and applied theoretical teaching (including training and group supervision) in neuroscience, psychodiagnostics, organizational psychopathology of neurotic, borderline, and psychotic personalities, and self-regulation therapy from an integrated perspective, with in-depth studies on specific areas (including adolescent psychopathology and psycho-oncology). The program also includes 150 hours of professional internship, 30 hours of personal analysis, and 6 hours of seminars.
Third year
350 hours of theoretical and applied teaching (including training and group supervision) on: psychotherapeutic intervention models and protocols, therapeutic relationships and settings, self-regulation therapy from an integrated perspective, couple and family interventions, and specific areas of intervention (including eating disorders, complicated grief disorders, antisocial and psychopathic disorders). The program also includes 150 hours of professional internship, 30 hours of personal analysis, and 6 hours of seminars.
Fourth year
352 hours of theoretical and applied theoretical teaching (including training and group supervision) on: psychotherapeutic intervention models and protocols, polyvagal and psychosomatic theory, self-regulation therapy from an integrated perspective, interventions for couples and families, dissociative and post-traumatic stress disorders, interventions for couples and families, psychopharmacology, specific areas of intervention (including learning disabilities, neurocognitive disorders, and ethnopsychiatry).
Also planned are 150 hours of professional internship, 30 hours of personal analysis, and 6 hours of seminars.
Teachers
FIRST YEAR TEACHERS
Professor Simonetta Gentile
Professor Gianluigi Di Cesare
Prof. Antonio Grassi
Dr. Stefano Terenzi
Professor Maria Concetta Pellicciari
Prof. Federico Vigevano
Prof.ssa Lucia Sideli
Prof. Andrea Fontana
Dr. Alessia Silla
Prof. Enzo Kermol
Dr. Laura Bernabei
Dr. Maria Maddalena Viola
Prof. Antonino Costanzo
Dr. Giovanbattista Di Carlo
Prof. Antonino Callea
Dr. Giacomo Angelini
Prof. Alessio Gori
Prof. Umberto Bivona
Prof. Maria Paola Andraos
SECOND YEAR TEACHERS
Prof. Antonino Costanzo
Professor Patrizia Brogna
Prof. Luigi Janiri
Dr. Alessia Silla
Dr. Domenico Ardito
Professor Cristina Trentini
Dr. Stefano Terenzi
Dr. Maria Maddalena Viola Viola
Prof. Andrea Fontana
Professor Gianluigi Di Cesare
Prof. Lisa Arduino
Dr. Giovanbattista Di Carlo
Dr. Teresa Tricomi
Prof. Enzo Kermol
Prof. Flavio Urbini
Prof.ssa Lucia Sideli
Dr. Caterina Parisio
Prof. Antonio Grassi
Dr. Giuseppe Nicolò
Cost
The annual fee is €4,000, to be paid in two installments, the first upon enrollment and the second mid-year, by bank transfer to: Lumsa Human Academy – Fondazione Luigia Tincani ETS Intesa San Paolo IBAN IT 72 W 03069 09606 100000 189585 (specify your name and surname and year of enrollment in the School in the reason for payment).
In case of withdrawal from studies or transfer, the fee must be paid in full.
Individual psychotherapy experience is not included in the annual fee.
Contacts
Via GG Belli n. 86
00193 Rome
tel. 39 06 684222931
cell. 39 380 3776507
info@lumsahumanacademy.it
www.lumsahumanacademy.it
