Mapping the macroprocess

Over several years of teaching psychoanalytic case writing to advanced candidates at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, instructors noticed that while students can often learn to write convincingly about the moment-to-moment work in the analysis--the microprocess--it is often quite difficult for them to understand and convey a sense of the longitudinal movement of the case over time--the macroprocess. To redress this, a pedagogical method was devised that helps candidates visually map an analysis in order to facilitate case writing and formulation. Changes in the analysis are tracked over time, encouraging explication of how those changes have come about. The method is illustrated with a pedagogical vignette.