The Alliance Bridge Program
Supporting the community through psychoanalytic consultation
The Bridge Program is a partnership between the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study and local community health organizations. This partnership strives to reach diverse therapist and client populations, widening the reach of psychoanalytic ideas into places where clients have traditionally lacked access to long-term, depth-oriented treatment. Seasoned clinicians bring their area of expertise to consultation and offer a framework for thinking analytically and conceptualizing experiences between therapists and clients. In the service of understanding psychological phenomenon and process within a larger psychosocial context, a secondary objective of the Bridge Program is to hold in mind issues of race, class and intersectional identities while considering treatment plans, objectives, and goals.
The Bridge Program provides up to ten hours of psychoanalytic consultation per year, per organization, as determined between the consultant and the agency. Participants will also have the opportunity to earn continuing education for each hour of consultation provided. The Program is made possible through an Alliance Special Initiatives Grant, and seeks to uphold the following objectives:
- To collectively deepen the understanding of psychoanalytic concepts and their practical usefulness in a variety of settings
- To promote therapists’ reflective capacity to improve resilience, communication, and treatment effectiveness
- To influence the overall culture in healthcare settings to support thoughtful, trauma-informed treatment that considers intersecting identities and the larger sociopolitical context
- To address issues of race and racism in psychoanalytic education and treatment, responding to the need for greater equity and inclusion in historically white-dominant therapeutic spaces
The Bridge Program offers a variety of in-service consultation topics as a starting place for conversation and psychoanalytic framework. Additional topics may be arranged with individual consultants to meet the needs and interests of the agency.
Email Bridge@nwaps.org for more information about the Alliance Bridge Program and to hold a pre-consultation conversation.
Current Alliance Consultants

Danny Gellersen MSW, LICSW
AVAILABLE IN-SERVICE TOPICS:
- Dismantling Clinician Anxieties Treating “Personality Disordered” Clients
- The Basic Tenants of Brief Dynamic Therapy
AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION?
Yes

Katherine Knowlton PhD
AVAILABLE IN-SERVICE TOPICS:
- Reaching an “Other”: Growing Therapeutic Relationships and The Use Balint Groups
- Loosening Up The Therapist and The Therapeutic Relationship Without Stretching Boundaries
- Remoralizing a Demoralized Situation:
How to Do Some Good For Yourself and Others
AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION?
Yes
Erin Pierson LMHC
AVAILABLE IN-SERVICE TOPICS:
- Therapist Anxiety Working With Suicidal Patients
- Considering Systemic Issues in Transference and Countertransference
AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION?
Yes
Thomas Saunders MSW, LICSW
AVAILABLE IN-SERVICE TOPICS:
- First Encounters: What Happens When You Meet Your Client
- Coping with Primitive Emotions and Defenses
- Mother-Infant Attunement and Misattunement
AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION?
Yes

Leif Tellmann MA, LMHC, BC-DMT
AVAILABLE IN-SERVICE TOPICS:
- Bringing the Body Into the Therapy Process
- Paying Attention to Paying Attention
AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION?
Yes