Honoring CAPA’s Founder

Elise Snyder, M.D.

(May 4, 1934-January 9, 2026)

Dr. Elise Snyder founded the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance in 2008 to address a critical gap in China's mental health landscape. While young Chinese mental health professionals showed extraordinary interest in psychoanalysis and read widely about the field, their clinical knowledge lagged due to limited access to Western clinicians who spoke Mandarin. Various groups had offered brief lectures and supervisions in China, but what was sorely lacking was organized, intensive training to meet the growing demand for analysts in China. CAPA was Dr. Snyder's answer to this need - a pioneering program that would provide comprehensive psychodynamic psychotherapy training entirely through distance learning, years before teletherapy became commonplace.

Under Dr. Snyder's visionary leadership, CAPA grew from an unplanned beginning in 2001 - when she attended a literary conference in Beijing - into a robust training alliance that has transformed mental health care in China. Over nearly two decades, more than 400 Western teachers, therapists, and supervisors generously volunteered their expertise to train over 500 Chinese mental health professionals as analytic psychotherapists. CAPA students have gone on to translate major psychoanalytic texts, pursue advanced training at American Psychoanalytic Association institutes, and establish their own organization, CAPA in China (CIC), to continue developing the field independently. 

In 2024, Dr. Snyder retired as CAPA’s president, and remained a committed and active CAPA board member and CAPA instructor until her death.

Dr. Snyder's mission was always clear: to train the leaders of the next generation of Chinese psychodynamic psychotherapists, with the ultimate goal of enabling Chinese graduates to grow the field in their own country. CAPA graduates have made that vision a reality and a lasting testament to her dedication, foresight, and belief in the power of psychoanalytic understanding to bridge cultures and transform lives.