This seminar-style course is the first in a three-course sequence on psychodynamic systems of psychotherapy, which provides instruction and training in psychodynamic approaches to personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy. This first course includes a review of major theorists and theories from Freud (classical analysis) to Kohut (self-psychology), focusing particularly on the British Middle School’s (Fairbairn, Guntrip, and Winnicott) distinctive contributions to this spectrum of theories and therapies. Particular attention is given to the evolution from drive to relationship as primary motivation for human development and from individual to interpersonal intrapsychic systems frameworks. Implications for the understanding of religious experience from the perspective of these psychodynamic frameworks is also explored.