2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month from 12:30-2:30 PM
3511 39th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20016

This group considers the perspective of Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy and how it may be applied to our clinical cases across a the spectrum of psychodiagnoses. With roots in classical psychoanalytic theory and ego psychology, ISTDP offers a theoretical frame as well as techniques for dealing with anxiety, defense and resistance that help to create a robust alliance for growth. This perspective incorporates current findings in neuroscience, attachment theory and a body centered experiential focus that explicitly encourages mentalization.

Using Jon Fredericksons’s Co-Creating Change: Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques as a framework for our inquiry, we will discuss case material, observe videotapes of psychotherapy sessions and use role playing to discover new ways approach common clinical impasses.

Members who attend this study group will be able to:

  1. Summarize the ISTDP theory of causality of psychoneurosis.
  2. Define the essential elements of a Conscious Therapeutic Alliance.
  3. Describe communication from the Unconscious Therapeutic Alliance.
  4. Explain the Malan’s Triangle of Conflict and Triangle of Person to gain dynamic understanding of cases.
  5. Identify techniques to establish an internal focus.
  6. Assess verbal and nonverbal communication to diagnose the quality of the patient-therapist attachment from moment to moment.
  7. Identify a large variety of interpersonal avoidance behaviors.
  8. Identify pathways of anxiety.
  9. Perceive deficits in ego functioning as they emerge in session.
  10. Integrate understanding of this model with other perspectives.