I have chosen to continue training in psychotherapy after many years in private practice. This is considered an oddity by many given the trend and reliance on psychopharmacology by most psychiatrists. It is a fair question to ask why. I had the good fortune to have attended a conference on attachment based psychotherapy several years ago. I had no expectations on what I was to learn and witness. However, it forever altered my perspective on the role of therapy and personal transformation. Videotapes were shown that depicted patients one year AFTER stopping therapy. It was obvious that the process of transformation had continued and seeing it on tape was quite impressive. Several of us in the audience started in our core training in Intensive Short Term Dynamic Therapy, ISTDP, just six weeks later. Core training is a minimum three year process.
ISTDP is one of the Experiential Dynamic Therapies, EDT. EDT is a collective term adopted by the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association, IEDTA. The IEDTA represents diverse techniques and outgrowths of a school of therapy that evolved from the work of Habib Davanloo. Dr. Davanloo is the founder of Intensive Short Term Dynamic Therapy. His study of over 2000 videotaped therapy hours and forty years of systematic research identified and isolated therapeutic interventions that are transformative and sustained over time.
From the IEDTA Website “ EDT includes various psychotherapeutic approaches which share the common features of being psychodynamic in orientation and emphasizing the promotion of healthy emotional experience to foster rapid, deep and lasting therapeutic change. The efficacy of this approach is validated in numerous studies indicating positive outcomes for a broad spectrum of psychological and relational difficulties.” For more information please visit the IEDTA website: www.iedta.net or www.istdp.com.