ISTDP Training

ISTDP Pre-Core Training for Mental Health Professionals

Pre-core training offers an immersive introduction to the foundational principles and clinical skills of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy.

Through focused teaching, clinical video, structured exercises, role-play, and supportive feedback, participants learn to:

• Recognize and track the Triangle of Conflict

• Identify defenses as they occur in the therapeutic relationship

• Assess and regulate the pathways that contribute to anxiety.

• Focus treatment around the patient’s conscious therapeutic goals

• Mobilize the patient’s motivation to engage in meaningful change.

• invite emotional experience while maintaining psychological safety

• formulate shorter, clearer, and more clinically purposeful interventions

• understand how the therapist’s own anxiety, feelings, and defenses influence the work

The training is designed for licensed and license-eligible mental health professionals. Previous ISTDP experience is welcome but not required.

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A Rigorous Model Taught in a Human Way

Learning any psychotherapy model can be both exciting and exposing. Clinicians are asked to examine not only what their patients do but also how their own anxiety, uncertainty, and habitual responses enter the therapeutic process.

I aim to create a learning environment in which clinicians can take genuine risks, receive direct and compassionate feedback, and develop through practice rather than performance.

Participants consistently describe the training as structured, accessible, emotionally supportive, and immediately applicable to their clinical work.

 

“By the end of the training, I felt a strong level of comfort and capability implementing the skills we’d learned. My clients already notice a difference.”

 

“David fights the overwhelm that can come for beginners by taking the learning step by step.”

 

“His emphasis on principles-based ISTDP was refreshing, rather than trying to memorize a collection of things to say.”