Transforming Resistance with ISTDP: 4 Part Webinar Series

In this monthly 4-part online course, running from February to May 2026, we will study a course of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) with a moderately resistant client. Looking beyond common mental health diagnoses, these individuals commonly report recurrent episodes of anxiousness, unhappiness, and a struggle to thrive in life. They typically show some insight into problematic patterns associated to mental health symptoms and interpersonal problems, yet find themselves repeating these patterns. They have good anxiety tolerance, but easily become tense, uncomfortable and avoidant at times of perceived or actual conflict with friends, family and at work. While this category of client is common in routine clinical practice, therapists can easily become drawn into patterns of intellectualising about client’s defence mechanisms and treatment progress can stall.

In this course, we will review in detail video-recorded material of a completed ISTDP treatment. Through this case material, participants will observe and learn about: (1) A non-manualised psychodynamic approach to establish a treatment focus around clients’ conflicted attachment relationships; (2) Session-to-session how to maintain a clear focus on these attachment themes; (3) Recognizing defensive avoidance and transforming the alliance; (4) An active therapeutic stance to promote the working through of conflicted emotional states through assisting clients to experience then express previously avoided feelings in-session.

This course is an opportunity to watch the unedited recordings of sessions, mapping some common clinical scenarios that occur in treatment with anxious and avoidant patients. This will allow for a focus on key treatment phases including inquiry, psychodiagnosis, mobilisation of the unconscious, unlocking of the unconscious, recapitulation of the in-session process, and treatment termination, across the therapy. This course is appropriate for clinicians with limited psychodynamic knowledge who are looking to learn about a psychodynamic treatment framework, and those with more experience. For clinicians familiar with ISTDP, we can focus on how to track the ‘triple factors’ of unconscious therapeutic alliance, complex transference feelings, and levels/types of resistance, across therapy sessions. There will be structured opportunities throughout the 3 hour monthly meetings for group discussion, comments and questions.

Participants

To protect patient confidentiality, all participants will be asked to sign a condition of admittance and need to be registered mental healthcare professionals or students registered in clinical training programs. Please email any questions or inquiries to info@dynamichealthservices.ca.

Time and dates

The monthly seminar will start at 9am Australian Eastern Time on the 3rd Friday of the month (February 20th, March 20th, April 17th, May 15th). In US Eastern Time, the seminar will take place in the evening on the 3rd Thursday of the month (Note: Start times outside of Australia will vary due to daylight savings: 5pm February 19th, 6pm March 19th, 7pm April 16th and May 14th).