Journal of Contemporary ISTDP

23/04/2024

”Therapist levels of oxytocin predict decreases in depressive symptoms. A recent study shows that positive effects of patients experiencing negative feelings in session is partially mediated by therapist oxytocin response.”

Fisher, H., Solomonov, N., Falkenström, F., Shahar, B., Shamay-Tsoory, S., & Zilcha-Mano, S. (2023). Therapists' oxytocin response mediates the association between patients' negative emotions and psychotherapy outcomes. Journal of Affective Disorders, 338, 163-170

From research recap by Thomas Hesslow ( #1)

29/03/2024

Happy Easter to everyone from JCI. Enjoy your holidays!

Hilma af Klint- The Ten Largest No.7

25/03/2024

GET TO KNOW THE TEAM - ASPASIA KARAGEORGE

- Tell me about yourself!
I’m a clinical psychologist, research consultant, and university faculty member in Sydney, Australia. I grew up in New Zealand with Greece in my heart – two exquisitely beautiful and diverse influences. My endless curiosity centres around reading, writing, asking questions, and the arts - and my two sparkling children. As a 5 year old, I was known for dancing on the table at montessori and throwing handfuls of loose buttons into the air - that urge lives on inside of me.

- What is your role in the team?
I’m a member of the Board and I provide support with quality and rigour, and work more intensively on research papers. In other words, I do a lot of reading, writing, and asking questions (see my interests above). I also have a hand in designing processes and systems to support the Journal’s development over time, and to help bring its goals to life.

- You are co-author with Johannes on the article “The Case of the Charmer: Shape-shifting Seduction, Lethal Splitting, and a Salvaged Treatment Using Conversational Intimacy”, what was your specific contribution?
Writing this paper with Johannes reinforced for me the power of qualitative research methods as the meeting place between human heart and rigorous science. The paper walks through the therapy approach in one of Johannes’ cases. Part of my contribution was the crafting of the container that (hopefully) allows the practice wisdom to shine, and the container to become invisible. And that is all that qualitative research is meant to do. Writing in this way takes a lot of time, a lot of wrestling with the text, a lot of death and re-birth of sentence after sentence. But it is one of the most rewarding ways that I grow as a therapist and a human. And, I believe that every single therapist has clinical wisdom worth sharing in this manner.

20/03/2024

Can you relate to the description of ISTDP Attachment Disorder?

“An excessive attachment and reliance on the idea that you have to facilitate unlockings of the unconscious with every patient every session, where the technique eclipses the actual and genuine emotional contact and engagement with the patient (J. Kieding, personal communication, February 7, 2023)".

You will be able to read more in Chris D. Gioielli's article "Curing my ISTDP Attachment Disorder" in #1 issue.

17/03/2024

Perhaps a topic that will receive more ink and one day be published in the Journal of Contemporary ISTDP.

Our Lead Editor waxing on Hyper-Rationalism, Irrationality, and Defensive relating to Anger:

A few minutes from an OrdinaryTherapySlog group meeting

15/03/2024

GET TO KNOW THE TEAM - TAMÁS KATA

- Tell me about yourself!
I am a licensed psychologist and psychotherapy student based in Hungary, where I work in a private practice. Additionally, I am deeply involved in organizing activities of ISTDP Hungary and conducting assertiveness and emotion management training. Before embarking on this path, my professional journey took me around the world as a viola player and saw me working for 15 years as a marketing manager in the automotive industry. It was a profound personal experience with dynamic psychotherapy that ultimately led me to shift my career focus.

- What is your role in the team?
Initially, my primary responsibilities revolved around design and marketing (see the logo or the FB cover picture), where I collaborated closely with designers, creators, and website builders. With the growth of our subscription base and an expanded budget, we were able to engage a professional design agency, prompting a shift in my role. Currently, I am actively involved in organizational decision-making and contribute to shaping our larger strategic initiatives.

- Were you the creator of the front page with Davanloo?
Yes, I took the lead in creating the front page, which involved incorporating a Davanloo-like figure into the cover photo. Initially, we considered experimenting with AI-generated images exclusively for the Journal's visuals. However, as our design strategy evolved, this experimentation with AI imagery served as a valuable learning experience.

11/03/2024

"As the therapy process gets stuck, the therapist is confronted with the difficult question of how to proceed with therapy when the patient is not willing to do the task – should the task change, or is therapy no longer possible?"

Read about A Case of Syntonic Character Resistance in "Narrowing down the therapeutic task" by Jonathan Entis and Thomas Hesslow in #1 issue.

07/03/2024

Do you feel the UTA mental state as described by Katarina Kiiskinen?

”I experience the UTA mental state first and foremost, as a growing sense of a shift in my state of mind. The feeling is one of falling into a flow state (see e.g., Csikszentmihalyi et al., 2014, pp 230-231), immersed in the patient’s world. When it rises, the experience often includes a sense of being taken over by a wave of alertness and focus. This wave brings astute attention to the patient and can be accompanied by empathic reactions to the material. Personally, the most tell-tale sign is the visual effect: There is a softening of the gaze that makes the vision blurry… The mental state is similar to when reading a good book when the outside world disappears”.

Read the full article ”The therapist’s Experience of the Rising Unconscious Therapeutic Alliance in the Patient: The UTA Mental State” in #1 issue of the journal.

04/03/2024

Who are we behind the journal?
GET TO KNOW THE TEAM - JOHANNES KIEDING

Tell me about yourself!
I am a psychotherapist in Tucson, Arizona. I am in private practice where I maintain a caseload while also teaching and supervising. I grew up in Sweden but I have spent most of my life in the United States. I recently became a father, which is blissful but exhausting. I like to play tennis, watch psychological and political thrillers, and to spend time with my fiancé and son. I cannot abide raisins nor the reality TV shows where people get voted off the island. Hell for me would be having to watch those shows while being force-fed raisins.

- What is your role in the team?
I am a Board member and Lead Editor. I have a hand in communicating with authors, overseeing the review and editing process, and taking charge of ground-level matters related to organization and decision-making. I also work closely with the other Board members on bigger-picture decisions and the journal's direction.

- You are the author of one of the articles for the first issue, what is it about?
Aspasia Karageorge and I wrote up a case study using qualitative methods. The title is: “The Case of the Charmer: Shape-shifting Seduction, Lethal Splitting, and a Salvaged Treatment Using Conversational Intimacy.” This is about a course of treatment that was derailing, eventually salvaged through something I call conversational intimacy, an adaptation of the graded approach that draws from Rogerian principles. I think it’s an interesting paper that will hopefully inspire some reflections!

21/02/2024

In the first issue, we will talk with two well-known ISTDP clinicians about their experiences working with Psychedelic-assisted ISTDP.

21/02/2024

The first issue of the journal is coming out this spring. For the second issue, the fall one, we're currently on the lookout for CASE REPORTS, CASE STUDIES or other angles on texts that use quite a lot of TRANSCRIPT. Reach out to us if you have an interesting case that you think might be interesting to write up, and we can provide some writing assistance.

(Image: snapshot from "Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Chemical Dependency: part two" by David M. Davis, published in International Journal of Short-Term Psychotherapy, Vol. 4, 169-187 (1989))

21/02/2024

Subscriptions are available now at our website: https://www.istdpjournal.com/buy-subscribe/

First issue out this spring!