What makes ISTDP an effective approach?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, depression, or difficulties in your relationships, you’re definitely not alone. Many people try to manage these challenges with coping strategies or by talking things through, but sometimes it still feels like you’re stuck, like the same patterns keep repeating no matter what you do.

That’s where ISTDP comes in. It’s a focused, evidence-based therapy designed to help you make real, lasting change, not just managing symptoms, but working through what’s really holding you back. I’ve written more about this difference in this post on symptom management vs resolution — how going deeper can create lasting change, not just temporary relief.

ISTDP doesn’t just rely on talking about your experiences. Instead, it helps you understand what’s happening inside you, right here and now during the sessions, so you can start to feel better in a deeper way.

What is ISTDP?

ISTDP (Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy) is a focused, evidence-based therapy designed to help you break free from the challenges that feel stuck or overwhelming, like anxiety, low mood, or relationship struggles.

Unlike other therapies that focus on talking about your experiences or developing coping mechanisms to manage them, ISTDP works with what’s happening for you in the moment during therapy. This approach helps you gain new insight and shift patterns that may have been holding you back, so you can move forward with more ease and confidence.

How Does ISTDP Work?

As we grow up, we adapt to the emotional environment around us. If certain feelings weren’t welcome, or were met with criticism, rejection, or indifference, we learn to push those feelings down. Over time, the mind develops automatic ways to avoid what once felt unsafe to feel. In ISTDP, these patterns are called defences.

Defences aren’t something we choose. They form outside of conscious awareness, often as a way to protect us. But as life goes on, these very patterns can start to cause suffering. They can keep us stuck in anxiety, low mood, or disconnected relationships. For example, I’ve seen how symptoms like compulsions or intrusive thoughts, often linked with OCD, can ease as the underlying emotional conflicts are resolved.

In ISTDP, the therapist helps you notice these defences as they show up in the moment. The work involves gently becoming aware of how you might be avoiding, minimising, or distancing yourself from what you truly feel, and safely facing what’s been pushed aside.

Sometimes that’s a feeling; like sadness, anger, or fear. But often, it’s also a part of you that’s been closed off: a need that wasn’t allowed, a longing that felt too risky to express, or a more authentic self that had to be hidden to stay safe.

By reconnecting with these parts of yourself, something important begins to change. The defences that once felt necessary start to lose their grip. You no longer need to avoid in the same way, and the symptoms those defences were creating begin to fall away. That’s what makes this work transformational.

Here’s a brief example of how that might look in a session:

Client: I think I feel sad about what happened.

Therapist: You said “I think I feel sad.” Could that be a way of keeping your sadness at a distance?

Client: Yes, I’m used to holding back because I expect my feelings won’t be accepted.

Therapist: Let’s explore that expectation. Where does it come from?

Client: From my dad. He said showing feelings was weakness.

Therapist: What would it be like to feel your sadness now, even with that old message still there?

(The client begins to feel the sadness directly — maybe for the first time.)

This is what ISTDP is about: helping you reconnect with what’s been avoided or shut down, whether that’s an emotion, a need, or a truer version of yourself, so those patterns no longer have to keep running in the background.

Who Can Benefit?

ISTDP can be helpful for people who:

• Struggle with persistent anxiety or panic that doesn’t fully respond to other treatments

• Experience low mood, emotional flatness, or a sense of disconnection from life

• Feel stuck in patterns of people-pleasing, self-criticism, or emotional withdrawal

• Repeat the same relationship dynamics, even when they know they’re unhelpful

• Find themselves overwhelmed by strong emotions or, conversely, feel numb or cut off from their feelings

• Carry unresolved emotional pain or trauma, even if they can’t fully name what happened

• Have insight into their problems but still feel unable to change them

• Want to go beyond coping strategies and create deeper, lasting emotional change

If you’ve had therapy before and found it helpful to a point, but something still feels unresolved, ISTDP may offer a more focused, in-depth way forward.

Contact: benjonespsychotherapist@gmail.com