What is Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP)?
Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) is a specialist form of psychotherapy developed by psychiatrist Dr Habib Davanloo. Although it belongs to the psychodynamic tradition, it differs from many traditional psychodynamic approaches by taking a more active, collaborative and experiential approach to creating psychological change.
At the heart of ISTDP is the understanding that emotions are central to psychological wellbeing.
When emotions become consistently blocked, avoided or disrupted by anxiety, we naturally develop ways of protecting ourselves from them. While these patterns often begin as helpful ways of coping, they can continue long after they are needed and become the very processes that maintain anxiety, depression, self-criticism, relationship difficulties and many other forms of psychological distress.
Rather than simply helping people understand these processes, ISTDP works directly with them, creating opportunities for meaningful and lasting psychological change.
How does ISTDP work?
One of the defining features of ISTDP is its focus on what is happening in the present moment.
Rather than only exploring experiences from the past or discussing what has happened between sessions, ISTDP pays close attention to what is happening as we are working together.
We look at how emotions are being experienced, how anxiety is affecting you, and how automatic patterns of responding may be pulling you away from thoughts, feelings or experiences that are emotionally important.
The reason for this is that the same emotional and psychological processes that create difficulties in everyday life also emerge within the therapy session. By recognising these patterns as they happen, we are no longer relying on memory or reflection alone, we are working directly with the processes that maintain the difficulties.
This allows therapy to become more than a conversation about change. It becomes an opportunity to work directly with the emotional, anxiety and defensive processes that have kept difficulties in place, creating the conditions for genuine and lasting psychological change.
What is an ISTDP session like?
Many people describe ISTDP as feeling quite different from previous experiences of therapy because much of the work takes place within the therapy session itself.
Rather than only talking about difficulties that have happened outside of therapy, we pay close attention to what is happening as we work together. This allows us to identify, in real time, the emotional, anxiety and defensive processes that may be maintaining your difficulties.
As these processes emerge, we don't simply observe them, we work with them. By carefully monitoring what is happening moment by moment, therapy becomes an opportunity not only to understand the patterns that have developed, but to begin changing them within the session itself.
This often allows for a deeper understanding of your difficulties while also creating opportunities for meaningful psychological change much earlier in therapy than might be possible through discussion and reflection alone.
Throughout this process, my role is to remain actively engaged, helping us work at a pace that is both emotionally manageable and therapeutically productive.
The aim is not simply to understand what is happening, but to work at a level where meaningful psychological change can begin to take place during the session itself.
Who is ISTDP for?
ISTDP is used to help people experiencing a wide range of psychological difficulties, including anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, persistent self-criticism, emotional disconnection and long-standing emotional patterns that continue to affect everyday life.
It can benefit anyone seeking psychotherapy, but it is often particularly helpful for people who are looking for more than support alone and want a therapy aimed at creating lasting psychological change.
It may also appeal to people who have had therapy before and gained valuable insight into their difficulties, but still find themselves repeating the same patterns or continuing to struggle in the same ways.
Every person is different, and part of our initial meetings is deciding together whether ISTDP is likely to be the right approach for you.
Why do I use ISTDP?
Before specialising in ISTDP, I trained and worked in both CBT and psychodynamic psychotherapy. Both continue to influence my thinking and have helped shape the therapist I am today.
I chose to specialise in ISTDP because it offered a way of working that matched how I believe meaningful psychological change occurs. Rather than stopping at helping people understand themselves, it provides a structured and evidence-based way of working directly with the emotional and psychological processes that maintain distress.
For me, one of the greatest strengths of ISTDP is that it combines a deep understanding of emotional life with an active focus on helping people create meaningful and lasting psychological change.
If you would like to discuss whether ISTDP might be the right approach for you, please feel free to get in touch. I offer sessions in person from my practice in Nottingham and online across the UK and Europe.