Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy

What Is Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy? Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy is a structured, emotionally intensive form of brief psychodynamic therapy that actively works to help clients experience and process feelings that have previously been avoided or defended against, aiming for relatively rapid symptomatic and characterological change. How It Works This approach is based on the …

Supportive-Expressive Psychotherapy

What Is Supportive-Expressive Psychotherapy? Supportive-expressive psychotherapy is a structured, manualized, time-limited psychodynamic therapy that focuses on identifying and understanding a person’s core conflictual relationship theme, a recurring pattern in how they relate to others, balancing supportive techniques with more exploratory, expressive work. How It Works This approach combines supportive elements, such as empathy and encouragement, …

Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)

What Is Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT)? Cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) is a time-limited, integrative psychotherapy, developed primarily in the United Kingdom, that combines cognitive and psychoanalytic (analytic) concepts to help people understand and change unhelpful patterns of thinking, relating, and behaving, often summarized through collaboratively developed diagrams mapping these patterns. How It Works CAT is …

Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT)

What Is Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT)? Mentalization-based treatment (MBT) is a structured psychotherapy developed primarily for borderline personality disorder that focuses on improving “mentalizing,” or the capacity to understand one’s own and others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions, particularly during emotionally intense moments. How It Works MBT is based on the idea that difficulties in mentalizing, often …

Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP)

What Is Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP)? Transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) is a structured, manualized psychodynamic psychotherapy developed primarily for borderline and other personality disorders, which uses the relationship between client and therapist (transference) as a central tool for identifying and working through distorted relational patterns. How It Works TFP is grounded in object relations theory, proposing that …

Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

What Is Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy? Brief psychodynamic psychotherapy is a time-limited adaptation of psychodynamic therapy that maintains a focus on unconscious patterns and past relational influences, while concentrating on a specific, well-defined problem area within a structured, shorter time frame than traditional psychoanalytic approaches. How It Works This approach applies core psychodynamic principles, such as …

Psychoanalytic Therapy

What Is Psychoanalytic Therapy? Psychoanalytic therapy is an intensive, typically longer-term psychotherapy rooted in classical psychoanalytic theory, exploring unconscious mental processes, early childhood development, and recurring relational patterns in depth. It is considered the historical foundation from which broader psychodynamic psychotherapy developed. How It Works Psychoanalytic therapy is based on the premise that unconscious conflicts, …

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

What Is Psychodynamic Psychotherapy? Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a form of talk therapy that explores how unconscious thoughts, feelings, and past experiences, particularly early relationships, influence present-day emotions and behavior patterns. It differs from more structured, present-focused therapies by placing greater emphasis on insight into underlying patterns and the therapeutic relationship itself. How It Works This …