Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy: A review of the treatment method and empirical basis

Based on over forty years of videotaped case-based research, Habib Davanloo of McGill University, Canada, discovered some of the core ingredients that can enable direct and rapid access to the unconscious in resistant³ patients, patients with functional disorders, and patients with fragile character structure. We will describe here some of the main research findings that culminated in his description of a central therapeutic process involved in the intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) model. We will also describe the evolution of the technique over the past thirty years and summarize the empirical base for Davanloo's ISTDP.