News

When we decided to dedicate this edition of the Members Newsletter to attachment, it was clear to us that we wanted an exclusive interview with Dr. Diana Diamond. Although several other TFP authors have published remarkable papers on attachment and TFP, Dr. Diamond was more accessible to us—mainly because Veronica had already received supervision from her. Knowing how busy she is (as we all are), we sent the invitation and hoped for the best. To our delight, she replied very quickly, and we managed to set up a Zoom meeting for the interview.

On the scheduled date, Dr. Diamond joined us on Zoom and told us that we were meeting at the end of a long day—she had already been interviewed by Dr. David Puder for is Psychiatry & Psychotherapy podcast and had also attended a research meeting where she received very promising new results from a study on attachment and TFP. We almost felt guilty asking her to satisfy our enthusiastic curiosity about TFP research on attachment after such a demanding day.

She eased our worries almost instantly with her warm and engaging attitude. Even before we asked our first question, we already had a sense of what a secure attachment feels like. Later, as we reflected on the experience, we both agreed that Dr. Diamond truly embodied her passion: offering us attention, concern, and knowledge deeply relevant to our questions.

A Secure Base… A Safe Haven

The emphasis in this newsletter on attachment comes at a very important time. We are experiencing a lot of stress, uncertainty, fear, and anxiety in many places in the world today. We may have collectively lived through a period of relative calm in the latter half of the 20th century (of course there are great exceptions for that.) A sense of anxiety and concern seems to be growing throughout our societies.

Dear members of the ISTFP,

On October 24 and 25, the Teachers and Supervisors Conference was held in Amsterdam. During this event, we honored the memory of Dr. Gerhard Dammann, who passed away in 2020. His remembrance set the tone for an intimate and communal experience that highlighted the human richness of our Society.

Veronica and I felt it was important for the broader membership, not only certified teachers and supervisors, to be informed about the content of the various presentations. We wanted everyone to have a sense of how both the ISTFP and TFP are evolving, and to convey the sense of connection and shared purpose that was felt throughout the event.

This is why we decided to share our reflections on the conference from our own personal perspective so that, in reading them, you might also feel as if you were there with us.

Attachment theory provides a fundamental conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between early interpersonal experiences, mental representations of the self and others, and the neurobiological correlates of psychopathology throughout the development of personality and its disorders. In adulthood, the study of attachment allows for the exploration of how internalized representations of early relationships influence affect regulation, defensive mechanisms, and interpersonal functioning.

This article will summarize recent attachment research, inviting members to reflect on how TFP and attachment perspectives on internal representations of self and others can overlap, differ, and mutually enrich one another.

In the fascinating world of psychotherapy, we are delighted to introduce Alejandra Díaz Arabia, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist originally from Caracas, Venezuela, now living and practicing in Lima, Peru. Alejandra’s story is remarkable not only because of her professional dedication but also because of the journey she undertook as a migrant, bringing her personal experiences and cultural insight into her therapeutic work.

To our esteemed colleagues of the ISTFP,

It is a distinct pleasure to share some reflections on a topic that lies at the very heart of our joint endeavour: the intricate nature of mature love and the formidable challenges to its development. In our field, few figures illuminate these complexities with the rigor and profundity of Dr. Otto Kernberg. This paper stems out of an informal conversation we had with him in which he offered a psychoanalytic lens that cuts through simplistic notions to reveal love as a dynamic, often challenging, integration of various facets—including those we might prefer to keep tucked away.

Trying to practice what we preach.

I would like to start by congratulating the ISTFP Public Relations Committee on the exceptional work they have done in putting this Newsletter together. Their work shows a lot of love, and the organization is very fortunate in having this dedicated and creative group.

Dear members,

While reflecting on this edition of our members’ newsletter, I was struck by the challenge of applying the theme of intimate love and sexuality to our professional society. As authors began sending in their contributions, I noted that Kernberg’s perspective on mature love involves the development of a capacity for love that includes—but also goes beyond—intimate relationships.

In Chapter 9 of his book Hatred, Emptiness, and Hope, he outlines the key aspects of loving relationships. As I read his description of the characteristics of “being in love,” it became clear that many of these qualities could also describe what unites the members of the ISTFP. This particular passage stood out to me as especially relevant:

One characteristic of being in love is showing interest in the personality of the loved one—an ongoing interest in understanding what one’s partner is feeling, interested in.

Otto Kernberg

At the ISTFP Public Relations and Communications Committee, we’re genuinely interested in our fellow members. We value the opportunity to learn about your interests, efforts, challenges, and accomplishments. In fact, we like to think that the countless hours of voluntary work we dedicate to our community are, in themselves, a true act of love.

Aligned with the ISTFP’s mission to disseminate TFP, our committee has always embraced a deeper purpose: to strengthen the unity of our community and foster collective growth.

Let us share with you the many ways we express our love for the ISTFP community.

The Special Interest Group (SIG) on TFP group therapy (TFP-G) was formed in 2020, co-chaired by Maria Jesus Rufat and Jonathan Radcliffe. Jonathan runs a TFP programme in London, and Maria Jesus has run TFP groups in Barcelona for many years. Dr Kernberg has been supervising therapists in Barcelona using TFP-G with adolescents and adults, following his talk on group therapy at the annual conference of Group TLP Barcelona – Institut TFP Barcelona in 2013.

On June 11, 2022, The Washington Post published the story of a Google engineer who claimed that LaMBDA, the company’s proprietary artificial intelligence—or, more precisely, its “conversational large language model”—had shown signs of “sentience.” Blake Lemoine, who was then working for Google’s Responsible AI organization, engaged in daily conversations (you can read one of those conversations here) with the chatbot, which eventually led him to believe he was talking to a self-conscious being.

In January 2025, Stanford University published a blog post announcing that they had successfully simulated the personalities of 1,052 individuals using their AI. After a two-hour interview with the AI, each simulated personality completed both the General Social Survey and the 44-item Big Five Inventory alongside its corresponding human counterpart. The simulated personalities matched their real counterparts’ answers 88% of the time on the General Social Survey and 80% of the time on the Big Five Inventory.

In 2017, clinical research psychologist Dr. Alison Darcy founded Woebot Health, a company dedicated to developing mental health chatbots to support psychological well-being. On the user page of their website, they claim to provide “actionable advice” and teach “proven ways to better cope in the future.” They state that their AI can help “boost confidence,” “gain clarity,” “change thought patterns,” and “understand your emotions”—all for a minimal fee to maximize accessibility.

Our awareness of these developments in AI, combined with Silvia’s commentary, has convinced us that we must provide ISTFP members with an overview of how this technological advancement could profoundly change our practice and daily lives. Furthermore, since its development raises many questions about sentience, artificial personality, and computer-driven psychotherapy, we will explore whether Kernberg’s object relations theory can help answer some of them.

Are AI systems sentient, conscious entities with personalities? Will they one day replace TFP therapists?

We are a community of experts on personality—let’s assess whether, referring to the debate spawned by Descartes, there is a “ghost in the machine.”

Dear Colleagues,

Life is always a challenge and the level of stress in the world seems to be making life increasingly challenging these days. There are different ways to address the stress. Having a sense of meaning and purpose, and looking to each other for community and support, even if we don’t have “the answers”, can be very helpful. For me, the ISTFP is helpful in both these areas.

Dramatic developments in artificial intelligence are fueling a looming anxiety for some. Sam Altman’s 2023 prediction of a “one-person billion-dollar company,” while leaving me skeptical and perplexed, understandably made others anxious. I initially hesitated to address this topic in the newsletter, primarily because I felt there was little cause for genuine alarm. My perspective, as you will see, is undeniably techno-optimistic.

Indeed, AI is developing rapidly, exhibiting emergent properties that generate outputs analogous to human intelligence. This progress renews the fear that automation will replace humans. Furthermore, Altman’s prediction seems to be unfolding as a new breed of highly efficient companies emerges.

The video initiative was initiated by Luis Valenciano as head of the training committee to promote the use of video material in teaching and learning.

The group is headed by Mathias Lohmer and includes Nel Draijer, Mathieu Norton-Poulin, Irene Sarno, Vero Steiner, and Frank Yeomans.

Videos are not only an essential learning tool for our supervision but also provide – next to role play – an excellent potential for illustrating the essence of our work to groups in lectures and seminars.

Veronica – Michal, thank you so much for accepting to do this interview. I am sure all members will be interested in your unique experience. Could you introduce yourself to them?

My name is Michal Novák. I live in Prague, and I am a psychologist, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and since 2022, also a certified TFP therapist. In the institute where I am now involved in the theoretical training of candidates as a training lecturer, I was originally trained in group psychoanalytic psychotherapy. But over time, I expanded my education to include couple and family psychotherapy, and especially individual psychotherapy, which is what I primarily provide in my private practice since 2008. Before that, I spent about three years in a psychiatric hospital, mostly working on a structured treatment ward for women with addictions.

Veronica – So you have practiced in very diverse psychotherapeutic settings. How did you get specifically interested in Transference Focused Psychotherapy?

I first encountered TFP long ago through what has become the legendary Symfora tapes of Otto Kernberg, in which he treats “Alfred Koops”, a man struggling with alcohol issues and aggression. Then, in 2015, at a seminar hosted by my home society for psychoanalytic psychotherapy, I discovered I wasn’t the only one who appreciated this straightforward style of work. It was also at this seminar that I met Petr Klimpl, a key and senior member of our society without whose support the Prague TFP group might never have emerged and who has continually nurtured its development from the beginning.

Veronica – You discovered a hidden community of colleagues with similar interest. How did you manage to get the training you where seeking?

With support of our society, we began organizing two weekend courses dedicated to TFP over the following two years, introducing the TFP method in our region, where it was practically unknown at the time. Both weekends were taught by Eduarda Vendys Bakalar, who, despite practicing in the Netherlands, fortunately remains open to her Czech roots. This initiative culminated in 2018 with the start of a comprehensive two-year TFP therapy training program, preparing candidates for TFP therapist certification. Eduarda Vendys Bakalar was joined throughout by George Brownstone and Sergio Dazzi. For completeness, I should add that a third TFP weekend took place in 2023, led by Nel Draijer and Sergio Dazzi.

Veronica – Where you aware of all the ramifications of you initiatives?

Looking back, I really appreciate having been involved in all these pioneering efforts. I get the feeling that none of us realized at the time the significance of what we were participating in. Where am I going with this? Well, at least from my own experience, training in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic modalities often does not dedicate enough space to the techniques of treating personality disorders, so candidates later lack effective technical tools when interacting with this ever-growing spectrum of clientele. As a result, more or less explicit recommendations from senior colleagues suggest avoiding this group of patients. It’s therefore not surprising that cognitive-behavioral therapy dominates the treatment of personality disorders in the Czech Republic. TFP, then, is an opportunity to strengthen and encourage the Czech psychodynamic and psychoanalytic educated public and to put effective tools in their hands.

Veronica – In way, you are saying that TFP techniques have given you and colleagues ways to be more efficient and raise the overall credibility of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic treatment. How did it affect your personal way of treating patients?

Although I work in a private practice outside the public insurance system—thus preselecting the group of patients that come to me—I benefit from the TFP approach basically all the time. While I don’t begin work with every patient strictly in TFP mode, there are moments when my mind securely wanders toward thoughts about activated object relations. This is also a source of greater comfort and a sense of assurance that, thanks to being more educated about working with transference/countertransference, I can better understand what’s going on inside the patient. For more severe patients, I can more effectively handle their crises, whether in their real life or directly between us in the session; for “milder” patients, or rather those who function better in reality, TFP offers another perspective on capturing more subtle phenomena in the session—such as feeling bored in the countertransference or sensing an emptiness in the patient’s narrative and in the therapy as a whole.

For me, TFP makes psychoanalysis less grandiose and more accessible to a broader range of patients. It places less emphasis on delivering a “miraculous” interpretation to a carefully selected patient, and instead teaches me how to pay attention and make use of seemingly trivial details in the “here and now” interactions between me and the patient. The focus and close reliance on the “empirical data” of our shared experiences also strikes me as useful for staying with the patient’s emotions and avoiding intellectualizations. Although probably we all love to give interpretations, I now have a better grasp of how the interpretive process is timed, as a gradual build-up following a series of preceding interventions.

I personally find the Kleinian (and TFP) view of human functioning as an eternal struggle between love and hate very close to my heart in that it “plays no games”, does not side with any aspect of the person, is not “politically correct” and is free from ideology. Last but not least, what I find very refreshing about TFP as a method derived from psychoanalysis is the balancing act between exploring the inner life of the patient and at the same time his functioning in reality, which for some more orthodox psychoanalytic approaches could be perceived as an unjustified acting-out of the therapist.

Veronica – It is very stimulating to see you give very specific exemples on how TFP enriched your vision and practice of psychotherapy. Did it have enough impact on your colleagues to motivate the creation of a group and implement other training initiatives?

Earlier, I talked about the first ever run of the comprehensive TFP program between 2018 – 2020. This run produced a total of 3 certified therapists in TFP. A large number of participants from that first run, whether they are before or after their basic certification, continue in TFP supervision. In other words, two supervision groups are currently active: the first consists mainly of candidates preparing for TFP therapist certification, while the second, smaller group is made up of already-certified TFP therapists who aspire, in the future, to achieve the next level of TFP certification. Although we work in different parts of the country, we do our best to stay in contact beyond supervision and keep up with each other’s activities. We are also planning intervision events for both groups.

Last year (2024) a second run of the same ongoing TFP program was opened, for which Eduarda Vendys Bakalar invited Paul Wijts and Luis Valenciano to join her. Some of us certified therapists from the first run of the training are involved in some parts of this training has organizers and as lecturers.

Our TFP group’s activities (we currently have the status of a Working Group under the Czech Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy) include running this second round of training and, in particular, raising awareness of the TFP method among both professionals and the general public in the Czech Republic. I would like to emphasise the significant contribution of my colleague Renata Herentinova – also a certified TFP therapist – who plays an important role in the coordination and conceptual thinking of Czech TFP.

Veronica – Your involvement in the endeavour is impressive. Are there any other projects you would like to tackle?

In addition to spreading awareness about the method, my goal and great wish is to publish a Czech translation of the book Psychodynamic Therapy for Personality Pathology by Eve Caligor. What I like about the book is the comprehensiveness and depth, the many practical illustrations, and the introduction of the TFP approach not just as a method for more difficult cases. In my opinion, this is material that could serve as several manuals together. The publication of such a book in the Czech language would certainly not only better position TFP in the Czech Republic, but could also make the method much more accessible and familiar to a larger number of interested people. Unfortunately, I repeatedly run into the objective reality of a relatively small book market in the Czech Republic (and Slovakia), and publishers’ reluctance to take on the business risk they see in publishing a book of this length. But since I’ve already started working on this project, I certainly won’t give up yet.

Michal’s deep commitment to his practice and dedication in training the next generation of TFP therapists underscore a significant shift towards addressing the specific needs of patients with complex personality disorders. His efforts to bring TFP to the forefront in the Czech Republic, through intensive training programs and public awareness, aim to equip therapists with the necessary tools to enhance their therapeutic practices effectively. His aspiration to publish a Czech translation of “Psychodynamic Therapy for Personality Pathology” by Eve Caligor further exemplify his motivation to enriching his local psychotherapeutic landscape. In that aspect, his actions are not mere professional endeavour but a passionate pursuit to cultivate a robust therapeutic community that embraces complexity with competence and compassion.

Veronica Steiner

Dear Colleagues,

Life can be difficult. In fact, it is often difficult. To be honest, as we begin this new year, I’ve had my moments of discouragement – some demoralization, some doubt, along with other feelings. What helps me through is always the same thing. As we know from research, but even more from experience, relationships make all the difference. They give us meaning and support. Starting with the family is essential – that grounds and supports us. We receive. We give. Of course, family relations can be problematic. That’s why one of our main goals with our patients is to try to help them resolve the obstacles to deep relationships.

In 2024, we began the year with a review of our society’s overall health. You can read the report in this article. This year, the Public Relations and Communications Committee has decided to make monitoring the well-being of our society an annual tradition. In doing so, we hope to inspire all members to actively support the growth and sustainability of our community.

Like we have expressed many times before in different formats, we treat the ISTFP as a living entity that can prosper or dwindle over time. Again this year we will explore the picture given by the data from 10 arbitrarily determined health markers. It will help us answer three essential question:

Where do we thrive?

Where do we struggle?

How can we nurture our community?