News

Each article is available in two versions: one written by a human author and one generated entirely by AI. Click on the version you want to read and experience how far AI-generated writing has evolved.

A year ago, Veronica and I published an article asking whether we should fear artificial intelligence from different perspectives: what is the nature of what is commonly called AI, could it develop sentience and personality, and could it replace psychotherapy or psychotherapists? In the same issue of the Newsletter, Silvia also wrote, in this article, about how AI represented a paradigm-shifting event while underlining its lack of agency.

Using Kernberg’s theory of personality, we argued that AI does not have the necessary elements to develop consciousness or personality, but only a superficial simulation. Concerning psychotherapy, our final conclusion was that, while some data suggest that AI can achieve excellent adherence to cognitive-behavioral models of psychotherapy, it does not have the necessary elements to offer an efficient alternative to psychodynamic treatments like Transference-Focused Psychotherapy. TFP relies heavily on many elements of the therapist’s personality, notably the capacity to activate affective states in reaction to the patient’s affective activation, observe behavioral patterns (both in patient and therapist), and develop organized cognitive object representations of these affective, behavioral, and fantasy-symbolic phenomena into relational dyads.

Last October, during the TFP supervisor conference in Amsterdam, a fellow member, Michal Novák, took me aside during the conference dinner to express his conviction that, for a certain population of users, AI could function as a sufficient relational object – one whose responsiveness allows it to receive projections and to be experienced as relationship. It was interesting to hear a perspective different from our own. Since it was neither the place nor the time to engage in a lengthy discussion about the matter, we regretfully did not deepen the discussion. Nevertheless, his perspective left me wondering.

The next time I heard from him was when he emailed me to say that he had written an article for the website of the American Psychoanalytic Association in response to what we had written.

That was the main trigger for this Newsletter entirely dedicated to AI. We thought it would set the context for a very interesting discussion that could benefit our whole community.

Our Newsletter editors and writers have once again provided us with a rich set of texts. In addition, there is a podcast produced by the Carlat Group in which I discuss TFP. You will all be familiar with the information in the podcast but we include it because it might be of interest to non-TFP colleagues who would like to know more about what we do.

Imagine this: after a difficult session, you want to consult your clinical formulation with an AI. You paste a fragment of your session notes into a chat window. Within seconds, you receive a thoughtful, well-structured response that helps you see the material from a new angle. But here is the question that should come first: what just happened to your patient’s data?

Artificial intelligence is already influencing psychotherapeutic practice in ways that would have seemed improbable just a few years ago. Some clinicians use it to draft case formulations. Others experiment with it as a thinking partner before supervision. Amy Levy, in a presentation for the APSA Council on AI, described presenting a twenty-year-old nightmare to ChatGPT – a dream about carrots marching in single line into a slaughterhouse. The AI’s response was striking: it asked analytically guided questions that encouraged linking the dream to waking life, invited personal associations, and worked to contain the raw experience of the dream. As Levy observed, the AI offered “transformation out of the discomfort and disorganization of human experiencing” within seconds (APSA Council on AI, 2024). Whether or not we find this reassuring, it demonstrates a capacity that is difficult to dismiss.

This article offers a practical orientation for TFP clinicians who want to understand what current AI tools can do across clinical work, research, writing, and publication – and what using them means for the privacy of our patients’ data. It is not a product guide. Specific platforms and their features change too quickly for any printed recommendation to remain valid for long. Instead, the aim is to provide a framework that helps clinicians evaluate any AI tool, present or future, on their own terms.

Each article is available in two versions: one written by a human author and one generated entirely by AI. Click on the version you want to read and experience how far AI-generated writing has evolved.

Fear of artificial intelligence is spreading and being spread (as a marketing strategy) at an unprecedented speed, almost as fast as the speed at which AI is permeating our daily life. Among other topics, ethicists and AI policymakers talk about universal income, anticipating economic and social disruptions at a global level. In this context, it felt only logical that the topic of this newsletter continues to be the role of AI in our profession as therapists. Data on the use of artificial therapy for humans is slowly trickling in, painting a picture of decent efficacy for the management of clear symptoms of a moderate degree of severity, with manualized interventions (see this excellent Gemini Deep Research review on the current literature below). AI offers a cost-effective, comfortable, and always accessible support, with the additional benefit of avoiding shame and discomfort in the transference (I do not need to highlight how problematic this is, rather than helpful, to this audience).

However, when asked to write this article, the assumption was that I would write about insight-oriented psychotherapy. Given that means expressing opinions, opinions that will inevitably make me look either shortsighted, defensive, or paranoid in 24 months, I did the best I could to avoid writing this piece. I had it written by Claude; the committee told me it felt as if “there was nobody home”. I gave it a comedic turn, which also went nowhere. Encouraged by Michal Novak’s APsA piece, in which he gives voice to the risks associated with anthropomorphism, I decided to attempt to express my preliminary ideas. I want to make clear that my stand is not that of an AI enthusiast. I very much worry about the use of this technology and our own mental health; for one thing, I find it to be inducing manic mood elevations (without entering into well-known cases of horrible outcomes). I worry about the effect it has on our attention. And of course, there are many other worries at a society level that do not escape me. I look at these tools with suspicion, but I do not ignore them because I consider myself a realist. I try to think about life the way I think about my scientific experiments, which means that until something is proven, everything could be.

As the International Society for Transference-Focused Psychotherapy convenes for its 9th Biennial Conference in Vienna (June 4–6, 2026), the Society stands at a particularly generative moment in its institutional development. Far from being a static scientific organization, the ISTFP has, between 2024 and 2026, mobilized its committee structure as a coordinated engine of growth—advancing research, standardizing training, expanding clinical applications, and strengthening its ethical and public presence.

What emerges from a synthesis of all committee initiatives is a coherent, multi-layered strategy: consolidating TFP as an evidence-based treatment while simultaneously expanding its reach across populations, settings, and cultures.

Each time we plan a Members Newsletter, we take time to reflect on which topics would be most useful for disseminating the model and bringing our community closer together. Since the beginning of the year is a natural moment for reflection on our foundations, we traditionally conduct an assessment of the health of our Society at this time.

This year, we wanted to go further, so we decided to fully embrace this reflective movement at the beginning of 2026. For this reason, we chose to complement our annual assessment with an extensive article on the empirical foundations of TFP. After that, we decided to get a description of some of the new directions into which TFP is expanding and chose to conduct an interview with Dr. Eve Caligor, the main author of the TFP-E manual.

When Veronica and I think about reaching out to our most active members, we are never sure it will work, as they are often so busy that even answering emails can be time-consuming. Every second counts. For this reason, we were very enthusiastic when Eve agreed to do an interview. We were also touched by her openness, as she is a gentle giant in TFP.

Not only is she part of the ISTFP Executive and a member of many committees, but she is also one of our most prolific authors. Despite her central role in the development of TFP, we were surprised to find that, apart from the interview Eve made for the launch of the Handbook of Dynamic Psychotherapy for Higher Level Personality Pathology, there are very few videos of her available online. This is why we were especially delighted when she told us that we could conduct an interview and record the session.

So, dear ISTFP members, come sit with us and enjoy this unique moment with Dr. Eve Caligor. Read on, or follow the link to watch the full interview.

Dear Colleagues,

As events in the world and my own experience in life (which overlap, of course) can be intense and challenging, I appreciate more the breadth of our organization, both in terms of its membership and its range of interests and perspectives.

As 2026 begins, it is time for our traditional assessment of our Society’s health. The reviews conducted in 2024 and 2025 highlighted encouraging signs of growth across many areas, while also underlining several challenges. Let us now see how these indicators evolved during 2025.

As you know, we at the Public Relations and Communications Committee feel a deep love for our community. Each year, we hope to ensure that every one of you feels considered and that outsiders feel welcome. Once again this year, we will use ten health markers to illustrate our strengths and vulnerabilities, so that their continued monitoring becomes a shared concern.

Do all members feel included and engages?

Are we attracting new members?

Are we fulfilling our mission?

Dear members, at the advent of 2026, we are launching a new tradition: an annual review of the current landscape of research on TFP. Our goal is to equip all members—therapists and teachers/supervisors alike—with the tools needed to act as informed advocates for the model by providing clear and accessible information about its empirical foundations.

Please note that this review is not intended to be exhaustive. It is designed to be updated annually, incorporating both new and previously published studies that we will gather over time. Given time constraints, this first iteration was necessarily incomplete. We see this not as a limitation, but as a strength, as we hope it will encourage researchers within our community to reach out so that their work can be featured in future editions.

To represent the full scope of the empirical base of TFP, we chose to follow the approach suggested by Kenneth N. Levy, Kevin B. Meehan, and Frank E. Yeomans (2012), considering multiple levels of scientific evidence, including clinical case studies, case series, pre–post designs, and randomized controlled trials. While this represents an ideal standard, we acknowledge that the present review does not yet fully meet it. Nevertheless, it serves as a guiding framework that will continue to shape future editions.

Dear members, my name is Marike Steeman, Chair of the recently established Arts Committee. In this article I will update you on our activities since our foundation.

As previously announced, during the October 2023 conference, a group was formed with colleagues interested in psychoanalysis and art/culture in the broadest sense, namely film, visual arts, architecture, literature, music, and mythology. This special interest group became the TFP and Art/Culture Committee. Its mission was to do research on art from an object-relational perspective and explore how various artistic expressions can be used in our TFP education.

Speaking with Emanuel Montalvo Ramírez is encountering a reflective, calm voice, deeply committed to clinical work understood as a human encounter. A Puerto Rican clinical psychologist, community-based therapist, university professor, and supervisor of doctoral students, Emanuel is part of a generation of clinicians who has found in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) not just a technical model, but a way to understand people and their histories from a broader, more complex, and profoundly respectful perspective.

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.