Uncategorized

Scientific Poster Session at the 9th ISTFP Conference in Vienna

The scientific poster session at the 9th ISTFP Conference in Vienna showcased the vitality and diversity of current research in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy and personality disorders. We are especially pleased to congratulate Sophie Bella, who received the Scientific Poster Award for her poster, Self- and Other-Directed Aggression and Borderline Personality Traits in Daily Life. Her achievement reflects both the quality of her work and the growing strength of research within the international TFP community.

Dimensional Personality Assessment Using Kernberg’s Structural Model in Psychiatry Residency: A Case Report

Structured Psychotherapies for Alcohol Use Disorder in Adults with Personality Disorders

Brief Applied Transference-Focused Psychotherapy Training For Psychiatry Trainees In Malaysia: Effects On Attitudes And Clinical Confidence Toward Personality Disorders

Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for Severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder from PGY-1 through Residency Training: A Case Study

Conditions for Change in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy: Defensive and Structural Constraints on Therapeutic Transformation

Childhood Maltreatment and Level of Personality Organization: Preliminary Evidence from a Personality Disorder Inpatient Unit

Cross-Sectional Study of Borderline Personality Organization and the Effectiveness Evaluation of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy Program

A Phase-Based Treatment Model for Co-Occurring Substance Use and Personality Disorders within a Transference-Focused Therapy Framework

Therapist decision-making in response to transference An N-of-1 Process-Oriented Proposal

Patient Satisfaction in a Transference-Focused Psychotherapy Group (TFP-G) for Eating Disorders and Personality Disorders

TFP-G for Eating and Personality Disorders: A Clinical-Descriptive Report

” B e t w e e n D e f e n c e a n d H o l d i n g : Flash-Container in the Work of Psychotherapists

Self- and Other-Directed Aggression and Borderline Personality Traits in Daily Life

Clinical Confidence and Psychodynamic Skills in Personality Disorder Questionnaire (CCPPDQ)

Neurobiological Changes Associated with Psychodynamic Treatments in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Systematic Review

Psychoeducational Group Intervention for Caregivers Rubén Gerardo De Los Santos Resendez_600px

Beyond Replacement: Why the Future of Psychotherapy Depends on Human Depth and Artificial Precision

Uncategorized

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.

ChatGPT (Open AI)

Mathieu Norton-Poulin

Veronica Steiner

The recent article by Michal Novák, “Not Therapists, But Therapy: What AI Might Replace,” raises an important and unavoidable question for the future of mental health care: if artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable of conducting therapeutic conversations, what exactly remains uniquely human in psychotherapy?

We agree with Dr. Novák on several essential points. Artificial intelligence will almost certainly become deeply integrated into the mental health field. Many patients already turn to AI systems for emotional support, reflection, companionship, or guidance. The accessibility, permanence, affordability, and responsiveness of these systems make them psychologically compelling. Ignoring this reality would be naïve.

This article contains exclusive content for ISTFP members.

If you already are a member of the ISTFP, login to read the full text. If you are not a current member of the ISTFP and want to enjoy all of our exclusive content such as blog posts and other resources, please click one of the links below and follow the instructions provided. We look forward to welcoming you to our community.

Renew Now or Join the ISTFP

Already a member? Log in here

Efficacy and Safety of Artificial Intelligence-Driven Psychotherapy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analytic Synthesis

Uncategorized

Gemini AI (Google)

Silvia Bernardi

Date of Review: April 26, 2026

Scope: Systematic evaluation of AI-driven conversational agents (CAs), generative AI (GenAI) chatbots, and predictive algorithms in the treatment of affective, obsessive-compulsive, and substance use disorders.

Abstract

Background: The scalability of mental health interventions is currently limited by human resource constraints. AI-driven psychotherapy has been proposed as a high-accessibility alternative.

Objectives: To quantify the efficacy of AI-driven psychotherapy across major clinical domains and evaluate the predictive accuracy of machine learning in treatment response.

Methods: Systematic search of five major databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science) for RCTs and meta-analyses published up to 2026.

Results: AI-driven interventions demonstrate moderate-to-large effects on depressive symptoms (Hedges g=0.61) and moderate effects on anxiety (Cohen’s d=0.62).¹ GenAI systems such as Therabot show clinically significant symptom reductions in MDD (51%) and GAD (31%).

Conclusions: AI-driven psychotherapy is a valid intervention for mild-to-moderate symptoms, particularly when utilizing multimodal data and evidence-based protocols.

This article contains exclusive content for ISTFP members.

Renew Now or Join the ISTFP

Already a member? Log in here

Artificial Intelligence in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy: A Critical Guide for TFP Clinicians

Uncategorized

Claude AI

Michal Novák + Claude AI

The integration of artificial intelligence into psychotherapy is no longer a hypothetical scenario – it is already happening, often without the profession’s explicit consent or awareness. TFP therapists, grounded in a tradition that values the complexity of internal object relations, identity diffusion, and the irreducible subjectivity of the therapeutic dyad, may instinctively recoil from the idea of algorithmic tools entering their domain. That instinct is partially justified – and partially a defensive avoidance of a technology that, when used with clinical sophistication, can meaningfully support the work we do.
This article examines three domains where AI intersects with TFP practice – clinical work, research, and professional writing – and addresses the data privacy implications that every therapist must understand before engaging with these tools.

AI in Clinical Work: What It Can and Cannot Do

Let us be direct about the boundaries. AI cannot conduct psychotherapy. It cannot track the micro-shifts in a patient’s affective state during a session, recognize the emergence of a primitive defensive operation in real time, or make the clinical judgment to confront a devaluing transference in the moment. The relational matrix that TFP depends on – the lived experience of being an object for the patient, tolerating projective identification, and using countertransference as data – is fundamentally inaccessible to any current AI system.

What AI can do is assist with the cognitive and administrative labor that surrounds clinical work.

This article contains exclusive content for ISTFP members.

Renew Now or Join the ISTFP

Already a member? Log in here

Interview with Eve Caligor – January 2026

Uncategorized

This article contains exclusive content for ISTFP members.

Renew Now or Join the ISTFP

Already a member? Log in here

At the beginning of 2026, the ISTFP invites members into a reflective conversation on the foundations, evolution, and future of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy. In this recorded interview, Eve Caligor—a central figure in the development of TFP and lead author of the TFP-E manual—shares her personal path into the model, her experience of the landmark 2006 efficacy study, and her thinking on TFP-E, supervision, training, and applied forms of TFP. This rare and in-depth conversation offers a unique window into the clinical, theoretical, and institutional evolution of TFP—and into the community that continues to carry it forward.

Watch interview with Diana Diamond: TFP and attachement

Uncategorized

Implementing Transference-Focused Psychotherapy Principles (2024)

Uncategorized

Richard G. Hersh, Chiara De Panfilis

This book focuses on the practical utility of key precepts of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) in contemporary psychiatry. This volume actively addresses the pressing public health crisis related to high numbers of patients with personality disorder pathology, often with significantly compromised functioning associated with marked social burdens related to health costs and lost productivity.

TFP is one of the empirically validated treatments for patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Building on this evidence base, the contributors to this volume describe their work in multiple clinical situations utilizing these principles with varying patient populations in different treatment settings. These settings include: the adult and adolescent day hospital, short term and extended inpatient hospitalizations, group therapy, and a range of outpatient services. Each chapter follows a consistent format to cover patient population, nature of treatment setting, overview of financial support, training of clinicians, treatment targets, elements of TFP employed, measurement of effectiveness, case study examples, and future research goals. Contributors from different backgrounds describe active use of TFP principles in their work, with adjustments from standard TFP protocol made accordingly.

Implementing Transference-Focused Psychotherapy Principles builds on the growing literature about TFP by expanding the focus beyond the extended individual psychotherapy format. The text will resonate with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and mental health counselors, among others. Clinicians involved in public health systems will find the material outlined of particular value in our evolving world of mental health services.

Implementing Transference-Focused psychotherapy principles. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-68062-5

BUy Book

This article contains exclusive content for ISTFP members.

Renew Now or Join the ISTFP

Already a member? Log in here

Friends of the ISTFP – Fourth ESSPD Summer School 2025

Uncategorized

Investigating Psychosocial Dysfunction in Personality Disorders

The European Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ESSPD) is proud to announce the fourth ESSPD Summer School for early career researchers, organized in collaboration with the University of Parma, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Section of Psychiatry, with the financial support of the Cariparma Foundation and the Personality Disorders Lab.

Aims

The aim of the summer school is to increase the methodological competencies in conducting high quality research in the domain of psychosocial functioning and recovery in personality disorders (PD) from multiple perspectives. It will be acheived by interactive presentations, group discussions, speed-talk presentations.

Research topics

The research topics will focus on trajectories of psychosocial functioning in PD and associated risk and protective factors; neurobiological correlates of the processes involved in social functioning and social learning; computational approaches to study social functioning; inclusion of the perspective of people with lived experience in research designs on recovery; and treatment strategies to address self and interpersonal functioning.

Date and location

The Summer School will take place on August 31st (arrival day) – September 6th (departure day), 2025 at the Alba del Borgo agriturismo (province of Parma, Italy). This friendly residential context for both teachers and students ensures many spaces and informal occasions to create networks among participants.

Faculty

Katja Bertsch
Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology,
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

Rasa Barkauskiené
Developmental Psychopathology Research Center, Institute of Psychology,
Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania

Chiara De Panfilis
Associate Professor in Psychiatry, Department of Medicine and Surgery,
University of Parma, Parma, Italy

Filip De Fruyt
Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology,
Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Joost Hutsebaut
De Viersprong National Institute for Personality Disorder,
Halsteren, The Netherlands

Paolo Ossola
Associate Professor in Psychiatry, Department of Medicine and Surgery,
University of Parma, Parma, Italy

Luca Sasdelli
ESSPD Lived Experience Group and Bologna Recovery College,
Bologna, Italy

Registration process

Applications must be forwarded by e-mail to [email protected] and received by February 1st, 2025.

All applications must contain a letter of motivation, a curriculum vitae and a 1-page summary of the relevant research project and how it relates to the applicant’s motivation to attend the Summer School (in one PDF file). Applications from early career researchers affiliated with an Eastern European University are encouraged.

All PhD students, MDs, or early post-doctoral fellows affiliated with a European university are welcome to the summer camp.

Fees

[Read more…]

TFP Training events

Uncategorized

We will help you

Dear members, my name is Diana Téllez and I am in charge of communication for the TFP training events. Contact me if you what all our members to know what you are planning.

Diana Téllez

Diana Téllez has worked as a Psychotherapist with a psychodynamic approach since 2005, Obtained a master’s degree in psychotherapy of children, adolescents, and adults in 2009 and a PhD in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy by the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association in 2012.
She’s a Mexican Teacher-Supervisor certified by the ISTFP, has clinical practice in TFP since 2011. She emerged as a founding member of Grupo TFP Mexico, has knowledge in certified mentalization. In addition to experience with attachment theory, she’s certified as a reliable interviewer / evaluator in the adult attachment interview (AAI) accredited by the University of Berkeley and a certified educator/facilitator from Circle of Security, institution based in Washington.
Since 2016 she is responsible for the Psychology Department at a public hospital part of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) in Mexico City.
On the other hand, Diana Téllez, has been part of the Academic Committee of Mexico since 2016, involved in the organization and delivery of multiple training and supervision in TFP, with topics such as TFP Basics, TFP applied to the TNP, training for the application and qualification of the STIPO-R.
Her interest in teaching has led her to lecture at different universities and institutions, such as the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the Monterrey’s Institute of Technology (ITESM) and the National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente (INPRF).
At the same time, she’s been the main point of contact for public relations, social media and promotion of Grupo TFP México, as such she’s been in direct contact with TFP stakeholders from other regions.