In this newsletter issue we chose to focus on innovative aspects of supervision in TFP. To achieve that goal, we will focus on a paper by Drs. Valenciano and Hersh: ‘A Novel Approach to Supervision of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP): Examining the First Three Minutes of the TFP Session,’ that presented us with a particularly intriguing take. Of note, this reading highlighted for us the increasing need for quantitative research on TFP supervision. We would like to invite all of you to share any innovative research or share ongoing projects. Please consider submitting your work to allow us to diffuse it to the community through our ISTFP-PRESS service.
As we all know, TFP consists of highly structured elements surrounding an exploratory core. Throughout a TFP-based treatment, the therapist is encouraged to keep an eye on reality and common sense and logic, while being open to unconscious elements of mental functioning. As such, the TFP therapist is required to learn to walk a fine line between different levels of neutrality. Learning to appropriately choose when, to what extent, and with what new attitude to temporarily abandon neutrality is, perhaps, to the most difficult task to learn.
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Silvia Bernardi
Silvia Bernardi, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. After graduating from medical school in Florence Italy in 2006, Silvia emigrated to the USA to work intensively in neuroscience research, studying the bases of the interaction between emotions and cognition. Silvia completed her residency in Psychiatry at Columbia and has since practiced privately in New York. She trained in Transference Focused Psychotherapy and continues to see patients for medication management and psychotherapy while conducting her research to unlock further knowledge to support the biological underpinnings of TFP and borderline personality disorder.
Glauco Valdivieso
Glauco Valdivieso is a Peruvian psychiatrist and psychotherapist who lives and works in Lima, Peru. He has been a psychiatrist since 2018, graduated from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and trained at the Hospital Nacional Victor Larco Herrera. He has training in Cognitive Psychotherapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Mentalization Based Therapy and Transference Focused Therapy, currently in clinical supervision. He is the co-founder and medical director of the Peruvian Institute for the Study and Comprehensive Approach to Personality (IPEP) and of the TFP PERU therapeutic division. He is the founder of the Personality Disorders Chapter of the Peruvian Psychiatric Association (APP) and head of the mental health unit at the Villa El Salvador Emergency Hospital. He is also co-founder and member of the editorial team of the Latin American Journal of Personality together with the Argentine Institute for the Study of Personality and its Disorders (IAEPD). His clinical interests are the treatment of personality disorders and mood disorders, and he wishes to contribute to research on TFP.