Dear Colleagues,
The ISTFP established the Adolescent Committee to develop a treatment for adolescents with various personality pathologies. Since the DSM diagnostic system officially recognized the diagnosis of BPD in adolescence and considering the unique developmental challenges of this stage (puberty, peer and love relationships, sexuality, aggression, and narcissism), a group of ISTFP members (L. Normandin, K. Ensink, A. Weiner, and Otto F. Kernberg) published the first edition of a TFP-A manual (Normandin et al., 2021). The manual preserves the core techniques and strategies of TFP for adults but includes specific adaptations for working with parents and addressing developmental issues.
I have chaired the TFP-A Committee since its foundation. It was essential for me to structure a working group with representatives from each country interested in pursuing the development of TFP-A. Committee members include Alan Weiner (New York, USA), Karin Ensink (Quebec, Canada), Maya Krischer (Cologne, Germany), Gabrielle Kehr (Berlin, Germany), Teressa Ribalta (Barcelona, Spain), Brenda Tarragona Medina (Barcelona, Spain), Emanueli Preti (Milano, Italy), Irene Sarno (Milano, Italy), , Clarissa Laczkovics (Vienna, Austria), and Marko Biberdzic (Wollongong, Australia), who serves as the assistant chair. I am consistently impressed by their expertise and dedication to adolescent treatment and the ISTFP.
So far, the Committee has been meeting twice a year. It has statute on requirements to become TFP-A therapist as well as trainer-supervisor. It has supported several research efforts such as on PD diagnosis in adolescence, implementation of TFP-A in an inpatient unit in Cologne, and the validation of outcome instruments namely the STIPO-A and the LPOD-q. One or two members of the Committee have been entrusted to join the main ISTFP committees for instance the Training and Supervision Committee, the Research Committee and the Ethics Committee.
Our goals for the coming years include:
- Advancing the development of TFP-A
- Implementing a group approach from Spain
- Incorporating parental involvement strategies from Germany and the USA
- Publishing an edited book on TFP-A
- Expanding the training of TFP-A therapists and supervisors to promote wider dissemination of this new treatment
- Collaborating with multiple sites to gather scientific evidence of its efficacy
- Developing research instruments such as STIPO-A and LPODq
- Aspiring to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) at one of our sites.
Through our combined efforts, we will improve treatment for this group of adolescents, provide specialized training for clinicians and move towards collecting outcome data at our sites.
Yours truly,
Lina Normandin
Lina Normandin, Ph.D.
Dr. Lina Normandin is a professor of psychology at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada and clinical psychologist working with children, adolescents and adults. Her main research themes are in child abuse, adolescent personality disorders and psychotherapy processes such as countertransference. She is an accredited trainer and supervisor in Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP and TFP-A) for personality disorders at the New York Personality Disorders Institute of Weill-Cornell University.