By Christophe Herbert, Psychologist

Online Training: Brief Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

New: A$79 today instead of A$199 (launch offer, 1 h 52 of content).

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Training supervised by Christophe Herbert, Psychologist (AI-enhanced course).

CONTINUING EDUCATION

Brief psychodynamic psychotherapy adapts psychoanalytic principles to a deliberately time-limited frame — and the evidence shows it works. This CPD course for psychologists teaches you the essentials of brief psychoanalytic therapy as developed by its pioneers: Malan, Sifneos and Davanloo.

Over roughly two hours of asynchronous study, you will see how the brief format stands as a credible alternative to lengthy traditional treatment without sacrificing therapeutic power — an approach in step with contemporary demands on psychological practice for speed and efficiency.

You will learn to identify and install a solid therapeutic focus within the first few sessions — the core competence of brief psychodynamic work. The focus concentrates the treatment on the patient’s priority emotional and conflictual issues, so that meaningful change remains possible even under tight time constraints.

The course covers the specific techniques of the brief format: shaping interpretations that land, handling transference and resistance, and keeping the alliance effective over a short span. You will compare the schools — Malan’s model organized around the triangular relationship, Davanloo’s techniques for rapid access to deep affect.

Current research is woven throughout: success rates, patient-selection criteria and the conditions of effectiveness — an evidence base that lets you justify your clinical choices and refine your practice.

This competence is in demand in hospitals, private practice and psychological support services alike: the brief psychodynamic format answers the time and budget pressures of today’s healthcare systems while preserving therapeutic quality.

4 learning objectives. On completing the course you will be able to:

• Analyse the founding principles of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy and its main schools (Malan, Sifneos, Davanloo) and adapt them to your own practice
• Define and word a therapeutic focus suited to the patient and the treatment length, so the work stays centred on the priority emotional issues
• Apply the format’s specific techniques: targeted interpretation, and the handling of transference and resistance under time limitation
• Appraise therapeutic effectiveness from current research and use the selection criteria that optimize outcomes

Knowledge validation test (certified training).

FAQ

What is brief psychodynamic psychotherapy? An adaptation of psychoanalytic principles to a limited number of sessions (typically 12–40). Built by Malan, Sifneos and Davanloo, it joins the exploration of unconscious conflict to demonstrable effectiveness within a bounded timeframe, without giving up the quality of psychic change.

What is the therapeutic focus? The keystone of the brief format: identifying the patient’s principal emotional and conflictual issue and concentrating the work on it. The focus keeps the treatment coherent and free of digression when time is short.

How do Malan, Sifneos and Davanloo differ? Malan works from the triangular relationship (mother, father, therapist) and the past–present–transference link; Sifneos insists on strict patient selection and an active therapist; Davanloo built ISTDP — Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy — around rapid access to deep emotion through intensive engagement.

Does it work? Yes: contemporary research supports its effectiveness for depression, anxiety, relational difficulties and trauma, with success rates comparable to long-term therapy when selection criteria are respected and the focus is clearly set.

This training includes: slide-illustrated videos + training certificate.

Course outline

1. Introduction: why think about time in psychotherapy? — the myth that psychodynamic work must be long; the debate since Ferenczi and Rank (1925); today’s context (patient demand, institutional constraints, outcome data); what “brief” means and does not mean — brief therapy is not hurried therapy but therapy that uses the time limit as a lever; who the course is for.
2. The major models — Malan and Tavistock focal therapy (triangle of conflict; triangle of persons); Davanloo’s ISTDP (pressure on defenses, unlocking the unconscious); Luborsky’s CCRT; Mann’s 12-session time-limited therapy; Strupp’s TLDP and the maladaptive relational cycle; Leichsenring’s contemporary data; and what unites them all: focus, time limit, therapist activity, separation work.
3. The therapeutic focus — why brevity is impossible without it; what it is (a concise, negotiated formulation of the central conflict); how to build it from anamnesis, request and recurring relational patterns; the marks of a good focus (dynamic, tied to present suffering, relational, recognisable to the patient); classic mistakes; negotiating the focus as the first therapeutic act.
4. Patient selection — indication criteria (focal problem, relational capacity, motivation for change, affect tolerance, minimal mentalization); contraindications (active psychosis, severe personality disorders with major acting-out, acute suicidal crisis, multiple unresolved grief, unstabilized addictions); the grey zone and reassessment; the ethics of format choice.
5. The specific frame — durations by model (12 sessions for Mann, 16–30 for Malan, 20–40 for Luborsky); why the end date is fixed at the start; weekly frequency as standard (ISTDP variants); the explicit contract as structuring frame rather than straitjacket; the paradox that accepting limitation frees movement.
6. Active techniques — deliberate therapist activity: early confrontation of defenses; the triangle of conflict in use; the triangle of persons in use; early transference interpretation; active handling of resistance; and the balance between activity and respect — in the service of the patient, not the calendar.
7. The end of therapy: separation and grief — the end as present from the first session; termination as a therapeutic process reactivating loss and abandonment; mourning the treatment and the therapist; typical end-phase reactions (symptom recurrence, new themes, extension requests, premature flight); the therapist’s countertransference at termination; the final session.
8. The research — founding studies (Malan 1963/1976, Sifneos 1972/1979, Davanloo 1980); modern RCTs (Leichsenring 2004/2013, Driessen 2013, Abbass meta-analyses); effectiveness on par with CBT for depression and anxiety, durable and sometimes growing post-treatment gains (the sleeper effect), ISTDP for somatoform disorders; methodological limits and the dose–effect debate.
9. Conclusion: brief therapy as a clinical stance — a format in its own right, not a degraded long therapy; what it teaches the clinician: tolerating incompleteness, accepting that not everything can be treated, trusting the patient’s change process beyond the frame. Winnicott’s closing lesson: good therapy is “good enough” — and “enough” is the operative word.

Instructor. AI-enhanced training under the supervision of Christophe Herbert, Psychologist — specialist in the psychotherapeutic care of victims and the severely bereaved, Director of H4 Éditions.

Who is this for? Reserved for professionals (psychologists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, sexologists, psychiatric nurses, and so on) and students of psychology, psychiatry and related disciplines. Others on request: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

How to register and access the course. 1) Create your personal training account and pay the registration fee (invoice available). 2) The course — video lectures and downloadable documents — appears in your personal account; work at your own pace, with no time limit, and contact the instructor whenever you have questions. 3) Take the knowledge validation test (70% correct answers required; unlimited attempts — the point is to pass through what you have learned). 4) Download your personalized certificate under the Psy-Training letterhead confirming completion and success.