“How can I be more effective?”

A day-long workshop for psychotherapists

Facilitators:  Ron Albucher, Diane Byster, and David Wolff

Date:  Saturday, March 3, 2018 from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Location:  Stanford University Vaden Health Center

Fee:  $100 for licensed therapists, $50 for trainees

This workshop is intended for psychotherapists at all levels of experience and from different schools of psychotherapy who would like to learn how to work more effectively with their clients. Therapists trained in psychodynamic therapy are exposed to many different schools of thought that offer ways to understand the concepts of the unconscious, transference and countertransference, resistance and defenses. What is generally lacking is a clear guide as to how to apply these theories in the clinical session on a moment-to-moment basis, so that you can know when to intervene, what to say, and why you’re saying it. Such a roadmap can catalyze a process of change by helping the client have a direct experience of avoided unconscious feelings. This workshop will combine both a theoretical framework as well as powerful techniques that will help you develop a working therapeutic alliance for real change and demonstrate how to effectively intervene in the moment.

In this workshop, you will learn about the following topics:

• Assessing your client’s intra-psychic conflicts, deficits, and emotional strengths.
• Understanding what elements constitute a conscious therapeutic alliance.
• Identifying and amplifying signs of an unconscious therapeutic alliance.
• Helping clients learn what is causing their symptoms and suffering.
• Generating moment-to-moment assessments that will inform your clinical interventions.
• Recognizing and helping clients’ interrupt defense patterns that prevent them from reaching their goals.
• Blocking defenses that interfere with the client being able to establish a close working relationship with you.
• Identifying anxiety symptoms and pathways and learning techniques to help clients regulate their anxiety so that it remains at an optimal level for growth.
• Helping clients approach avoided feelings to optimize the life change that they seek.

This workshop is designed to directly impact your practice by giving you techniques that you can implement immediately. Unlike many lectures on psychotherapy that invite participants to passively take in information, this workshop will maximize your learning experience by:

• Using videotapes of actual therapy sessions to demonstrate key concepts and clinical techniques
• Incorporating experiential exercises that will help you practice and build new skills
• Encouraging lively group discussion and allowing ample time for questions

The facilitators have extensive training, teaching, supervising and clinical experience in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP). We believe that an active and engaged approach that encourages each client to participate at the highest level of their capacity offers the best chance of bringing about powerful change in a shorter time frame than traditional psychotherapy.

If you would like to sign up for the workshop, please email David Wolff at dmwolff@pacbell.net for a registration form.  You can read more about ISTDP on his website at www.davidwolffmd.com. We regret that we cannot offer CE units for this training.

Diane Byster led a pre-core ISTDP training group in Palo Alto for 3 years and provides clinical case consultation to psychiatrists, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers and psychologists learning ISTDP.  This summer, Diane presented two workshops at Maximizing Effectiveness in Dynamic Therapy Conference in Birmingham, United Kingdom: “Yoga Informed Psychotherapy,” and “Healing from the Bottom-Up: Yoga Psychotherapy for Trauma.” She has been a contributing editor for two books: Co-Creating Change Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques, by Jon Frederickson, and Luck is No Accident: Making the Most of Happenstance in Work and Life, by John Krumboltz and Al Levin.  Diane and David co-taught an all day introductory workshop on ISTDP at Stanford University Vaden Counseling Center in 2015.  On two separate occasions this year she presented a 2-hour introductory ISTDP workshop to law students at Stanford Law School.  Diane has also taught about the treatment of anxiety and depression at the Stanford University Medical School, School of Public Health.

Diane has received regular case consultation from 2010–present with Jon Frederickson, MSW, and attended summer school and several advanced clinical training groups with Jon. In 2016 she completed a 1-year advanced training group with John Rathauser, Phd.  From 2011–2014 Diane completed a 3 – year teacher and supervisor training in ISTDP with Patricia Coughlin, PhD.  Diane received training from Alan Abbass, MD in summer school, twice, and a separate training with him in Los Angeles.  Diane completed a core training from 2008-2010 with Robert Neborksy, M.D. and Josette Ten-Have De Labije, PsyD.

David Wolff has been a psychiatrist in private practice in Los Angeles for over 30 years.  He obtained his MD degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his psychiatric residency at UCLA.  David completed a year of core training with Robert Neborsky and Josette ten-Have de Labije in 2006 and then joined a 3 year core training group with Patricia Coughlin which led to his being certified in ISTDP in 2010.  David then participated in Patricia’s four year teacher training  program along with Diane.  He attended Allan Abbas’ immersion course in 2012 and was subsequently a member of a Skype supervision group of his.  He has been supervised by John Rathauser for over 3 years and they co-teach a core training group in Los Angeles.

David co-taught with Jon Frederickson at his summer school in 2012.  In 2013-14 he taught a one year monthly pre-core training group in Los Angeles.  Since 2015 he has taught core training groups in Melbourne, Copenhagen, and Warsaw.  He was one of the teachers at the Whidbey Island summer school in 2015.  David teaches ISTDP to psychiatry residents at USC and UCLA and also offers individual supervision to ISTDP therapists in the US and abroad.  He is the author of the paper “ISTDP in the Private Practice of Psychiatry” in Psychiatric Annals.  He is recognized as a certified teacher/supervisor by the IEDTA.

Ron Albucher is the former Director of Counseling and Psychological Services at Stanford University and is currently on staff as a psychiatrist in that program.  He also maintains a private practice in San Francisco where he specializes in ISTDP therapy and medication management.  Ron obtained his MD degree at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he also trained as a resident and later fellow in the Anxiety Disorders program, primarily a CBT treatment program. He became Associate Training Director for the residency program at Michigan for 10 years before moving to the West Coast and eventually working at Stanford.  He completed his 3 year core training program with Patricia Coughlin in 2017, and is beginning teacher training with Patricia Coughlin in Boston later this year.  Previously he has taught classes on Outpatient Psychopharmacology; Supportive Psychotherapy; Psychodynamic Psychotherapy; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Anxiety Disorders; Sexual Orientation Issues in Psychiatry, and Resistance, Transference and Countertransference in Psychotherapy.