Interpersonal Dynamic Psychotherapy

Overview

Research into the common factors of psychotherapy informs us that most approaches to psychotherapy are effective when they incorporate key or common principles of change. Goldfried (2019) lists five such principles:

1. An engaged therapeutic relationship
2. Hope for change
3. A corrective emotional experience
4. Awareness and insight
5. Action

The question that therapists are always asking themselves is “How do I help facilitate therapeutic change with this client today?” One of the defining principles of Interpersonal Dynamic Psychotherapy (IDP) is that therapeutic change is possible when the client is in touch with a relevant sense of self, an experience, which is able to be symbolised and allowing to be presented in the presence of a caring other. When this happens the possibility of a change, not just in meaning but, in experience, a feeling-meaning state, is made possible. In this workshop, the essential elements of IDP will be presented, especially the work of finding the self in forms of feeling.