ISTDP Academy: Spring 2025: Bernt Langvasbråten

The Danish and Swedish Societies for ISTDP are pleased to welcome their members to yet another semester of the ISTDP Academy! The ISTDP Academy is our shared platform for continued learning and inspiration, as well as for bringing together our Scandinavian ISTDP community. For our coming semester, we have five interesting presentations scheduled.

Please note that the days of the presentations this year alternate between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Also, please note that Leo Russel’s is scheduled for 18.00-20.30 CET while all others take place at 17.00-19.30 CET.

February 4th: John Rathauser
March 4th: Leo Russell (Note: 18.00-20.30 CET)
April 1st: Bernt Langvasbråten
May 7th: David Davis
June 4th: Allen Kalpin

Attendance is possible for members of either of our two societies. It is important that you have paid for 2025-membership before the first presentation of the semester, as you will otherwise not be allowed entry into the session. Membership as well as participation in the semester can be bought through our online store: https://istdp-danmark.dk/store/

Please help us spread the word about the ISTDP-Academy to your colleagues in the Scandinavian ISTDP community!

Detailed information on this semester’s presentations:

February 4th: John Rathauser: A Case of Depersonalization Disorder

About John: John Hans Rathauser, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist with over 35 years of clinical experience. Following completion of his doctorate in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology – Los Angeles, his postdoctoral experiences began with a five-year period of training at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health in New York. In 1994 John Rathauser entered into training with Habib Davanloo, M.D. in Montreal, Canada, spending eight years in Dr. Davanloo’s Core Training Group. From 2002-2016 he continued to attend annual weeklong metapscyhology conferences, which Dr. Davanloo held in Montreal, Canada. John Rathauser’s private practice in Kendall Park, N.J. is largely devoted to the practice of Davanloo’s Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (IS-TDP), as well as providing training to mental health practitioners, which is additionally offered in Los Angeles based core training programs in IS-TDP. He has given numerous presentations on IS-TDP nationally and internationally, and is a supervisor for the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (IEDTA). and Australia.

About John’s presentation: This seminar examines the case of a man in his early 30s diagnosed with depersonalization disorder, characterized by feeling disconnected from his body and thoughts. Symptoms include visual fuzziness, emotional detachment, difficulty with eye contact and speech, and persistent mental fog. Despite seven years of prior therapy, the patient withheld his dissatisfaction with treatment, reflecting compliance and defiance that obstruct honest self-reflection and progress. Through the lens of ISTDP, the seminar explores the fragile character structure requiring real-time anxiety monitoring and addressing defenses that create resistance. Vignettes from treatment sessions reveal breakthroughs to painful emotions and unlocking unconscious feelings. However, the case highlights the complexity of unconscious compliance, where expressing rage towards the mother defensively blocks deeper feelings about the father. This challenges the assumption that unlocking the unconscious is always beneficial, offering key insights for clinicians navigating similar cases.

March 4th: Leo Russell: ISTDP for Functional Neurological Disorders: Theory and Practice

About Leo: Dr Leo Russell (DClinPsych) is a is a chartered Clinical Psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council. He is an IEDTA and ISTDP-UK accredited trainer and supervisor. His clinical practice is in the NHS working as service lead for the Functional Neurological Symptoms Service at Devon Partnership Trust where he specialised in ISTDP for medically unexplained symptoms. Having trained under Dr Neborsky, his work draws on attachment theory and affective neuroscience as a framework for understanding causes of mental health difficulties and somatic symptoms. He has published research on the application and efficacy of ISTDP for functional presentations. He has taught and presented on ISTDP at national conferences, symposiums and seminars, as well as leading a regular programme of ISTDP teaching on the Clinical Psychology Doctorates at Exeter and Plymouth University. He also delivers an ISTDP foundation training programme in his local NHS Trust as a project to increase availability of ISTDP informed practice within specialist NHS services.

About Leo’s presentation: Dr Russell will provide a brief overview of functional symptoms across healthcare. He will introduce functional neurological disorders (FND) and outline the rational and empirical support for an ISTDP approach to these conditions. He will explore how to use psychodiagnosis to make sense of functional symptoms and to guide the application of ISTDP across the spectrum. He will illustrate this with video vignettes from ISTDP sessions.

April 1st: Bernt Langvasbråten: Increased precision in detecting and handling mental mechanisms in Depression – What is the frontier of ISTDP Depression treatment in Norway?

About Bernt: Bernt Langvasbråten is a specialist in clinical psychology and head supervisor/spesial advisor at the Depression unit at Modum Bad Health Trust i Norway. The treatment unit offers intensified ISTDP inpatient treatment to patients not responding to standard treatment approaches. Bernt is also a teacher, supervisor and founding member of the Norwegian ISTDP Institute offering Norwegian psychologist a 3,5 year spesialist training in ISTDP since 2015. Bernt works in private practice at the Norwegian Clinic for Psychology and runs their DepressionLab project. Bernt organised the ISTDP Inpatient Program for treatment resistant patients in public sector in Drammen, Norway in 2009-1016 and initiated and organised the first Norwegian ISTDP Core trainings with international teachers started in 2009.

About Bernt’s presentation: The presentation will focus on how we can increase precision in our observations, conceptual understanding, specific skills and personal skills in treating Depression. We will talk about different mental mechanisms leading to depression and how to detect, differentiate due to physical and verbal markers, and how to handle them. Key concepts will be on differentiation between mid-rise repression understood as upward anger collapsing into soma due to lack of capacity from intrapsychic character defences of helplessness and hopelessness from interpersonal crystallised resistance indication HOC and high-rise symptoms more du to impulses turned inward.

May 7th: David Davis: A case from my training with Dr. Davanloo

About David: Dr. David Davis is a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist in private practice since 1995. He was part of one of Dr. Davanloo’s first core-groups for eight years, starting in 1985, and the first director of the California Institute of ISTDP. Dr. Davis has contributed extensively to the first journal of ISTDP – the International Journal of Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy – during the years 1987 to 1992.

About David’s presentation: In his presentation, David Davis will present a case from one of his articles on chemically dependent patients published in the International Journal of Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy in 1989. The case was supervised and approved for publication by Dr. Davanloo. It involves a quite linear and clearly differentiated progression through the Central Dynamic Sequence, from descriptive phenomenology to unlocking and exploration of the patient’s core neurotic structure.

June 4th: Allen Kalpin: Ketamine-assisted ISTDP

About Allen: Allen Kalpin is a medical doctor, practicing psychotherapy in Toronto, Canada. Starting in 1988 he had six years of training and supervision in ISTDP with Dr. Habib Davanloo. Since then Dr Kalpin has been practicing ISTDP informed psychotherapy and doing teaching and supervision. He is a founder and past president of IEDTA and moderates the EDT Listserv. Dr. Kalpin is a Certified Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Provider after having taken the course of studies at the Integrative Psychiatry Institute. Since January of 2023 he has been practicing Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. He is very interested in the combining of EDT and psychedelic psychotherapy.

About Allen’s presentation: Allen Kalpin has been practicing ISTDP informed psychotherapy for many years.  For the past two years he has part of his time doing psychotherapy for patients undergoing intravenous ketamine treatment.  This has included working with patients prior to receiving ketamine, during ketamine sessions, as well as after ketamine sessions.  He will share his thoughts on how ketamine might help with restructuring and with unlocking the unconscious.  He will share his observations and his questions from his work so far.  Some topics that will be covered: