Date, Time, & Location
Tuesday, February 18, 2025, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm Eastern Time (US & Canada). This event will occur online via Zoom. Participants will receive a link the day of the event.
Overview
There is some debate in the EDT field about whether it is advisable, or even possible, to do safe and effective EDT interventions with individuals under 18. In this presentation, two clinicians share videos of their work doing ISTDP/EDT interventions with young people - ages 15 and 10, respectively - and will discuss important considerations therapists must attend to when doing this work with the under-18 age group. The presentation will demonstrate that it is possible - and fruitful - to use the protocol of ISTDP as a guide when working with children and adolescents.
Mobilizing the Therapeutic Alliance in an Adolescent Patient
Emil Rask, Clinical Psychologist
Private Practice, Aarhus, Denmark
In this presentation, we will see the beginning of a trial therapy with a 15-year-old male to illustrate the process of mobilizing the therapeutic alliance in an adolescent patient. The boy’s mother had booked the session for her son after multiple years of both interpersonal problems (e.g., acting out, conflicts, and avoidant behavior) and psychological distress (e.g., anxiety, depression), including three suicide attempts and several unsuccessful treatment attempts.
We will see an unedited video of the beginning of the trial therapy, where our focus is on establishing if the patient has his own reasons and motivation for therapy or if he is only in treatment because of his mother’s wishes. At the same time, we try to assess whether he – given his age – is suited for ISTDP treatment.
Through the use of pressure and clarifications, which target barriers to engagement and defenses that block intrapsychic focus and hope, the trial therapy moves towards a shared dynamic focus and mobilizes the patient’s personal motivation for treatment.
The presentation aligns with the conference theme on how to activate both conscious and unconscious therapeutic alliance and further highlights essential issues on how to avoid asymmetrical relationships with teenagers in therapy.
The Case of the Spasming Legs: ISTDP with a 10 year old in a Religious Family Context
William Watson, Clinical Psychologist
Associate Professor, University of Rochester Medical Center
This presentation will center on video review of an initial consultation session with a 10-year-old Muslim girl presenting with symptoms of Functional Neurological Disorder, admitted for Long-Term Video-EEG Monitoring at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Seen with her mother for this initial interview, she began to experience her seizure prodrome when describing the experience of witnessing the physical abuse of her mother by the patient's father. She responded surprisingly well to an invitation to portray the feelings arising within her in an imagined unleashing of them upon her father, with the resulting resolution of the seizure prodrome and significant reduction of her symptoms immediately thereafter, with complete remission achieved after several follow-up sessions. Also of interest is how the therapist responds to the mixed reaction of the patient's mother to hearing her daughter's violent portrayal, which she found troubling given the family's strong religious values. Mother's response reminds us of the importance of attending to what might be called the Unconscious Therapeutic Family Alliance, without which child therapy will be impeded by loyalty conflicts. The video illustrates an approach to resolving religious obstacles to ISTDP treatment that involves conveying respect for and affirmation of the family's deeply held values and simultaneously explaining how therapy goals fundamentally support those values.
About
Emil Rask, Cand. Psych. is a licensed clinical psychologist from Aarhus, Denmark, where he works in private practice. At the beginning of his career, he was trained in CBT and ACT and specialized in treating children and adolescents. Doing individual, family, and group therapy, he learned the importance of keeping an eye on the family dynamics and integrating that into the treatment of the child or teenager. Since learning ISTDP, he has sought ways of integrating the precision and condensed focus of ISTDP with his experience from family treatment. Emil did his Core Training with Danish psychologist Brian Kok Ravn and advanced training with Allan Abbass, M.D., and Joel Town, Ph.D. He is a board member of the Danish Association of ISTDP. Emil delivers training and supervision in ISTDP and contributes to the continuing education of foster parents in Denmark.
William H. Watson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology) and Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center/Strong Memorial Hospital, where he offers training in family therapy and psychodynamic approaches to the treatment of mind-body disorders for the master’s and post-doctoral family therapy training programs, the residencies in psychiatry, neurology and family medicine, and the Physician Faculty Coaching Program. He is also staff development consultant to the Rochester Psychiatric Center and the Bivona Child Advocacy Center and a consulting psychologist with the Strong Epilepsy Center, where he works with patients presenting with psychogenic non-epileptic attacks and other somatoform disorders. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards from residents, fellows, and graduate students. A member and Fellow of APA, he is the past president of APA Division 43, The Society for Family Psychology, which named him the 2009 APA Family Psychologist of the Year. He is an AGPA Certified Group Psychotherapist, has trained at the Center for Group Studies in New York City, leads training groups with residents in psychiatry and family medicine, postdoctoral psychology fellows, and practicing clinicians. He is on the board of the Rochester Area Group Psychotherapy Society. He has done Core Training and Advanced Training in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) with Allan Abbass, MD, and Joel Town, PhD, in Halifax, NS, Canada. He has presented locally, nationally, and internationally on his areas of interest, which include an emotional systems understanding of mind-body disorders, the use of experiential process groups in training mental health professionals, and spirituality in psychotherapy.
