This three-year training is designed for licensed and license-eligible mental health professionals seeking to build depth, clarity, and skill in applying ISTDP principles to their clinical work.

Whether you’re newly licensed or decades into practice, the program provides a structured, experiential path to growth — tailored to your stage of learning.

Developed by Habib Davanloo, MD in the 1960’s, the theory and technique of ISTDP have been refined and elaborated by later generations of his students around the world. The efficacy of ISTDP has been widely researched and demonstrated with a variety of disorders.

Within ISTDP, a patient’s difficulties are often understood as emerging from defenses that mobilize in response to unconscious feelings. When this is the case, treatment aims to strengthen the patient’s capacity to identify maladaptive defenses, notice and regulate anxiety, and face feelings and other buried material in a regulated and safe bodily state so that maladaptive patterns can gradually be relinquished.

This allows unconscious emotions to emerge, become integrated, and pave the way for consistent, unfettered access to motivational feelings.

By the end of the program, participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate a working knowledge of major psychodynamic theories, including ego psychology, object relations, self psychology, relational theory, attachment theory, and neurobiology.
• Apply these frameworks to clinical work with individuals, couples, and groups across a range of presenting issues.
• Critically assess clinical material through multiple theoretical lenses, developing a more nuanced and flexible therapeutic approach.
• Integrate considerations of identity, culture, and intersectionality into clinical formulations and treatment planning.
• Engage in reflective practice with peer support and skilled supervision, using case material to grow clinical insight and strengthen professional judgment.
• Develop a deeper understanding of the therapist-client relationship, including transference, countertransference, and the use of self in therapy.
• Build a lasting community of peers and mentors, fostering professional connection, dialogue, and support.

This program fosters both intellectual rigor and emotional depth – equipping clinicians to do their best, most thoughtful work in an ever-changing therapeutic landscape.

The ISTDP program is a three-year certificate program. Students can opt to take just year-one or pursue the full three-year certificate.

Registration for 2026 is now open until March 15th, 2026.

1st year: 
$60 per supervision/deliberate practice hour. Tuition $1,900.

2nd/3rd year:
$120 per Friday supervision. Tuition $3,100.

ISTDP will be 100% virtual and classes will be held synchronously via Zoom.

Students will need to ensure that their computer/laptop and web browser works with Zoom. Click here to learn more about Zoom compatibility requirements.

Students will be able to access course readings and syllabi via their program's Google Drive. To successfully participate in courses, students need the following:

• Computer/Laptop with audio and visual capacity
• Basic technology skills (e.g., familiarity with powering the computer; typing; browsing the internet)
• Access to internet and Zoom

Students will not need to have a Zoom account to join class meetings or access course files. However, faculty may require a password to access meetings or files. Please consult with your faculty to obtain access.

First Year:
Basic principles of ISTDP theory:

• Anxiety assessment and regulation
• Defense identification and restructuring
• Identification of unconscious emotions
• Eliciting and elaborating feeling experience
• Maintaining therapeutic focus and building the alliance
• Assessing and building will and motivation for change
• Dismantling resistance
• 'Working through' in ISTDP
• Variations of the ISTDP technique for special populations

Second and Third Years:
Each three-day weekend will address one ISTDP concept and corresponding techniques. Examples of core training topics include:

• Psychodiagnosis – Moment-to-moment assessment of ego adaptive capacity and corresponding interventions
• Superego pathology – Identification of malignant internalizations which create character defenses; assessment of their effect on ego functioning; and techniques for helping patients turn against these pathological forces
• Transference resistance – Techniques for handling defiant, passive, helpless, and uninvolved transference resistances

First Year
CE credits are awarded on a class-by-class basis with full attendance required for each class. Three CEs are granted each Friday class. Partial credit is not possible.

Students must provide "proof of presence" by ensuring that their camera is on during class.

Second and Third Year
CE credits are awarded on a class-by-class basis with full attendance required for each class. Seven CE credits are awarded for full attendance of the first day of each weekend unit. Partial credit is not possible.

Students must provide "proof of presence" by ensuring that their camera is on during class.

Please note that continuing education requirements vary from state to state. Many state boards grant reciprocity with national accrediting organizations and other state boards. It is the responsibility of each professional to understand the requirements for license renewal or check with the state or national licensing board and/or professional organization to become more familiar with their policies for acceptable continuing education credit.

Michelle May, LPC, NCC is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Virginia and Washington, DC. Michelle is the Chair of the Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy Core Training program at New Washington School of Psychiatry in Washington, DC and has taught Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy at Washington School of Psychiatry since 2019. She is the author of What I Couldn't Tell My Therapist: The Truths We Told to Heal Our Lives, published October 8, 2024. Her second book, The Conscious Therapeutic Alliance: A Framework for Building Transformative Relationships, is forthcoming from Routledge. Michelle has a private practice in Arlington, Virginia where she provides intensive dynamic psychotherapy for adults and couples. She is a Certified Supervisor and Teacher by the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (IEDTA) and supervises licensed medical and mental health professionals in Experiential Dynamic Therapies such as ISTDP. Michelle is passionate about educating the public about dynamic therapy and offers information about intensive dynamic therapy on Instagram @michellemmaylpc.

Jack Tawil, MSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Work in Maryland. Jack has been in private practice in Annapolis Maryland since 2008 specializing in Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) for adults and couples. Jack has been a teacher, supervisor, and trainer in the ISTDP program at the Washington School of Psychiatry since 2016 and is currently Co-Chair. In addition to private practice, Jack has served as Clinical Affiliate at the George Washington University Counseling Center and has also held various posts at outpatient mental clinics across the DC/Baltimore metropolitan region where he has worked with diverse client populations. Jack truly enjoys being a teacher and educator of ISTDP and getting the word out about his transformative training model of psychotherapy.

Our ISTDP faculty brings extensive experience in psychotherapy, teaching, and clinical supervision:

Stuart Andrews, PhD
Lisa Bendzsa, MA
Kessler Bickford, MA
Diane Byster, LMFT
Jon Frederickson, MSW
Nima Ghorbani, PhD
Maury Joseph, PsyD
Nyambura Kamau, MA
Michelle M. May, LPC
Janet Merkel, PhD
Diane Miller, LCSW
Jack Tawil, MSW

Margo Silberstein, EdD

Admissions will open in early 2026 for the 2026 September start date. 

Upon receipt of your application materials and the application fee, one of our program chairs will contact you to confirm whether you qualify for a 30-minute interview during the spring.

Following the interview, the chairs will evaluate your candidacy and inform you of your status: accepted, waitlisted, or encouraged to reapply at a later date. If accepted, tuition payment will be required to secure your enrollment.

We will stop accepting applications as of March 15th. 

Click here for the ISTDP Cancellation and Refund Policy.

Click here for the Accreditation Statement and AMEDCO Continuing Education Certification.

For more information, contact either the chair or co-chair:

Michelle M. May, LPC, NCC, Chair:
 maymichellem@gmail.com

Jack Tawil, MSW, Co-Chair: 
jtawil68@yahoo.com