The IPI Blog

International Psychotherapy Institute blog, issues relating to psychodynamic psychotherapy, object relations theory and technique, psychoanalysis.

Panic Focused Psychotherapy Study

By David E. Scharff, M.D. Among the sessions I attended at the Winter Meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association, one stood out on the findings of a randomized control trial of a new and manualized psychoanalytic treatment for panic disorder, overseen by its principal researcher, Barbara Milrod of Cornell Medical Center in New York City. …

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Psychoanalysis in China, Part Two

By David E. Scharff, M.D. May 15 and 16, 2007 Wuhan is not known for its sights, and among friends and acquaintances with whom we discussed our trip before coming, only those with experience in international business had spent time here. Others had come to board the cruise down the Yangtze River to the Three …

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Psychoanalysis in China, Part One

By David E. Scharff, M.D. In May of this year, my wife, Jill Savege Scharff, and I made our first trip to China. The invitation to her came after a Chinese graduate student wrote her with questions about one of her books, which he was reading. After she had answered him, he wrote a kind …

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From Klein Forward

By David E. Scharff, M.D. Psychoanalysis is in a state of evolution. It is almost as though if we don’t keep up with the advances in neuroscience, attachment theory or latest research on the validation of psychotherapy, we can’t do our daily work. But at the same time that there is such an explosion of …

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The Therapeutic Instrument

By David E. Scharff, M.D. The psychotherapeutic instrument is, of course, the therapist – in all aspects of her or his personality – who has the unique capability of being honed by experience to create a relationship that helps other people grow, heal, and expand the range of possibilities in their lives. Fashioning your personality …

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