By Andrea Laznik Amit, RP — registered psychotherapist and clinical psychologist with 25+ years’ experience in psychodynamic and ISTDP therapy
If you are living with anxiety, depression, trauma, or emotional pain that keeps resurfacing, you may feel frustrated or discouraged. You may have tried coping strategies, distraction, or even previous therapy, yet something still feels unresolved.
Sometimes the distress shows up in the body. Tightness in the chest. A knot in the stomach. A lump in the throat. Waves of panic. Or a heavy numbness that will not lift.
Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) helps address the emotional patterns driving these experiences so they can begin to shift at their root.
What is ISTDP?
ISTDP is a form of psychodynamic therapy based on the idea that many emotional and physical symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and relationship difficulties are connected to underlying emotional conflicts.
Often these conflicts develop early in life as we adapt in order to preserve closeness and safety in important relationships. At times we learn to push aside feelings such as anger, grief, or longing when they feel overwhelming or risky to express. Over time, these avoided emotions can contribute to anxiety, self-criticism, numbness, or physical distress.
In ISTDP, we work together to gradually access these emotions in a safe and structured way. As feelings that were once avoided are experienced and processed, the nervous system no longer needs to hold the same level of tension or distress.
My approach to therapy is grounded in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic thinking, with advanced training in ISTDP. Rather than following a fixed formula, I tailor therapy to your history, emotional patterns, and what is unfolding in your life right now.
How is ISTDP different from other therapies?
Some forms of therapy focus primarily on helping people manage symptoms or develop coping strategies. These approaches can be very helpful and provide important tools.
ISTDP focuses more directly on the emotional conflicts that may be contributing to those symptoms. The goal is not only to manage distress, but to work through the emotional experiences that may be maintaining it.
In ISTDP sessions, we pay close attention to:
- Emotional responses that arise in the moment
- Patterns of avoiding or suppressing feelings
- The ways these emotional patterns influence relationships and symptoms
By working with these experiences directly, therapy can help shift the underlying patterns rather than only addressing the surface symptoms.
When anxiety and trauma show up in the body
Anxiety often shows up physically before we fully understand what we are feeling emotionally. When strong emotions are pushed aside or held in, the body can carry the tension.
You might notice:
- Chest pressure or rapid heartbeat
- Stomach pain, IBS symptoms, or nausea
- Headaches
- Dizziness or faintness
- Muscle tension
- Difficulty swallowing
- Sudden panic
These symptoms are real. They are not imagined.
In ISTDP, we pay close attention to how anxiety appears in the body. Together, we work to regulate that anxiety while gradually exploring the emotions connected to it. As those emotions are safely experienced, the body often no longer needs to carry the same level of tension.
What does a session feel like?
In an ISTDP session, we pay close attention to your emotional experience in the moment.
We may talk about what is happening in your life now, but we also notice how certain feelings, reactions, or patterns emerge during the session itself. These moments often provide important clues about deeper emotional patterns.
Throughout the process, we work carefully with anxiety so that difficult emotions can be approached safely rather than becoming overwhelming.
The goal is not to push you into feelings, but to help you gradually experience and understand emotions that may have been difficult to access in the past.
Over time, this process can help loosen patterns that have been maintaining anxiety, depression, or relationship difficulties.
Who is ISTDP for?
ISTDP could be a good fit for you if you feel stuck in emotional patterns that keep repeating in your life.
You might recognize yourself in experiences such as:
- Anxiety or panic that feels difficult to explain
- Depression or emotional numbness
- Trauma or unresolved emotional pain
- Persistent self-criticism or feelings of inadequacy
- Relationship conflicts that follow familiar patterns
- Physical symptoms connected to emotional stress
Some people explore ISTDP after trying other approaches that provided some relief but did not fully address the deeper emotional patterns behind their distress.
How does ISTDP create lasting change?
When emotional conflicts remain outside awareness, they can continue to drive anxiety, self-criticism, and repeating patterns. As these emotions are gradually brought into awareness and experienced safely, many people begin to feel less controlled by those patterns.
Research supports the effectiveness of ISTDP and other short-term psychodynamic therapies for depression, anxiety, trauma-related difficulties, and personality disorders, with improvements that often continue even after therapy ends.
The goal is not only symptom relief. It is to help you feel more emotionally grounded, more in control of your reactions, and less burdened by past experiences.
If you would like to explore whether this approach may be a good fit for you, I invite you to schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me. We can begin by talking about what you are experiencing and whether this work feels right for you.
References
Abbass, A., Town, J., & Driessen, E. (2014). Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis of outcome research. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 22(2), 97–108. https://doi.org/10.3109/10673229.2012.677347
Driessen, E., Van, H. L., Don, F. J., Peen, J., Kool, S., Westra, D., Hendriksen, M., Cuijpers, P., & Dekker, J. J. M. (2015). The efficacy of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for depression: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 42, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2015.07.004
Town, J. M., Abbass, A., & Hardy, G. E. (2017). Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for personality disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Personality Disorders, 31(6), 748–772. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.02.035
By Andrea Laznik Amit, MA, RP
Her training includes psychodynamic psychotherapy and Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), with advanced clinical training at the University of Toronto. Her work focuses on anxiety, depression, trauma, and relational patterns through depth-oriented psychotherapy.