We invite you to the clinical seminar!
Title: ISTDP in the Psychotherapy of Patients with a Fragile Character Structure
Presenters: Jon Frederickson, Beata Załoga
Date: November 3, 2025
Where: SWPS UNIVERSITY, Tomaszewski Auditorium, Chodakowska 19/32, Warsaw
Co-organizers: Polish Society for ISTDP Psychotherapy, SWPS University – Faculty of Psychology in Warsaw
The seminar will focus on psychotherapy with patients who have a fragile character structure – individuals who, when faced with intense emotions, lose the ability to regulate anxiety and feelings, and at times even lose touch with reality.
Often, the tragedy of working with fragile, severely traumatized patients lies in how they unconsciously re-traumatize themselves through emotional avoidance mechanisms they did not choose and cannot see. As therapists, we must help patients recognize how these defenses operate in sessions and in their lives, and support them in overcoming them.
Participants will learn strategies for working with such defence mechanisms as projection, splitting, somatization, self-criticism, and manic defences. The seminar will emphasize the gradual process of building a sense of safety in experiencing, understanding, and owning emotions. It will demonstrate how to work with this group of patients in a safe, step-by-step manner, tailored to their level of affect tolerance.
Both presentations will be extensively illustrated with video recordings of therapy sessions.
Presenters:
Jon Frederickson, MSW – Faculty member of the Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) Training Program at the New Washington School of Psychiatry. Jon has provided ISTDP training in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Slovakia, Switzerland, India, Iran, Australia, Canada, the U.S., and the Netherlands. He is the author of over fifty published papers or book chapters and seven books, including Co-Creating Change: Effective Dynamic Therapy Techniques, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Learning to Listen from Multiple Perspectives, The Lies We Tell Ourselves, Co-Creating Safety: Healing the Fragile Patient, Healing Through Relating: A Skill-Building Book for Therapists, and Clinical Thinking in Psychotherapy: How to Do It and How to Teach It. His book Co-Creating Change won first prize in psychiatry in 2014 at the British Medical Association Book Awards. His books have been translated into twenty languages. Jon regularly writes about ISTDP at facebook.com/DynamicPsychotherapy.
Beata Załoga – Psychiatrist and psychotherapist, certified by the Polish Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and the European Association for Psychotherapy. A graduate of the first comprehensive ISTDP training in Poland, she completed a three-year teacher and supervisor course led by Jon Frederickson and the ISTDP Institute in Norway, becoming the first ISTDP teacher and supervisor in Poland recommended by Jon Frederickson and the ISTDP Institute (Washington). For over 12 years, she has been training and supervising psychotherapists in Poland as well as clinicians from Croatia, Slovakia, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, the UK, and Canada. She co-authored a chapter on ISTDP in the academic textbook Psychotherapy: Schools and Methods and served as the substantive editor of the Polish edition of Jon Frederickson’s Co-Creating Safety: Healing the Fragile Patient. She is the founder and director of the ISTDP Study Program in Warsaw (studiumistdp.pl).
🔎 Outline of the seminar
- Introduction to ISTDP and presenting the results of clinical trials confirming the effectiveness of this model of psychotherapy – Beata Załoga and Jon Frederickson (75 min.)
- Clinical presentation by Beata Załoga – Working with Fragile Patients: Building Affect Tolerance and Addressing Defensive Processes (75 min.)
In this presentation, Beata Załoga will illustrate step-by-step methods for helping fragile patients gradually build the capacity to experience and process emotions without becoming overwhelmed. Special attention will be given to recognizing and addressing defences such as somatization, weepiness, and projection, which often serve as unconscious strategies to avoid intolerable feelings towards important figures in patients’ lives.
Through detailed clinical vignettes and video recordings, participants will learn how to create a safe therapeutic environment, tailor interventions to the patient’s current level of affect tolerance, and help them process unconscious feelings so they no longer need to ward them off through self-punishment.
- Clinical presentation by Jon Frederickson (4 hrs)
Topic: Treatment of Manic Defences in a Fragile Patient
Bipolar patients are often treated with medication but still suffer from manic defences, which cause significant distress and symptoms. In this case presentation, we will examine how to identify manic defences, recognize the transference implicit in manic delusion, and treat manic defences and projections in fragile patients to reduce anxiety. Sadly, these patients usually do not receive the psychological treatment they need, as their symptoms are often viewed solely from a biological perspective. This initial session demonstration will show how to work with such patients to lower their anxiety and improve reality testing.
- Discussion and Q&A with the speakers (35 min) – moderated by the Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology at SWPS University Agata Wytykowska-Kaczorek, PhD, who will also pose questions to the presenters.
PRICES
| Promotion – 5th of October | Regular price – 30th of October | |
| International participants | 180 € | 210 € |
☕ Coffee breaks and lunch provided (included in the price of the seminar)
📚 Opportunity to have your copy of Jon Frederickson’s book signed during breaks
👥 Target audience: Specialists and trainees in the field of mental health – psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and students of related disciplines
You can purchase the seminar in the store on our website: SHOP
Format: To protect the confidentiality of the clinical material presented, the seminar will be held in person only; no recording of the content will be possible.
Translation: The seminar will be simultaneously translated into Polish and English by professional translators.
Invoice: If you require an invoice, please write to the address: skarbnik@istdp-polska.pl
🎟 Limited seats – register now! SHOP
