PSYCHOLOGICAL FORUM
A FORUM for ISTDP/EDT Practitionners
Welcome!
This is a space for therapists working with Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy who are interested in developing their clinical work through reflection, dialogue, and ongoing learning.
The intention of this community is to support a focused and thoughtful exchange around the challenges we encounter in practice—working with emotional closeness, anxiety, defenses, and the moment-to-moment decisions that shape the therapeutic process.
Here you will find opportunities to engage in discussions, as well as information about upcoming courses and events. Some activities are open and free of charge, while others are offered in groups with a participation fee.
The aim is to create a space that is both collegial and clinically grounded—where different levels of experience are welcome, and where the emphasis remains on careful observation, clarity, and respect for the complexity of the work.
The community is led by me, Maria Sandgren, who works from a relational perspective within ISTDP and integrates psychological research with the psychoanalytic foundations of the model.
You are very welcome here.
– Maria Sandgren
The Concept of Care
The many faces of care - Of particular interest of mine
For us here, it will also be opportunities to engage with texts and events exploring the concept of care—at the heart of therapeutic work, yet often left implicit.
Care concerns not only our patients, but also ourselves as therapists. In ISTDP, we are continually asked to balance responsiveness to others with our own internal resources. Research shows that meaning, motivation, and professional sustainability are closely linked—yet few trainings place the therapist’s experience at the center.
CURRENT COURSES AND EVENTS
All events are designed and open to licensed healthcare professionals working with ISTDP who are in core training or have completed it.
Traversing the Emotional Distance
Traversing the Emotional Distance in Therapeutic Communication is a 6-week online course for licensed healthcare professionals working with ISTDP/EDT.
The ability to chose type and timing of pressure in ISTDP/EDT is of central importance. Small shifts in how we listen and formulate ourselves can have a significant impact on how closeness and distance develop in the therapeutic encounter. This course offers a solid framework, in theory and practice, of what constitutes verbal interventions as pressure.
This course provides a structured way to deepen clinical precision through two practical frameworks: the psychology of language and interoception.
The psychology of language highlights how the choice of words and phrasing influences the degree of emotional closeness in the conversation, and how shifts between more abstract and more concrete communication can either open up or limit access to emotional content. We also focus on how better perceiving and interpreting bodily signals – a central foundation for emotional awareness in clinical work.
Course Start: August 2026
The course provides a concrete framework for better understanding how conversations can support movement from more distanced reasoning toward a more direct contact with emotional experiences. The aim is increased clarity, precision, and clinical confidence in therapeutic work. The course is fully online and designed to run in parallel with clinical practice.
The course runs over 6 weeks and you will receive:
weekly live online sessions focused on reflection and clinical application
course materials available via a personal digital account
the opportunity to work flexibly between sessions
access to the materials for 6 months
The structure is designed to support continuous deepening experience rather than isolated insights, making it possible to integrate the content directly into clinical practice throughout the 6-month access period.
For a more detailed course description, please see here.
Upcoming Courses
Theme: CARING
The ISTDP Therapist and Sustainability
This course stands out for its focused expertise on the daily realities of ISTPD therapists — an in-depth exploration of how the nature of your work (others’ suffering and change processes, short- and long-term therapeutic relationships, ethical dilemmas) shapes meaning, motivation, and professional sustainability.
This course takes a deep dive into the ISTDP therapist’s professional role and work conditions.
The Core of the Heart of Therapeutic Work
This courses takes broadened perspective as being an individual (also therapist) in organizational & societal systems and focuses of the many facets of caring. Based on research on relations, work processes, societal challenges and progress, we will learn about how caring and the act of caring is describe and researched in therapy, private relations, worklife, society and better understand the underlying motivations and the challenges to remain at equilibrium.
Theme: EMOTIONS
Beyond Core Affect: A Contemporary Perspective for ISTDP Therapists
This course offers an updated and broadened perspective on emotions, grounded in contemporary psychological research and relevant for Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy clinical practice.
While ISTDP has a strong focus on core affect, this course explores a wider range of emotional processes—including belonging, trust, and well-being—and their role in therapeutic change.
The course examines how emotions are shaped within relational, bodily, and contextual systems, and how these perspectives can deepen clinical understanding and intervention.
Participants will gain a more differentiated framework for working with emotional experience in therapy, supporting greater precision, flexibility, and depth in clinical work.
Montly Webinar
You are warmly invited to a monthly live webinar focused on clinical work in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy.
Each webinar centers around a specific theme relevant to therapeutic practice—for example, the role of language in therapy, current research on ISTDP, emotions etc, the concept of care (including care for both patient and therapist), and developments within ISTDP and related fields.
Each session includes a focused presentation followed by time for reflection and discussion.
Webinar: Start May 2026
The webinars offer a space to reflect on the moment-to-moment process in therapy, and the challenges and possibilities we encounter as therapists in our clinical work. The aim is to support perspective, clarity, and ongoing professional development
The monthly webinar runs for 1.5 hrs and will not be recorded as it is given free of charge.
Please sign up for the newsletter to receive future invitations.
Background
Why have I started Psychological Forum?
With Psychological Forum, I aim to integrate clinical practice, research, and teaching in ISTDP, with a focus on the mechanisms that shape therapeutic change. The intention is to make key clinical processes—such as language, attention, and interoceptive awareness—more explicit and practically usable in work with patients.
The overall aim is to support greater precision, depth, and clinical presence in psychotherapeutic practice.
Why this Course Design?
The courses follow principles of contemporary research on learning and professional education, linking theory, reflection, and clinical practice.
The format is designed to support both immediate application and sustained integration in real therapeutic work - to a wider circle of ISTDP practitionners.
The course catalogue will be presented here above as soon as courses are available for registration.
THE NEWSLETTER
Join the newsletter to receive selected reflections on clinical work, learning processes, and current research in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, with a focus on emotions and related topics.
Subscribers also receive early access to courses and webinars, occasional priority offers, and invitations to a monthly free webinar on different facets of ISTDP clinical work.
You will receive 1-2 newsletters per month. You are warmly welcome to sign up.
The Digital Platform of Psychological Forum
OUR SHARED PURPOSE
If you have questions, please feel free to mail me.
I have created this platform as a space for professional exchange in Intensive Short-Term I have created this platform as a space for professional exchange in ISTDP, where clinical experience is brought into dialogue with psychological research.
The community is intended for licensed healthcare professionals working clinically with ISTDP who are currently in core training or have completed it. This shared foundation helps support a focused and meaningful exchange.
Here, you are invited to engage in thoughtful discussion around therapeutic processes, challenges, and ongoing learning. You will also receive invitations to workshops, webinars, and events—some free of charge, others offered at a modest fee.
The intention is to foster a respectful and clinically grounded environment, where reflection, confidentiality, and professional standards are maintained.
You are warmly welcome to join. I will send invites in May.
Course Organizer
Maria Sandgren
Reg psychologist, PhD psychology,
cert ISTDP therapist
Links
Homepage (therapy): Psychological Forum
Blog (not active): Psychology & ISTDP
Google Scholar: Scientific articles
A Perspective on Learning and Development
In both my clinical work and teaching, learning is grounded in shared attention. When attention is directed and shared, impressions become more nuanced and experience more available for reflection and integration.
In this sense, teaching and psychotherapy are not primarily about the transmission of information, but about creating the conditions in which perception, understanding, and skills can develop through direct experience and enable desired change.
About me
I am a licensed psychologist with an additional PhD in psychology and have worked clinically in private practice since 1997. Alongside this, I have extensive experience teaching psychology at university level.
I am certified in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), with core training (2012–2015) with Allan Abbass and Jon Frederickson, and advanced training (2021–2022) with Allan Abbass and Joel Town.
My work is grounded in an integration of clinical practice and research in areas such as learning, language, emotion, social interaction, and stress and trauma. Particular focus is placed on how attention, language, and bodily awareness influence emotional processes in psychotherapy.
My research background includes music and political psychology, with a focus on personality, learning and development, as well as values as universal, motivational goals that act as guiding principles in a person's life. The most recent publication was an intervention study on choral singing and cognitive change in older adults, based on questionnaires, clinical tests, and neuroimaging.
I work in Swedish and English and am based in Stockholm.
In addition to my clinical and academic work, I am active in fine art photography and have published a photobook in which I explore psychological themes through visual expression, with a particular focus on care as a phenomenon in both private life and working life — following a personal loss.
(C) Maria Sandgren Psychological Forum Sweden 2026