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Course Information

AEDP’s Magnificent ‘9+1’ Affective Change Mechanisms: The Theory and Practice of AEDP Described and Presented Through the Lens of its Affective Change Mechanisms, One at a Time

This is a theory-forward clinical course presented by Diana Fosha, PhD, developer of AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) and founder and director of the AEDP Institute.

Twenty-one years after the publication of her 1st book, The Transforming Power of Affect, the book that launched AEDP, there is a new book that Diana Fosha and the faculty of the AEDP Institute like to refer to as the “AEDP 2.0.” book. The new book, which just came out in the summer of 2021, features the latest thinking on AEDP theory and practice; it is titled Undoing Aloneness & The Transformation of Suffering into Flourishing: AEDP 2.0 (APA, 2021). And the latest thinking in AEDP theory and practice, is, in essence, what this, Diana’s online 9 +1 course -with its focus on AEDP’s affective change processes- is about.

Naturally occurring, adaptive, affective change processes have always been at the heart of AEDP’s healing oriented, radically relational, transformational practice. In the 21 years between the two books, the clinical, practice-based theory of AEDP has grown. It has expanded, deepened and been put to the test hundreds of thousands of times in transformational moments between patients and us, their AEDP therapists, worldwide.

In addition, empirical research on the effectiveness of AEDP has also arrived on the scene. The need to systematize, codify and measure both outcome and process in AEDP therapy sessions has led to the development of a number of ‘AEDP Scales.’ Amongst them is what we have come to call “The Magnificent 9 +1 Affective Change Processes Scale,” developed by Diana Fosha and codified with her AEDP Research Team colleagues, Jennifer Edlin, MFT and Shigeru Iwakabe, PhD. This scale describes what makes AEDP AEDP, and attempts to capture what makes it effective for so many patients. These named and measurable AEDP affective change processes provide the scaffolding for exploring AEDP 2.0 theory and clinical practice in this online course that Diana is teaching.

Through assigned readings, didactic presentations, viewing video from Diana Fosha’s and her guest presenters’ actual clinical sessions, in class discussion (and optional study group and course listserv discussion), participants will deepen their understanding of the theory of AEDP, in a way that will add depth and precision to their clinical practice.

In a series of thirteen 3-hour online classes from October, 2021 – May, 2022, Diana will elaborate AEDP 2.0’s theory and clinical framework organized around AEDP’s Magnificent ‘9 + 1’ Affective Change Processes.

 

Presenter


Diana Fosha, PhD

Diana Fosha, PhD, is the developer of AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), a healing-based, transformation-oriented model of psychotherapeutic treatment; she is Founder and Director of the AEDP Institute. For the last 20 years, Diana has been active in promoting a scientific basis for a healing-oriented, attachment-emotion- and transformation-focused trauma treatment model. Fosha's work focuses on integrating neuroplasticity, recognition science and developmental dyadic research into experiential and transformational clinical work with patients. Her most recent work focuses on flourishing as a seamless part of the process of transforming emotional suffering.

Based in New York City, where she lives and practices, Fosha has been on the faculties of the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology of NYU and St. Luke’s/Roosevelt Medical Centers (now Mount Sinai) in NYC, and of the doctoral programs in clinical psychology at the Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies and The City University of New York.

She is the author of The Transforming Power of Affect: A Model for Accelerated Change (Basic Books, 2000); co-author, with Natasha Prenn, of Supervision Essentials for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (APA, 2016); 1st editor, with Dan Siegel and Marion Solomon, of The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice (Norton, 2009), and editor of the soon to be released AEDP 2.0: Undoing Aloneness and the Transformation of Suffering into Flourishing (APA, in press). The author of numerous articles on AEDP’s attachment-emotion-transformation focused experiential treatment model, she has contributed chapters to, among others, Clinical Pearls of Wisdom: 21 Leading Therapists Offer their Key Insights, edited by M. Kerman (Norton, 2009); Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders: An Evidence-Based Clinician’s Guide, edited by C. Courtois & J. D. Ford (Guilford, 2009); Healing Moments in Psychotherapy, edited by Dan Siegel and Marion Solomon (Norton, 2013); Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy: Accelerating Transformation, edited by Loizzo, Neale & Wolf (Norton, 2017), Moments of Meeting in Psychoanalysis: Interaction and Change in the Therapeutic Encounter, edited by Lord (Routledge: 2017) and The Comprehensive Handbook of Psychotherapy, Volume 1: Psychodynamic and Object Relations Therapies, edited by J. J. Magnavita (Wiley, 2002).

Four DVDs of her live AEDP clinical work, including one documenting a complete 6-session treatment, and one on clinical supervision, have been issued by the American Psychological Association (APA). Learn more and purchase here.

Described by psychoanalyst James Grotstein as a “prizefighter of intimacy,” and by David Malan as “the Winnicott of [accelerated experiential] psychotherapy,” Diana Fosha is known for her powerful, precise yet simultaneously poetic and evocative affective writing and presenting style. Diana’s phrases — “undoing aloneness,” “existing in the heart and mind of the other,” “True Other,” “make the implicit explicit and the explicit experiential,” “stay with it and stay with me,” “rigor without shame” and “judicious self-disclosure” — capture the ethos of AEDP.

Watch Diana's Trusting Vitality video here.

 

What to Expect in the Thirteen Sessions

READING: In addition to attending all 13 live sessions, course participants will be expected to complete readings. Please note: There is a lot of reading.

READING GROUPS and COURSE LISTSERV: Not required, but we strongly suggest that participants meet with a “reading group” in the off weeks. Reading groups will not be monitored and there are no CE’s given for this time. Participants will be asked to form and maintain reading groups largely on their own. The course will have its own listserv for additional course discussion and for communicating needs around meeting with reading groups.

Topics and format of each Session

Each session will consist of a mix of (i) didactic presentation and discussion of the readings; (ii) showing and discussing clinical tape relevant to that topic; and integrative discussions with fellow AEDPers, some in breakout rooms and some led by Diana in the main room.

Session 1: Course Introduction: “We are organized to be better than fine” Transformational studies, affective change processes & AEDP’s transformational theory

Session 2: Transformance Detection & Affirmation: Healing from the Get-Go or Putting Positive Neuroplasticity into Clinical Action

Session 3: Recognition: The Process and Experience: “I see you” and feeling seen

Session 4: Undoing Aloneness: The Attachment Strand & the Intersubjective Strand or Attachment Sprinkled with Intersubjective Delight; Affirmation & Emotional Engagement; Dyadic Affect Regulation: Stay with It and Stay with Me:

Session 5: Affirmative Work with Defenses and the Updated (2020 version) of AEDP’s Representational Schemas

Session 6: Anxiety Regulation:  Working to Regulate Dysregulated Experience

Session 7: Relational Processing to Rewire the Internal Working Model; Relational Work with Receptive Affective Experience

Session 8: Emotion Processing & Work with Adaptive Core Affective Experiences : Portrayals and Work with the Trauma of Oppression

Session 9: Agency will and desire as core affective experiences

Session 10:      Trauma Processing and Work with the Maladaptive Affective Experiences, i.e, the Pathogenic Affects & the Unbearable States of Traumatic Aloneness

Session 11:    Metatherapeutic Processing: Privileging Emergence of the New (and Good) Experience: The Transformational Affects; The Broaden and Build Theory of Emotion; Bringing About In-Session Flourishing; Setting the Upward Spiral in Motion

Session 12:    The Neurobiological Core Self, I/Thou Relating and Core State: “This is Me:” Integration and the Creation of New Meaning; Re-writing One’s Autobiographical Story

Session 13:    The “+1” Unmasked: The Spirit of AEDP