Designed for licensed mental health professionals, this prestigious 3-year Core Training offers a highly effective, research-based pathway to clinical mastery.
Officially certified by the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (IEDTA)—and widely regarded globally as the “gold standard” of EDT education—the program equips psychotherapists with profound theoretical knowledge and precision-based clinical tools to safely remove emotional blocks, resolve complex treatment resistance, and facilitate deep, lasting character change.
Training Dates
| 2026 | 2027 | 2028 |
|---|---|---|
| February 22,25 , March 2 | February | |
| June 14, 17, 22 | June | |
| November 30, December 1-2 | October-November | October |
- November 30, December 1-2
- February 22,25 , March 2
- June 14, 17, 22
- October-November
- February
- June
- October
A Unique Therapeutic Synergy: Expanding the Horizons of Classical ISTDP
While classical Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) provides a highly precise and robust metapsychological foundation for understanding the unconscious, our Core Training program expands upon these therapeutic possibilities. We respectfully build upon ISTDP by offering a unique and highly evolved integration of two complementary paradigms, led by one of the field’s foremost pioneers, Dr. Ferruccio Osimo. This integration develops ISTDP further, creating new pathways to generate profound emotional uniqueness through the overarching IE-DP model and targeted Micro-Analytical Interventions.
Core Faculty: A Synergistic Co-Leading Model
Our program is driven by a synergistic co-leading faculty model, combining pioneering theoretical authority with masterful clinical application and grounded supervision. Mirroring the structure of the world’s most elite ISTDP and EDT programs, this co-led model provides participants with the rare advantage of learning from two distinct, complementary therapeutic styles—blending visionary theory with surgical clinical application.
Dr. Ferruccio Osimo, MD – Lead Instructor, Founder of IE-DP & Past President of IEDTA
Dr. Osimo is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and the supreme professional authority in this training program. As the founding visionary of the IE-DP model and the founding president of the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (IEDTA), Dr. Osimo has spent over 40 years shaping the global landscape of Experiential Dynamic Therapies. Having trained directly with Dr. David Malan and Dr. Habib Davanloo, his extensive research and clinical practice emphasize the healing power of the real human connection. Dr. Osimo brings unparalleled depth, theoretical mastery, and relational wisdom to the training, defining the core architecture of the clinical work and providing the overarching vision for the program.
Yoram Reuveni, M.S.W. – Co-Lead Instructor & Clinical Director
Yoram Reuveni is an IEDTA-certified EDT teacher and supervisor, a clinical social worker, and a psychotherapist with over 25 years of rich clinical and supervisory experience. As the director of the “Etrog Moshe” Center, Yoram serves as an integral co-instructor, bringing immense practical value and clinical sharpness to the program. Earning the profound trust, professional endorsement, and full recognition of Dr. Osimo, Yoram bridges the critical gap between grand theory and clinical reality. His unique instructional strength lies in translating the IE-DP framework into micro-analytical, practical tools. He provides trainees with clear roadmaps for navigating therapeutic impasses, regulating physiological anxiety, and applying experiential-dynamic principles seamlessly in daily practice.
What You Will Gain: The Clinical Toolkit
Graduates of this program experience a fundamental paradigm shift in their clinical confidence and therapeutic efficacy. By the end of this 3-year journey, you will be equipped to:
- Read the Unconscious in Real-Time: Identify precisely when a patient is experiencing true core affect versus when they are deploying tactical or characterological defenses.
- Regulate Anxiety Effectively: Assess the patient’s physiological anxiety pathways (striated muscle, smooth muscle, cognitive-perceptual disruption) and apply tailored interventions to build ego adaptive capacity before proceeding with deep exploratory work.
- Restructure Rigid Defenses: Challenge treatment-destructive mechanisms compassionately but firmly, preventing the patient from shutting down and facilitating the emergence of a strong, collaborative Unconscious Therapeutic Alliance.
- Unlock Emotional Trauma: Safely guide patients through “emotional breakthroughs,” employing emotional maieutics to allow them to profoundly experience and process historically avoided feelings, grief, and attachment trauma.
- Prevent Therapist Burnout: Replace therapeutic stagnation, exhaustion, and uncertainty with a clear, reliable clinical roadmap. You will be able to treat severe depression, OCD, addictions, and treatment-resistant anxiety with added clarity and conviction.
Comprehensive 3-Year Curriculum Structure
Year 1: Foundations of ?IE-DP/EDT? and Psychodiagnosis
The first year focuses on establishing the theoretical groundwork and developing the therapist’s capacity to observe clinical phenomena accurately.
- Metapsychology of Experiential Dynamic Therapy and integration with Attachment Theory.
- Understanding the Triangle of Conflict (Defense, Anxiety, Hidden Feeling) and the Triangle of Person (Current, Past, Transference).
- Psychodiagnosis: Assessing anxiety pathways and defense mechanisms.
- Establishing the Conscious and Unconscious Working Alliance.
- Evaluating and restructuring ego adaptive capacity.
- Introduction to micro-analytical observation of patient cues.
Year 2: Micro-Analytical Interventions and Ego Restructuring
The second year shifts towards active intervention, focusing on the tactical application of the 9 Therapeutic Ingredients.
- Mastering the Central Dynamic Sequence and the roadmap to the unconscious.
- Restructuring Ego Adaptive Capacity: Tailoring the IE-DP protocol to the patient’s specific anxiety tolerance.
- Working with fragile character structures and complex relational defenses.
- The application of Pressure, Clarification, and Challenge within a highly relational, non-punitive framework.
- Regulating severe anxiety (smooth muscle/cognitive disruption) in real-time.
- Active Mirroring and addressing the Real Relationship in the room.
Year 3: Complex Presentations and Emotional Maieutics
The final year consolidates skills, enabling therapists to handle highly resistant or severely traumatized patients, leading to profound emotional unlocking and integration.
- Applying IE-DP to complex presentations (severe trauma, PTSD, somatization).
- Emotional Maieutics: The art of safely midwifing deeply buried emotional pain and rage.
- Working through emotional breakthroughs and facilitating cognitive-affective integration.
- Consolidation, termination, and follow-up strategies.
- Final trainee presentations demonstrating successful implementation of the IE-DP framework.
Training Methodology & Schedule
In strict accordance with IEDTA international standards, this program prioritizes experiential, video-based learning over traditional didactic lectures. The structure accommodates the schedules of active clinicians while ensuring continuous, immersive development.
Duration & Format
The Core Training spans 3-4 years, comprising a total of 36 comprehensive training days delivered through a highly engaging hybrid model. The number of trainees in the learning group is a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 15.
Intensive Training Blocks
The academic year is built around 3 independent training blocks (e.g. February , June, October). Each block consists of 3 intensive learning days combining theoretical teaching, clinical demonstrations by the faculty, and in-depth supervision of trainee videos.
Video-Based Clinical Supervision
The sine qua non of EDT training. Participants are required to present video recordings of their own psychotherapy sessions. Each trainee receives highly personalized, micro-analytical feedback from Dr. Osimo and Mr. Reuveni, turning routine clinical work into an accelerated learning laboratory.
Monthly Learning Group Supervision & Didactic Seminars
To maintain learning momentum and clinical sharpness between the intensive blocks, trainees participate in monthly online Zoom sessions with Yoram Reuveni (held on the first Wednesday of each month, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Israel time – Time adjustments may be made according to the needs and composition of International students). These meetings focus on reviewing video segments, deliberate practice, simulations, and discussing the integration of EDT principles into active caseloads. This continuous support framework is a distinct advantage of our program, specifically designed to safeguard against the isolation and “new-learner shame” that can occur between intensive training blocks, ensuring practitioners feel confident applying the method in real-time.
Modular Flexibility
Recognizing the dynamic nature of professional life, the training blocks are structured as semi-independent learning units. While the continuous 3-4 year trajectory is necessary for official certification, participants have the flexibility to enter the cohort at specific block intervals or defer a block to a subsequent year if scheduling conflicts arise, without forfeiting their ultimate path to graduation.
IEDTA Certification and Global Recognition
This program is officially recognized and certified by the International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (IEDTA), the global professional organization dedicated to the development, rigorous training, and dissemination of evidence-based psychodynamic approaches.
To satisfy IEDTA certification requirements, participants must complete the continuous training cycle, which encompasses a minimum of 80 hours of video-based didactic teaching and at least 15 hours of individual, video-based supervision on their own clinical cases. Upon successful completion of all required modules and a final clinical presentation, graduates will receive an internationally recognized certificate as an IEDTA-Certified EDT Therapist. Graduation also grants access to a vibrant, lifelong global community of experts, advanced masterclasses, and ongoing peer supervision networks across Europe, North America, and beyond.
-
The tools I acquired in this approach allow me as a therapist to work in a focused yet thorough manner on the person’s goals. The approach emphasizes identifying emotions beneath the patient’s defenses, which helps them cope with complex emotions and situations in their lives much better than before, thereby improving their quality of life.
Shira Gurevitz
Social Worker, MSW
-
If I were to go back to the time when I headed the psychology program, I would make sure to incorporate this training as an integral part of the curriculum for clinical psychologists in general. In my eyes, this is an essential method that therapists must know in order to provide precise, effective therapy that truly brings about change.
Dr. Joop Meijers
Clinical Psychologist and Experiential-Psychodynamic Therapist, PhD in Psychology from the University of Amsterdam, Certified Supervisor in Psychotherapy and Psychodiagnostics, Former Head of the Child Clinical Psychology Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Chairman of the Israeli Association for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (ITA)
-
EDT is an approach that does not allow the patient to hide behind their usual defense mechanisms. It helps us as therapists distinguish exactly when genuine emotional change occurs and when therapy gets stuck – and to know how to respond to lead the process forward.
Efrat Gabay
Psychologist, CBT Therapist, Mindfulness Instructor
-
I had a rich ‘buffet’ of theories about the mind, but when I closed the clinic door and sat down with a patient, I felt something was missing. I had a lot of ingredients, but I didn’t have a unifying model to tell me how to actually work with all of it in practice, in real time.
Or Nelkenbaum
Integrative Psychotherapist
-
The experiential dynamic therapy approach (EDT) has greatly improved the efficacy of my work with my patients. It teaches me to set, together with the patient, goals with an internal psychological focus, to identify and accelerate the dynamic process from moment to moment, to strengthen the therapeutic alliance, and to allow the patient deep contact with blocked emotions behind defenses whose price is too high.
Ehud Helek
Expert Clinical Psychologist, Supervisor in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Experiential Dynamic Therapy (EDT)
Admission Requirements & Application Process
Who Should Apply?
This advanced certificate program is exclusively designed for licensed, registered, or license-eligible mental health professionals seeking to elevate their clinical practice, including:
- Clinical Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Clinical Social Workers
- Psychotherapists and Art Therapists with advanced psychotherapeutic training
Prerequisites for Admission:
- Professional Licensure: Proof of current registration with a recognized professional regulatory body in your jurisdiction.
- Commitment to Video Recording: A mandatory requirement for all IEDTA core trainings. Applicants must possess the ability, ethical framework, and willingness to video-record their clinical sessions (with documented, informed patient consent) for the purpose of supervision and professional development.
- Motivation and Mindset: A strong desire to engage in experiential learning, openness to receiving direct, constructive feedback on clinical work, and a profound commitment to mastering an intensive, emotion-focused modality.
Application Steps:
- Submit the Application Form: Provide your professional credentials, curriculum vitae, and a brief statement of interest detailing your clinical background and motivation for learning IE-DP.
- Professional Interview: Eligible candidates will be invited to an informal interview with the training directors to ensure the program aligns with their professional goals and expectations.
- Enrollment: Upon acceptance, participants will receive preliminary reading materials and technical guidelines for video recording in preparation for the first training block.
Join the Next Cohort
Do not settle for therapeutic stagnation. Equip yourself with the most profound, precise, and effective tools in modern psychotherapy. Join a global community dedicated to transformational change.
Registration and More Info:
Frequently Asked Questions
In what language is the training conducted?
All primary didactic lectures, theoretical presentations, and supervisions are conducted in English. A functional proficiency in English is required. However, trainees presenting video materials in other languages (such as Hebrew and other) will be fully accommodated ensuring a seamless and deep supervisory experience regardless of the patient’s native tongue.
Do I have to commit to all three years upfront?
While IEDTA certification requires the completion of the full 3-year curriculum (totaling 36 training days), we understand that this is a significant professional commitment. Prospective students have the option to register for a single “Introductory Block” (3 days) or a designated trial day. This allows you to experience the teaching style, witness video demonstrations of the EDT training model in action, and gauge the fit before committing to the comprehensive 3-year track.
What level of prior psychodynamic experience is required?
While a foundational understanding of psychodynamic concepts and basic familiarity with the EDT framework are required, the curriculum is meticulously designed to solidify this knowledge in Year 1 before advancing to highly complex interventions in Years 2 and 3. Beyond this baseline, the most critical prerequisites remain clinical curiosity, emotional resilience, and the willingness to engage in deliberate practice via video supervision.
Is support available outside of the intensive blocks?
Absolutely. We view our trainees as part of an ongoing clinical community. In addition to the monthly Zoom supervisory study groups led by Yoram Reuveni, participants have access to a professional consultation line for urgent clinical queries, peer-led reading and supervision groups, and ongoing mentorship from the faculty.
What is the tuition structure?
The cost for a full training year is €1,800 (approximately €600 per 3-day block). Payment plans and specific terms will be provided upon successful admission to the program.