Guilt: From Reparation to Self-Punishment
Guilt is a fundamental, adaptive relational emotion. In its healthy form, it helps us recognize when we have hurt someone, take responsibility, repair, and preserve important relationships.
Developmental research and psychodynamic traditions alike point to this reparative function. In the Kleinian tradition, guilt is closely linked with love, care and reparation: the capacity to remain connected to a loved person while tolerating the aggression, grief, and longing that may coexist within the same relationship.
The clinical problem begins when guilt becomes too difficult to experience and integrate. Instead of supporting repair, it may become organized around shame, self-criticism, inhibition, self-punishment, loss of agency, or self-sabotage.
When Guilt Becomes Too Difficult to Bear
When guilt becomes too difficult to bear, what we often encounter in treatment is not the guilt itself but the defensive organization around it, which redirects it inwards – as self-criticism, inhibition, passivity, self-punishment, loss of agency, or retreat from change. The guilt, and the conflicting feelings surrounding it, may remain only partly conscious.
Guilt rarely exists in isolation. It may emerge together with rage, grief, and the wish for closeness and love. When this emotional constellation becomes difficult to bear, guilt can become part of a dynamic sequence of feeling, anxiety, and defense – and its reparative function may be replaced by self-punishment.
This raises a central clinical question: when is guilt supporting responsibility and reparation – and when has it become organized around self-punishment?
From Self-Punishment Back to Reparation
The therapist’s task is not simply to reduce guilt. First, we need to understand the emotional constellation in which it developed: what function the guilt served, what relationship it helped preserve, what feelings surround it, and how this organization became reinforced over time.
In experiential dynamic work, this means following guilt through the Triangle of Conflict and the Triangle of Person: identifying the feelings involved, the anxiety they evoke, the defenses that organize around them, and the relationships in which this pattern was formed and is now repeated.
Therapeutic work then involves helping the patient come into contact with guilt and the emotions surrounding it – without collapsing into shame, self-attack, or punishment. As guilt becomes more tolerable and integrated, it can recover its adaptive function: supporting responsibility, reparation, connection, and greater freedom to act.
The aim is not to eliminate guilt, but to help transform it from something the patient must suffer into something the patient can feel, understand, and use for repair.
Clinical Work: How the Seminar Unfolds
5 hours moving between developmental and psychodynamic theory, contemporary research, and moment-to-moment experiential dynamic practice:
- Theoretical explanation: exploring the developmental origins of guilt and its adaptive vs. maladaptive functions.
- Video analysis: using video material from real psychotherapy sessions, we will examine how guilt becomes visible in the clinical process – how it interacts with other feelings, anxiety, and defenses; how self-punitive patterns are maintained; and how interventions can help restore a more adaptive emotional process.
- Experiential practice: small-group experiential practice will provide an opportunity to translate these formulations into clinical work.
adaptive guilt → emotional conflict → defensive/self-punitive organization → therapeutic restoration of reparation.
About the “Working with Emotion in EDT” Series
“Working with Emotion in Experiential Dynamic Therapy” is an EDT Core international seminar series devoted to the in-depth study of specific emotions through four perspectives:
developmental origins → relational meaning → dynamic organization → clinical intervention.
Each seminar integrates contemporary research, psychodynamic and experiential dynamic theory, clinical video, and experiential practice.
Who Is It For?
This seminar is for therapists who want to deepen their work with guilt, shame, self-criticism and self-sabotage – and gain practical clinical tools for working with barriers to change.
- Clinical psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Clinical social workers
- Arts therapists with psychotherapy training
Dr. Ferruccio Osimo
Lead Trainer and Senior Clinical Advisor, EDT Core. A psychiatrist, researcher and pioneer of EDT worldwide, founding president of the IEDTA. A student of Dr. Habib Davanloo and developer of the IE-DP model, which places the “Real Relationship” at the heart of the therapeutic encounter. With over 40 years of experience training therapists across Europe, the USA and Israel, Dr. Osimo provides senior clinical supervision in developing this seminar and will participate in the live event.
Yoram Reuveni, MSW
EDT Teacher and founder of EDT Core. A psychotherapist, clinical social worker and certified EDT teacher and supervisor (IEDTA), Yoram develops and leads this seminar and will be the primary presenter and facilitator, bringing over 25 years of clinical experience in therapy, supervision and professional training.
Yair Braun – Clinical Psychologist, Training Staff
Clinical psychologist and supervisor, specialising in Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy (EDT) and Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP). Yair contributes to the clinical development of the seminar, reviews the material and provides ongoing feedback, and will participate in the live seminar.
Cost & Registration
- Early Bird: $130 (until November 1, 2026)
- Regular: $150
- Group discounts for 3 or more participants and partial scholarships are available.
Upon registration, a link to complete the privacy declaration will be sent to your email. The Zoom link will be sent closer to the seminar date, only after payment has been processed and the form has been completed.
Contact: etrrog.edt@gmail.com | machon.etrrog@gmail.com | WhatsApp: +972-54-481-6228
What do therapists say about this approach?
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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
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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)
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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
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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
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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)
Register for the seminar
Frequently Asked Questions
In what language will the seminar be held?
The seminar will be held in English, with Zoom auto-generated subtitles.
How much does it cost?
Early Bird: $130 (until November 1, 2026). Regular: $150. Group discounts for 3 or more participants and partial scholarships are available — contact us via email etrrog.edt@gmail.com or WhatsApp +972-54-481-6228.
How do I receive the Zoom link?
Upon registration, a link to complete the privacy declaration will be sent to your email. The Zoom link will be sent closer to the seminar date, only after payment has been processed and the form has been completed.
Is this seminar part of the training program?
This seminar is part of the EDT Israel training program led by Dr. Osimo, and it is also open to therapists who are not enrolled in the training program.