The Transforming Power of Affect: A Model for Accelerated Change

Affect over drives2

Affects, not unconscious drives, are central; psychopathology reflects a compromised capacity to process affect.

Anxiety, shame and aloneness2

Fosha writes that “so much pathology is the result of anxiety and shame and aloneness”.

Empathy, not neutrality1

Change comes from the therapist's explicit empathy and radical engagement, drawing out the patient's own healing affects.

Theory as well as technique1

The publisher calls it the first accelerated psychodynamic model to make the why as important as the how.

Moment-by-moment tracking2

The therapist searches for the patient's affects and, on finding them, slows down to explore them at length.

Self-disclosure to reach the patient2

The therapist says how the patient lives in her heart and mind, then asks how the patient feels about that.

Three representational schemas2

A triangle of conflict, a self-other-emotion triangle and a triangle of comparison, with self at best and self at worst.

Roots4

Built on short-term dynamic therapy, especially Davanloo's, but replacing its confrontation with empathy.

How long is brief?2

Psychoanalyst James Grotstein could not find what the time limit of the therapy is or how it is set.

Narrow psychoanalytic references2

He also noted it cites self psychology and relational writers but not Klein or Bion.

Seduction or technique?2

Grotstein wondered whether the therapist's affirming self-disclosure works partly as seduction and coercion, while finding it effective.

Dense2

He found it over-rich in material and at times overwhelming to read.

Undoing Aloneness and the Transformation of Suffering Into Flourishing

The 2021 update, AEDP 2.0, by Fosha and colleagues.

Supervision Essentials for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy

How AEDP is taught, with a concise account of where it came from.

AEDP

The approach page here.