Diana Fosha

Education and career

Fosha was born in Bucharest, but her family emigrated to the United States when she was 12 years old, settling in New York. She studied psychology at Barnard College and then went on to complete a doctorate in clinical psychology at the City College of New York. She also undertook post-doctoral training with Habib Davanloo, the developer of a form of psychodynamic psychotherapy called intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy.

In her early career Fosha held teaching positions at the City University of New York and Adelphi University. She was also an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital, and was on the faculty of New York University and the St. Luke's–Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy

Fosha developed a theory and technique of psychotherapy, AEDP, based upon several conceptual premises as points of departure from the prevailing psychodynamic psychotherapies. Her theory of how healing occurs in psychotherapy derives from her interpretation of research findings in several areas: the neuroscience of attachment, caregiver–infant interaction research, positive psychology, emotion research, psychotherapy research findings on therapist qualities associated with positive therapy outcomes, and phenomenology of the psychological experience of sudden change.

Her core premise is that the desire to heal and grow is a wired-in capacity, which she calls the transformance drive, and that healing change must derive from this innate resiliency. Emotional healing and brain re-wiring occur as the patient forms a new experience of a secure attachment relationship to the therapist, and the therapist helps the patient to experience emotions that, in the past, have been too overwhelming. Healing is accelerated through a tracking of emerging affect, so the patient can have a complete emotional experience, and then reflect upon the experience of healing change itself, with the help of the therapist,. Fosha terms this technique meta-therapeutic processing. This repeated and prolonged amplification of the experience of change has been called one of AEDP's "unique" contributions to the psychotherapy literature.

The AEDP Institute was formed in New York City in 2004. The Institute has satellite institutes throughout the US, and in Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, Israel, China, and Japan.

Selected bibliography

Books

• Fosha, D. (2000). The Transforming Power of Affect: A Model For Accelerated Change. Basic Books
• Fosha, D, Siegel,D., Solomon M., ads. (2009). The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Book chapters

• Fosha, D. (2000). Meta-therapeutic processes and the affects of transformation: Affirmation and the healing affects. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration. 10, 71-97.
• Fosha, D. (2002). The activation of affective change processes in AEDP. In J. J. Magnavita (Ed.). Comprehensive Handbook of Psychotherapy. Vol. 1: Psychodynamic and Object Relations Psychotherapies New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Fosha, D. (2003). Dyadic Regulation and Experiential Work with Emotion and Relatedness in Trauma and Disordered Attachment. In M. F. Solomon & D. J. Siegel (Eds.). Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body, and Brain. New York: Norton.
• Fosha D. (2009). Emotion and recognition at work: Energy, vitality, pleasure, truth, desire & the emergent phenomenology of transformational experience. In D. Fosha, D. J. Siegel & M. F. Solomon (Eds.), The healing power of emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development, Clinical Practice (pp. 172-203). New York: Norton.

Articles

• Fosha, D. (2001). The dyadic regulation of affect. Journal of Clinical Psychology/In Session. 57 (2), 227-242.
• Fosha, D. (2004). "Nothing that feels bad is ever the last step": The role of positive emotions in experiential work with difficult emotional experiences. Special issue on Emotion, L. Greenberg (Ed.). Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy. 11, 30-43.
• Fosha, D. (2005). Emotion, true self, true other, core state: toward a clinical theory of affective change process. Psychoanalytic Review. 92 (4), 513-552.
• Fosha D. (2009). Emotion and recognition at work: energy, vitality, pleasure, truth, desire & the emergent phenomenology of transformational experience. In D. Fosha, D. J. Siegel & M. F. Solomon (Eds.), The healing power of emotion: Affective neuroscience, development, clinical practice (pp. 172-203). New York: Norton. Also reprinted in The Neuropsychotherapist. Jul/Sep 2013 (2), 28-51. www.theneuropsychotherapist.com