BRIEF ST-INSPIRED INTERVENTIONS:
WORKING WITH NEEDS IN A MODULAR WAY
Prof. Eshkol Rafaeli, PhD
Rome, 22 November 2025 – 02.00 pm – 05.30 pm
The Workshop will be held Saturday 22nd November 02.00 pm – 05.30 pm in presence in Rome at Roma Scout Center – Largo dello Scautismo n. 1, 00162, Rome (Italy)
THE WORKSHOP
In a period of global crisis and unrest, the gap between the need for mental health treatments and their availability is wide and widening. Efforts to create focused, tailored, and personalized solutions have often emphasized diagnostic categories and protocol-driven, diagnosis-specific care.
In recent years, however, the limitations of this approach are increasingly recognized, along with the high prevalence of comorbidities, the utility of transdiagnostic work, and the use of unified protocols that are actually less personalized.
An alternative way to go involves process-based therapy (see Hayes & Hofmann, 2021) – which shifts the focus from symptom-reduction to identifying and addressing the underlying processes whose disruption causes symptoms.
In this workshop, I will focus on how schema therapy (ST) is an approach which has always called for exactly such process-based work.
ST’s theory centers on psychological needs, and its integrative treatment approach guides clinicians in the pragmatic use of diverse emotion-focused, cognitive, behavioral, and relational tools to address these needs.
The workshop will briefly review the rationale for process-based approaches in general, and then delve into a set of ideas and tools for process-based work which brings ST ideas into the realm of focused (and often brief and modular) interventions for anxiety and related disorders. I will provide an overview of this model, currently being researched jointly at Bar-Ilan University and UC Berkeley, and will devote the majority of the time to learning and practicing the therapeutic tools it provides.
No registration fees for ISST members, SITCC members and Presenters
Participants are responsible for covering their ISST or SITCC membership fees, as well as, their own accommodation and travel expenses.
For other participants (No ISST or SITCC members) there is a registration fee of 50,00 euros vat included.
Prof. Eshkol Rafaeli, PhD
Eshkol Rafaeli, PhD, is a professor of clinical psychology, the director of clinical training, and the head of the Psychology Department Community Clinic’s steering committee at Bar-Ilan University, where he is also a member of the Gonda Neuroscience Center which is home to his Affect and Relationships Lab. Eshkol received his undergraduate training at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his PhD at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He completed a one-year fellowship at McLean Hospital (Harvard Medical School), followed by a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at NYU. In 2003, he established the Affect and Relationships Lab – first, at Barnard College, Columbia University, and six years later relocated the lab to Bar-Ilan University.
Eshkol has published over 100 scholarly articles and chapters, and co-authored one book (Rafaeli, Bernstein, & Young’s Distinctive Features of Schema Therapy; Routledge, 2010). With projects funded by the NIMH, ISF, BSF, the Templeton Foundation, the Hope & Optimism Initiative, and others, Eshkol examines the nature and structure of moods and emotions in the daily lives of both distressed and non-distressed individuals and couples. His lab also conducts psychotherapy/intervention studies; at present, these involve a treatment personalization study of single session interventions (funded by a Binational Science Foundation collaborative grant with colleagues at UC-Berkeley) and a study examining mode change surrounding brief imagery-based CBT for anxiety (funded by an Israeli Science Foundation grant, as well as a collaboration with colleagues at Trier University in Germany).
*On November 21-22nd, before the Prof. Rafaeli’s Workshop, there will be the SCHEMA THERAPY RESEARCH MEETING, with a separate registration form. For info and registration for the SCHEMA THERAPY RESEARCH MEETING CLICK HERE
The Workshop will be held Saturday 22nd November 02.00 pm – 05.30 pm in presence in Rome at Roma Scout Center – Largo dello Scautismo n. 1, 00162, Rome (IT)
No registration fees for ISST members, SITCC members and Presenters
Participants are responsible for covering their ISST or SITCC membership fees, as well as, their own accommodation and travel expenses.
For other participants (No ISST or SITCC members) there is a registration fee of 50,00 euros vat included.
ORGANIZING COMMITEE:
- SPC srl – Scuola di Psicoterapia Cognitiva
- IAST – Italian Academy of Schema Therapy
CONTACTS: info@iastitalia.it – +393473566781
