West Coast Canada Institute for ISTDP

“The Resistance of the Primitive Brain: Contrasting Freud, Jung and Davanloo’s Approach to Instinct with Findings from Modern Research”

Robert J. Neborsky, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Del Mar, California, and a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSD School of Medicine as well as UCLA School of Medicine (Hon).  He is member of the Board of Directors and Vice President of the International Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy Association.  He was a founding member on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (Wiley). He is currently guest editor of the Ad Hoc Bulletin of Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy. In 2003, Dr. Neborsky was honored by the UCLA School of Medicine clinical faculty association as the Distinguished Psychiatric Lecturer of the year for 2002 .In 2003 he was one of the founders of the Southern California Society for IS-TDP and was elected as president of the society. In 2008 he was appointed a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Dr. Neborsky attended the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he won the Jacob Finesinger Award in Psychiatry.  He served his residency at Emory University School of Medicine where he earned the Hope Skobba Memorial Award.  He served in the United States Navy as Director of In-Patient Psychiatry at Balboa Naval Hospital.  From there he joined the full-time faculty of UCSD School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in charge of emergency services and the medical student clerkship. He briefly served as the Director for all undergraduate education in psychiatry. Along with David Janowsky as co-author, he published significant research on the treatment of acute psychosis with high-dose/low-dose haloperidol, and wrote articles on the combined use of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy in the treatment of depression.  In 1981, while training with Dr. Habib Davanloo, he co-founded the San Diego Institute for Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy.  In 2001, he co-authored Short-Term Therapy for Long Term Change (Norton) and is a contributing author in the 2003 book, Healing Trauma (Norton).

Dr. Neborsky’s professional activities include treating patients, training students in the techniques of Attachment-Based variety of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (IS-TDP), presenting at local, national and international symposia, leading three core training groups and writing a textbook book on AB-ISTDP with Josette ten Have de Labije: Roadmap to the Unconscious (Karnac 2010). He is actively researching the interface between attachment theory and psychotherapy.