In her private practice, Dr. Diamond conducts psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with adults, adolescents, and couples both in person and through teleconference. Diamond treats patients with symptoms of anxiety and depression and at varying levels of personality organization, from high functioning to borderline. Her therapeutic work is based on a psychodynamic object relations approach that combines psychoanalytic theory, attachment theory, and affective neuroscience. The major focus of this form of therapy is on identifying and modulating the maladaptive perceptions of self and others and the extreme feelings linked to them as they are experienced in the relationship with the therapist. From an object relations perspective, it is the underlying distorted mental representations that often fuel the difficulties with self-esteem and emotion regulation, symptoms of anxiety and depression, the internal distress and conflict, and the difficulties with intimacy and/or unsatisfying relationships that bring individuals to treatment. The difficulties with self and interpersonal functioning that patients bring to treatment may be relatively mild to more severe, and the treatment approach is modified accordingly.
Personality Disorders: Borderline and Narcissistic Disorders
For the past 30 years, Dr. Diamond has worked to advance the theory, research, and treatment of personality disorders with a particular emphasis on narcissistic and borderline disorders. Along with her colleagues at the Personality Disorders Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. Diamond has helped to develop Transference Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) for borderline and narcissistic disorders (TFP-N) (see the website of the International Society for Transference Focused Psychotherapy www.istfp.org). The goal of TFP is to identify the internal self and object representations that organize the person’s experience of themself and others. By exploring these relational patterns as they emerge in the therapeutic relationship, the patient learns to identify, reflect on, and modify their often distorted working models of self and their often dysregulating affects, which underlie their symptoms and difficulties with identity, lack of goal direction, and turbulent and/or unsatisfying relationships. These affectively charged perceptions of self and others, which may be expressed in the patient’s interactions with the therapist or in descriptions of current interpersonal relationships, are the focus of therapy. Over time, as the extreme affects are tempered and polarized representations of self and others are gradually modified and integrated, experiences of self and others coalesce, leading to identity integration and greater capacity for love and work.
Dr. Diamond currently teaches, lectures, and supervises both TFP and TFP-N internationally, and has participated in establishing training programs in several sites in North America (New York, Los Angeles and Boston) and in Europe (The Psychiatric Institute, London and University of Milan, Italy). As a result of these training programs, several independent TFP centers have been established, with a direct impact on public health policy. For example, TFP is now recognized as an evidence-based treatment in the National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K. In addition to her teaching and supervision, Dr. Diamond has authored or co-authored numerous articles (over 40 peer-reviewed papers and 30 book chapters) on the theory, research, and treatment of patients with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders.
Publications & Teaching
Books:
Koenigsberg, H., Kernberg, O., Appelbaum, A., Stone, M., Yeomans, F. & Diamond, D. (2000). Borderline Patients: Extending the Limits of Treatability. New York: Basic Books.
Book Chapters:
Diamond, D., Clarkin, J.F, Levy, K.N., Meehan, K.B., Cain, N.M., Kernberg, O.F., Yeomans, F., & Stern, B. (2018). Change in attachment and reflective function in borderline patients with and without co-morbid narcissistic personality disorder in Transference Focused Psychotherapy. In A. Fossati & S. Barroni (Eds), Il narcisismo patologico: Aspetti clinici e forensic [Pathological Narcissism, clinical and forensic issues] (pp. 49-79). Milan: Raffaello Cortina
Graf, E, & Diamond, D (2018). The significance of three evidence based psychoanalytic psychotherapies on psychoanalytic research, psychoanalytic theory and practice. In S.D. Axelrod, R. C. Naso & L.M. Rosenberg, Progress in psychoanalysis (pp. 147-172). London & New York: Routledge.
Diamond, D. & Blatt, S. J. (2016). The attachment patterns of therapists: Impact on treatment alliance, therapeutic process and outcome. In L. Gunsberg & S. G. Hershberg (Eds.), Psychoanalytic theory, research, and clinical practice: Reading Joseph D. Lichtenberg (pp. 237-249). London & New York: Routledge.
Stern, B.L., Yeomans, F., Diamond, D., & Kernberg, O.F. (2012). Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) for narcissistic personality disorder. In J. S. Ogrodniczuk (Ed.), Understanding and treating narcissistic personality disorder (pp. 235 – 252). Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Diamond, D., Yeomans, F.E., and Levy, K. (2011). Psychodynamic psychotherapy for narcissistic personality disorder. In K. Campbell and J. Miller (Eds.), The handbook of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder: Theoretical approaches, empirical findings, and treatment (pp. 423-433). New York: Wiley.
Yeomans F.E. & Diamond, D. (2010). Treatment of cluster B disorders: TFP and BPD. In J.F. Clarkin, P. Fonagy, & G.O. Gabbard (Eds), Psychodynamic psychotherapy for personality disorders: A clinical handbook (pp. 209-239). Washington DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Kernberg, O.F., Diamond, D., Yeomans, F., Clarkin, J. & Levy, K. (2008). Mentalization and attachment in borderline patients in Transference Focused Psychotherapy. In E. Jurist, A. Slade, and S. Bergner (Eds), Mind to Mind: Infant research, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis (pp. 167-198). New York: Other Press.
Diamond, D., Yeomans, F., Clarkin, J., and Levy, K. (2008). The reciprocal impact of attachment and transference-focused psychotherapy with borderline patients. In H. Steele and M. Steele (Eds.), Clinical applications of the Adult Attachment Interview (pp. 339-385). New York: Guilford Press.
Yeomans, F., Clarkin, J., Diamond, D. & Levy, K.N. (2008). An object relations treatment of borderline patients with reflective functioning as the mechanism of change. In F. Busch (Ed), Mentalization: theoretical considerations, research findings, and clinical implications (pp. 235-231). New York and London: Analytic Press, Taylor and Francis Group.
Diamond, D., Clarkin, J., Stovall-McClough, C., Levy, K., Foelsch, P., Levine, H. & Yeomans, F. (2002). Patient-therapist attachment: impact on therapeutic process and outcome. In M. Cortina and M. Marone (Eds.), Attachment theory and the psychoanalytic process (pp. 127-178). New York: Guilford Press.
Courses:
Graduate courses in the doctoral program for clinical psychology at the City University of New York (CUNY)
- Adult Psychopathology I: Theory, Research and Treatment (Object relations perspectives on personality disorders (e.g. Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, Obsessive-Compulsive, Schizoid, Schizoptypal and Dissociative personality disorders) (designed and taught course 1993-2012).
- Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Practicum (designed and taught course 1995-2014)
- Advanced Practicum in Psychodynamically oriented Treatment of the Severely Disturbed Patient (designed and taught course 2010, 2015)
- Evidence Based, Manualized Psychodynamic Treatments (designed and taught course 2011-2015)
- Adult Psychopathology (designed and taught course 2011-2016)
- Adult Psychotherapy Practicum (designed and taught course 2012-2015)
- Clinical Instruction (Designed and taught course 2014-2015)
Weill Cornell Medical College:
- Advanced Psychotherapy Seminar (1990-1993)
- Seminar in Transference Focused Psychotherapy (2010-Present)
- Introduction to Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (co-taught with Nirav Soni, 09/2023 – 06/2024)
New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
- Clinical Treatment of Specific Disorders: An Object Relations Approach to Personality Disorders II: Narcissistic Disorders & The Use of Transference Focused Psychotherapy(2015-Present)
New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NYPSI)
- Transference Focused Psychotherapy for borderline and narcissistic disorders (Part of regular curriculum for psychoanalytic candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and psychotherapy trainees (Spring 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022)
New School for Social Research
- Practicum in Clinical Practice (2019-2022)
William Alanson White Institute
- Transference Focused Psychotherapy for Personality Disorders (Borderline and Narcissistic) (2022)
TFP Supervision & Training (2011 – Present):
- Weill Cornell Medical College: Personality Disorders Institute (PDI) – New York, NY
- Coordinator of TFP rotation for psychology interns and post-doctoral fellows. Students carry 1-2 patients in twice-weekly TFP and have weekly supervision with faculty in the PDI. Supervision includes TFP didactics as well as supervision of cases with use of video.
- New Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP) – Los Angeles, CA
- Development of TFP training program: two-year training program open to psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalytic candidates, and UCLA psychiatry residents (co-taught with Frank Yeomans).
- Workshop in Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (January 2023)
- TFP Supervision Group – China (2021 – Present)
- TFP Supervision Group – Israel (2021 – Present)
- TFP Supervision Group – Los Angeles/New York (2020 – Present)
- McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School
- Continuing education seminars in TFP and TFP supervision group (2020 – Present)
- TFP San Diego and Los Angeles, CA
- TFP supervision group (2018 – 2020)
- Parma and Milan TFP Group (Italy)
- TFP training and supervision group (2015 – 2016)
- Maudsley Hospital, Psychiatric Institute (London, U.K.)
- Three two-day TFP trainings (2011, 2013, 2017)
- TFP supervision group (2013 – 2015)
- TFP is now recognized as an evidence-based treatment by the National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K.