Superego Narratives

American psychotherapist with more than 25 years of experience, faculty member of the Washington School of Psychiatry. Founder of the Institute for Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP Institute), head of the ISTDP training program at the Washington School of Psychiatry and the basic training program at the Norwegian ISTDP Society. He is a member of the Italian Association of Experimental Dynamic Therapy in Treviso and the Laboratory of Psychoeducation in Warsaw. He has given lectures and talks in the United States, as well as in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and Lebanon. He grew up in Clear Lake, and his father owned one of the local forges. Young Jon helped him repair farm implements and make iron fences. His parents hoped that the boy would take over the family business, but it turned out that he was talented in a completely different field. Jon graduated from college and became a professional musician. At some point in his life, he sought the help of a therapist, which led him to become interested in psychotherapy and decided to pursue further studies. He worked at a psychiatric hospital and specialized clinics until he eventually opened his own practice.

Dr. Monica Urru, MD, is based in Rome and has been active in the ISTDP community for over twenty years. She trained in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy with Patricia Coughlin (Philadelphia, 2002-2006) and completed a further core training with Jon Frederickson and Josette ten Have de Labije (2008-2011), followed by a training of trainers for teachers and supervisors, led by Jon Frederickson, in Norway (2010). Today she works as a supervisor and runs ISTDP core groups in Rome, teaching how to work with the neurobiological underpinnings of trauma treatment. She has led an advanced ISTDP group in Italy for the past twelve years and a further advanced group in Poland since 2019. Alongside ISTDP, she has practised REAC neurobiological modulation continuously since 2008, in collaboration with Dr. Salvatore Rinaldi at the Rinaldi-Fontani Institute in Florence, integrating the two approaches across a wide range of diagnoses. Since 2026 she has been part of Inside BlueZone, the REAC® longevity programme developed by the Rinaldi Fontani Institute, which recreates Blue Zone conditions in the body to counteract inflammaging and cellular senescence. She also contributes to the epistemological framework of the Ordinative Sciences Foundation, translating clinical processes into structured models of coherence and regulation. She has presented at psychotherapy conferences in Italy, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon, and has co-taught with Jon Frederickson across Europe from 2008 to the present, including summer schools in Italy (2012, 2014) and France (2024). She is the author of Star Seeker, based on specific studies on autism, and of We Were Born Searching (2026), and co-author with Jon Frederickson of Clinical Thinking in Medicine (Elsevier, forthcoming) and Psychoneurophysiopathology of Adaptation: A New Paradigm (forthcoming in 2027).