Free Therapist Training›Psychodynamic Therapy Toolkit›Psychodynamic Interventions List
Last updated: November 11, 2026
Psychodynamic interventions are the moves a therapist makes to help a client recognize, feel and change the patterns that keep a problem going: inquiry into specific relational episodes, comments on what is happening in the room, work with emotion and defenses, and interpretations that link the client's experience of the therapist to relationships outside. The list below covers fifteen of them, each with what it can sound like and wording you can adapt for a progress note.
The first eight are the skills demonstrated in free videos that pair with the APA book Deliberate Practice in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy by Hanna Levenson, Volney Gay and Jeffrey L. Binder; the videos are listed further down this page. The list is part of the Sentio MFT program's free psychodynamic therapy toolkit, which also has client statements for practicing each skill in the deliberate practice exercises.
This is an optional aid from the Sentio MFT program's psychodynamic therapy toolkit. It is not an official form of any agency or payer.
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Eight core skills, each with a free webinar on the deliberate practice page
| Intervention | What it is | What it can sound like | Note-ready wording |
|---|---|---|---|
| Therapeutic inquiry | Open, curious questions that help the client tell a specific relational episode in detail: what happened, and what the client wanted, expected, felt and did. | "Take me to the moment she said that. What did you feel right then?" "What did you want from him in that conversation?" | Explored a recent interaction with [person] in detail, including what the client wanted, expected and felt. |
| Making process comments | Observations about what is happening between client and therapist in the session, offered tentatively, so the relational pattern can be looked at as it happens. | "I notice that when I asked about your sister, you started apologizing. What is happening for you right now?" | Commented on an in-session shift (client began apologizing when [topic] came up) and invited the client to explore it. |
| Deepening emotional experience | Slowing down so the client can feel, name and stay with an emotion in the session rather than talk about it from a distance. | "Let's stay with that for a moment. Where do you feel it? What would you call the feeling?" | Helped the client stay with and name [sadness]; the client tolerated the feeling for several minutes and linked it to [event]. |
| Working with defenses | Noticing, naming and exploring the ways the client moves away from painful feelings, such as minimizing, joking, intellectualizing or changing the subject, while respecting the protection they provide. | "Each time we come close to the loss, the conversation turns to logistics. I wonder what makes it hard to stay there." | Identified the client's [minimizing] when [sadness] emerged and explored what it protects against. |
| Countertransference | Attending to your own reactions to the client, using them to understand the role the client's pattern pulls you into, and managing them so they inform the work rather than drive it. | Mostly internal: "I am working hard to reassure him; that may be the role he expects others to play." Occasionally a careful disclosure: "I found myself wanting to fix this for you, and I wonder whether other people end up doing that too." | Used awareness of the in-session pull toward [reassuring the client] to guide interventions; reviewed in supervision. |
| Transference interpretations | Linking the client's feelings and expectations about the therapist to the client's pattern with other people, now and in the past, offered tentatively and open to correction. | "You've wondered twice today whether I'm bored with you. I wonder if that's the same fear you described with your father: that if you take up space, people will tune out." | Tentatively linked the client's expectation that the therapist would [lose interest] to the pattern with [father]; the client [considered the link and added an example]. |
| Metaphors | Using an image, often the client's own, to capture an experience or pattern in a vivid shared shorthand that can be extended and revisited. | "You called it walking on eggshells. What happens when one cracks?" | Worked with the client's image of "walking on eggshells" to explore fear of others' anger; the client extended the image to [relationship]. |
| Exploring fantasy | Inviting the client to elaborate imagined scenes, wishes, fears, daydreams or dreams, so that expectations and wishes come into the open. | "If you had told him how hurt you were, what do you imagine he would have done? And what would you have wished he would do?" | Invited the client to imagine [telling her partner directly]; explored the feared response ([anger]) and the wished-for one ([understanding]). |
More psychodynamic interventions
| Intervention | What it is | What it can sound like | Note-ready wording |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clarification | Asking for, or offering, a clearer statement of what the client means or feels. | "When you say it was weird, do you mean anxious, or something else?" | Clarified the client's description of [the visit] as [anxious and resentful]. |
| Confrontation | In the psychodynamic sense, gently drawing attention to something the client has not noticed, such as a gap between what is said and how it is said. | "You're smiling as you tell me how frightened you were." | Noted the gap between the client's [smile] and [the frightening content]; the client reflected on [how fear is hidden]. |
| Interpretation | Offering a hypothesis about the meaning or origin of a feeling, behavior or pattern, often linking the present to earlier relationships. | "It may be that saying yes was how you stayed close to your mother when she was struggling." | Offered an interpretation linking [saying yes to every request] to [her role with her mother]; the client [response]. |
| Supportive interventions | Validation, empathic reflection, affirmation and encouragement that strengthen the alliance and the client's coping. | "It makes sense that you were exhausted after carrying all of that alone." | Validated the client's [exhaustion] and affirmed [her persistence]. |
| Rupture repair | Noticing signs of strain in the alliance, whether the client withdraws or confronts, and inviting both people to talk about what is happening between them, including the therapist's part. | "Something shifted when I suggested that. Did something I said not sit right?" | Noticed a possible rupture after [the therapist's suggestion]; invited the client to discuss it and acknowledged the therapist's part; the alliance [was restored]. |
| Working through | Returning to the same pattern as it appears in new episodes, so that recognition becomes change over time. | "Here it is again, this time with your brother. What did you notice sooner this time?" | Revisited the pattern of [over-giving] in a new episode with [her brother]; the client recognized it earlier than before. |
| Working with the ending | Exploring what ending treatment means to the client, reviewing gains and the pattern, and planning for its return. | "We have four sessions left. What has it been like to think about ending?" | Explored the client's feelings about ending ([relief and loss]); reviewed gains and early signs of the pattern. |
Verbs for psychodynamic progress notes: explored, clarified, reflected, named, noted, tracked, invited, linked, interpreted, validated, affirmed, revisited.
In a note, start with the verb, say what the intervention addressed and record what the client did next. Replace the bracketed text with the details of the session.
What Do These Interventions Look Like in a Real Note?
The interventions row of the completed progress note in the toolkit uses six of the eight core skills in one 50-minute session with Elena, an invented client in treatment for depression:
Explored the department meeting step by step, including what she wanted and expected (therapeutic inquiry). Invited her to stay with the tightness in her throat and the sadness that followed (deepening emotional experience). Named the move to "it's fine" as a way of leaving the sadness and explored what it protects her from (working with defenses). Commented on her worry that she was wasting the session (process comment) and tentatively linked it to her expectations at work and with her mother (transference interpretation). Asked what she imagines would have happened had she declined the committee (exploring fantasy).
The process notes example records part of the same session nearly word for word, with the therapist's thoughts beside each line, so you can see what the note summarizes.
What Are the Core Psychodynamic Interventions?
The eight core skills move from gathering material to working with it in the room. Therapeutic inquiry gathers specific relational episodes. Deepening emotional experience and work with defenses help the client stay with what the pattern keeps away. Process comments, attention to countertransference and transference interpretations bring the pattern into the relationship with the therapist, where it can be seen and lived differently. Metaphor and fantasy open routes to wishes and fears that direct questions do not reach.
Timing matters as much as wording. A transference interpretation offered before the client has felt the pattern with you tends to sound like a theory; the same words after a process comment has made the moment visible can land. The deliberate practice exercises give graded client statements for rehearsing each skill until the timing is your own.
How Do You Write Psychodynamic Interventions in Progress Notes?
A reader of the record, whether a colleague, a payer or the client, needs to know what you did and why. Start with a verb ("explored," "named," "linked"), say what the intervention addressed, and record the client's response. Keep the technical term, if you use it, in parentheses after the description. Leave verbatim exchanges and your own reactions in detail for process notes or supervision. The progress note template has a row for interventions and a row for the client's response.
What About Alliance Ruptures?
Rupture repair appears in the second table because it cuts across the other skills. Safran, Muran and colleagues describe two kinds of rupture: withdrawal, in which the client moves away from the therapist or the work of therapy, and confrontation, in which the client moves against the therapist or the work, often with complaint or criticism. Repair begins with noticing the marker and inviting the client to talk about what is happening between you, including your own part in it. A meta-analysis by Eubanks, Muran and Safran (2018) found that rupture repair was associated with better treatment outcomes. The toolkit's recording review form has a section for spotting ruptures on a recording.
The Eight Skill Videos
Each core skill has a free webinar, with live demonstration and feedback, on the Sentio psychodynamic deliberate practice page:
- Therapeutic Inquiry
- Making Process Comments
- Deepening Emotional Experience
- Working With Defenses
- Countertransference
- Transference Interpretations
- Metaphors
- Exploring Fantasy
Keep reading
Psychodynamic Deliberate Practice Exercises, graded client statements for rehearsing each of the eight core skills
Psychodynamic Progress Note Template, where the note-ready wording goes, with completed narrative and SOAP examples
Psychotherapy Process Notes Template, the near-verbatim record of the same interventions, for supervision
Deliberate Practice in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, the webinars and skill videos that pair with the APA book
Frequently Asked Questions
What are examples of psychodynamic interventions?
Therapeutic inquiry, process comments, deepening emotional experience, working with defenses, attending to countertransference, transference interpretations, metaphors and exploring fantasy, along with clarification, confrontation, interpretation, supportive interventions, rupture repair, working through and work with the ending of treatment.
How do I write psychodynamic interventions in a progress note?
Start with a verb, describe what the intervention addressed in plain words, and record how the client responded, for example: "Tentatively linked the client's expectation that the therapist would lose interest to the pattern with her father; she considered the link and added an example."
What is the difference between a process comment and a transference interpretation?
A process comment observes what is happening between client and therapist right now. A transference interpretation goes a step further and links that experience of the therapist to the client's pattern with other people.
Where can I practice psychodynamic interventions?
The toolkit's deliberate practice exercises give client statements at three levels of difficulty for each core skill, for use with a peer, in supervision or alone, and each skill has a free webinar, with live demonstration, on the Sentio psychodynamic deliberate practice page.
References
Binder, J. L. (2004). Key competencies in brief dynamic psychotherapy: Clinical practice beyond the manual. Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-59385-058-6. https://www.guilford.com/books/Key-Competencies-in-Brief-Dynamic-Psychotherapy/Jeffrey-Binder/9781609181680
Eubanks, C. F., Muran, J. C., & Safran, J. D. (2018). Alliance rupture repair: A meta-analysis. Psychotherapy, 55(4), 508-519. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000185
Levenson, H. (2026). Brief dynamic therapy (3rd ed.). American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-4338-4478-2. https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/brief-dynamic-therapy-third-edition
Levenson, H., Gay, V., & Binder, J. L. (2023). Deliberate practice in psychodynamic psychotherapy. American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-4338-3673-2. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000351-000
Safran, J. D., & Muran, J. C. (2000). Negotiating the therapeutic alliance: A relational treatment guide. Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-57230-512-0. https://www.guilford.com/books/Negotiating-the-Therapeutic-Alliance/Safran-Muran/9781572308695
