
I often work with both new and more senior psychotherapists who are seeking to expand their capacity to deepen their clinical work, to more effectively and empathically work with people who have been labeled as "resistant" or "difficult", to have a better grasp on what's happening in the "between us" space of the therapy room, to understand and be able to catalyze attachment in real and transformative ways, to better recognize and integrate the non-verbal and somatic dimensions into the work, and to move beyond "trauma informed" - really able to recognize and understand how to facilitate a safe enough therapy space and work through traumatic residues (including dissociative process and structure).
My Abbreviated CV
Appointments:
Executive Committee, The Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity (IPSS)
Director, Advanced Studies in Psychoanalysis, (IPSS)
Faculty, Fellowship Program, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia
Teaching:
Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, NY.
Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, Fellowship Program.
National Institute for the Psychotherapies, NY.
Tehran Psychoanalytic Institute. (Iran).
La Salle University, Department of Social Work

Publications:
Sharp, D. (2026). Body in play: Disorganization and transformation through the co-creation of intersubjective flow. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/24720038.2026.2712292
Sharp, D. (2024). For Whom the Bell Tolls: Misophonia as a complex experience of hope and dread in self-with-other regulation. Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/24720038.2024.2332240
Sample of Presentations/Conferences:
Trauma, the Psychoanalytic Gaze and “Atmaviktu” - the “Breath of Life", IAPSP - Plenary Discussant, National Conference, 2026
Tessering and Tethering: Dissociation, Object Constancy and the Pursuit of Safety, ISSTD - National Conference. March 2025.
The Dead Mother: Making Psychoanalytic Sense of Covid 19, Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity.
Sparkling Moments in relational Therapy, Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Workers.
Shame, Shame Resilience and Self Psychology, Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Workers
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