Sub-Total: $0.00
EMPATHIAN
A Continuing Education Program for Mental Health Clinicians
Course Director:Â Robert E. Feinstein, MD
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Northwell/Zucker/Hofstra School of Medicine
Course Date: September 26, 2026
6.5 CE Credits | Live Online | Intermediate Level
Despite their high prevalence in clinical caseloads, severe personality disorders remain among the most undertreated conditions in mental health practice. Most clinicians graduate with limited exposure to evidence-based personality disorder approaches to treatment and receive insufficient supervised experience managing the complex clinical, relational, and emergency situations these patients present. This full-day continuing education program directly addresses that gap—moving sequentially from diagnosis and cinematic case illustration through the structural and technical foundations of treatment, disorder-specific intervention, and live supervised case application.
The program opens with a clinically rich examination of the difficult patient: how personality disorders are diagnosed, organized, and can be managed in clinical practice, brought to life through curated film illustration. Participants then move into the structural foundations of effective treatment—how to establish a treatment contract, diagnose levels of personality organization, and conduct sessions with patients. The first live supervision session, with participant case presentations, will focus on material presented in the morning. The afternoon focuses on disorder-specific strategies for Borderline and Narcissistic Personality Disorders before closing with a second live supervision session in which participants present their own complex cases for real-time expert feedback.
Upon completion of this activity, participants will be able to:
- Identify diagnostic criteria and perform differential diagnosis across severe personality disorder presentations, including BPD, NPD, and related Cluster B conditions.
- Apply the concept of levels of personality organization to clinical assessment, treatment planning, and prognosis for patients with severe personality disorders.
- Establish and maintain an effective treatment contract, including strategies for managing boundary violations, crises, and treatment-frame ruptures.
- Demonstrate effective session-level clinical techniques for working with personality-disordered patients, including management of transference, countertransference, and resistance.
- Apply disorder-specific assessment and treatment strategies to patients presenting with Borderline and Narcissistic Personality Disorders.
- Demonstrate integrative clinical reasoning through live supervision of complex cases drawn from participants' own caseloads.
This intensive, one-day program combines cinematic case illustration, integrative didactic instruction, and two live supervision sessions to ensure that skill transfer is immediate and concrete—not merely informational. Film is used not as entertainment but as a clinical teaching tool: curated scenes illuminate personality dynamics, diagnostic distinctions, and common treatment failures in ways that direct instruction alone cannot. Participants will have the opportunity to present their own clinical cases and receive structured, expert supervision in a small-group format.
| # | Time | Session Title |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 – 8:15 | Introduction & Program Overview | |
| 1 | 8:15 – 9:30 | The Difficult Patient — Diagnosis & Clinical Management of Personality Disorders & The Movies |
| 2 | 9:30 – 10:30 | Establishing a Contract, Levels of Personality Organization & Conducting Sessions |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Break | |
| 3 | 10:45 – 12:00 | Live Supervision — Session I (Participant Case Presentations) |
| 12:00 – 1:00 | Lunch | |
| 4 | 1:00 – 2:00 | Issues in the Assessment & Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder |
| 5 | 2:00 – 3:00 | Issues in the Assessment & Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder |
| 3:00 – 3:15 | Break | |
| 6 | 3:15 – 4:15 | Live Supervision — Session II (Continued Case Presentations) |
Mental Health Professionals: MD, PNP, FNP, PhD, PsyD, LCSW, LMSW, LPC, LPC-A, L-MFT
This program is designed for licensed mental health clinicians — psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors — practicing across inpatient and outpatient settings who treat patients with severe or complex personality disorders.
$350
per person practicing clincian
$250
per person recent graduates ( 3 years)
$100
Students ( With an ID)
Robert E. Feinstein, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Northwell/Zucker/Hofstra School of Medicine, with over 40 years of clinical, supervisory, and academic experience treating patients with severe personality disorders. He is founder and CEO of Empathian and has held senior academic leadership roles across Columbia University, New York Medical College, the University of Colorado, and Dell Medical School. He is the author of more than 100 publications and three Oxford University Press textbooks.
Continuing Education Credit
This activity has been designed to meet the educational needs of licensed mental health clinicians.
6.5 CE credit hours will be provided upon program completion. All content is derived from peer-reviewed literature on empirically supported treatment approaches to severe personality disorders.
No commercial support has been received for this activity, and planners have no relevant financial conflicts of interest to disclose.