In his psychotherapeutic practice, Dr. Otto Kernberg examined two fundamental affective forces that shape the entirety of human existence: Love and Aggression. He dedicated a significant part of his scientific and clinical work to these themes, authoring books such as Love Relations: Normality and Pathology, Aggression in Personality Disorders and Perversions, The Inseparable Nature of Love and Aggression: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives, Treatment of Severe Personality Disorders: Resolution of Aggression and Recovery of Eroticism”, “Hatred, Emptiness, and Hope: Transference-Focused Psychotherapy in Personality Disorders”, and others.
His contributions have been pivotal for the development of contemporary psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, particularly in the study of personality organization structures.
Dr. Kernberg demonstrated that the intrapsychic splitting of Love and Aggression leads to identity diffusion.
For patients with a borderline level of personality organization, the integration of these opposing affective poles becomes the central therapeutic goal, shaping not only the quality of interpersonal relationships but also the outcome of treatment itself.
For patients at the neurotic level, conflicts around Love and Aggression do not reach a destructive intensity, but they considerably restrict the development of fulfilling object relations and limit the capacity to experience pleasure and satisfaction in life.
Particularly significant is Kernberg’s observation that it is the integration of Love and Aggression which provides the conditions for the development of a cohesive Self and the stabilization of object relations. Where such integration has not taken place, the patient continues to function through primitive defensive operations, identity remains diffuse, and interpersonal relationships are dominated by destructive scenarios.
Thus, psychotherapeutic work with Love and Aggression is not simply the description of phenomena, but a profound integrative process that forms the basis of a mature personality and determines the quality of therapeutic outcomes.
The problems arising from the failure to integrate Love and Aggression are encountered daily in clinical practice: the complaints of every borderline or neurotic patient ultimately conceal, at their core, precisely these unresolved conflicts.
Accordingly, Resolution of Aggression and Recovery of Eroticism constitutes the trajectory of movement in every well-conducted course of psychotherapy.
To deepen the comprehension of these processes and to work through them with greater depth and efficacy,, the TFP-Group Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute for Personality Disorders Studies is launching a new one-year training program for psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists:
Love and Aggression: From Normality to Pathology
Faculty - Otto Kernberg, MD.
The program begins on 15 November 2025.
We are convinced that this program will transform how you understand love, aggression, and psychotherapy.
It addresses the very core — how love, hate, and desire shape our psyche, our relationships, and the course of our lives.
A brief overview of the program:
What will you learn in the program?
In this program, we will examine the meaning and role of:
Aggression:
- Neurobiological and psychodynamic foundations of aggression
- The evolution of psychoanalytic perspectives: from Freud to contemporary theories
- Aggression across different levels of personality organization (neurotic, borderline, psychotic)
- Rage, hatred, and envy
- Sadism, masochism, narcissism, psychopathy
- Aggression in couples and families: exploitation, narcissistic relationships
- Perversions and their relation to borderline personality structure
- Suicidality and self-destructive behavior
- Aggression in transference and countertransference
- The social dimension of aggression: mass violence, totalitarianism, genocide
Love and Sexuality:
- Neurobiological and anthropological foundations of love and sexuality
- Components of sexuality
- Development of love and sexuality: from early childhood to mature relationships
- Love and Sexuality in Health and Pathology. Mature love.
- Love and sexuality across levels of personality organization
- Conflicts between love, aggression, and sexuality (rejection, envy, sadomasochistic dynamics)
- Love and the superego: guilt, moral prohibitions, sexual inhibitions
- Diagnosis and assessment of marital relationships
- Sexual symptoms and inhibitions (male and female)
- Transference, countertransference, and eroticized dynamics in therapy
- Approaches to the treatment of pathological forms of love and sexuality
And many other topics and subtopics concerning aggression, love, and their inseparable connection!
Most importantly — upon completion of the program you will gain a structured psychodynamic framework, enabling you to see more deeply: not merely to alleviate symptoms, but to discern their origins — and to choose a therapeutic trajectory that fosters personality integration.
Who is this program for?
This program is designed for psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists.
How is the program structured?
13 months — 12 workshops (with a break in August 2026). Each workshop offers an in‑depth exploration of a single topic — from the neurobiology of aggression to couple therapy, from the pathology of sexuality to perversions and moral conflict.
Each one-day workshop consists of 6 hours, which include:
- The in-depth and detailed lectures accompanied by examples from Dr. Kernberg's clinical practice
- A live clinical supervision session, in which Dr. Kernberg will demonstrate the approaches to clinical challenges involving love and aggression.
- A one-hour Q&A session where you can raise your questions and refine your clinical perspective.
What will you gain upon completion of the program?
Upon completion, you will receive:
- A map of aggression — from neurobiology and core affective systems to perversions, hatred, envy, and malignant narcissism in societies.
- A map of love — from infantile perverse tendencies and relationships with primary objects to mature sexual love.
- A key to understanding how all of this affects the therapeutic situation and therapy as a whole.
The program will encompass the full spectrum of sexuality, together with its contemporary conflicts and contradictions: homosexuality and bisexuality, transgender identity, and perversion.
Who Is the Program Faculty?
The author and faculty of the entire program is Otto F. Kernberg, M.D., one of the most influential and renowned psychoanalysts and psychiatrists.
Otto Kernberg’s entire professional life has been devoted to the exploration of aggression and love.
He has treated patients for whom destruction was a way of being.
He has worked with individuals whose expressions of aggression were among the most destructive.
He has treated patients with the most powerful defenses against love and against the possibility of deep human connection.
He founded and developed Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP), which today is recognized internationally as one of the few evidence-based approaches effective in treating severe personality disorders.
Who is the organizer of the program?
The program is organized by TFP-Group Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute for Personality Disorder Studies.
The Institute has already conducted more than 227 hours of training events and has more than 1853 participants who have completed certification training.
The Institute collaborate with leading experts: Otto Kernberg, Frank Yeomans, Monica Carsky, Tennyson Lee, Katarzyna Gwóźdź, Veronica Steiner, Nel Draijer, Jos van Mosel, Julia Sowislo.
Schedule:
First Module:
15 November, 2025 - Biological determinants of aggressive and erotic behaviour
20 December, 2025 - Traditional psychoanalytic theory and contemporary object theory
17 January, 2026 - Contemporary psychoanalytic object relations theory and pathology of aggression
Second Module
February 21, 2026 - Clinical manifestations of aggression and their treatment
March 21, 2026 - Aggression in love and couple’s conflicts
April 18, 2026 - Aggression in groups, organizations, and the political realm
Third Module
May 16, 2026 - Component and development of sexual love
June 20, 2026 - Adolescence, love relations through life, marital conflict and couples’ treatment
July 18, 2026 - Oedipal conflicts, sexual morality, social and political control
Fourth Module
September 26, 2026 - Pathology of sexual functioning, homosexuality, narcissism, perversion
October 24, 2026 - Severe sexual inhibition in men and women, sexual promiscuity
November 21, 2026 - Therapeutic challenges in the treatment of love and aggression
Time:
from 1:40-8:00 PM (London time)
from 8:40AM-3:00PM (New York time)
FORMAT & LANGUAGE
Online education in English
With simultaneous translation into Ukrainian
What does the training participant package include?
Participants of each module receive:
- Online Zoom seminar participation
- Handouts for Clinical Case Analysis
- 12-month access to the webinar recordings
- A personalized electronic certificate of participation for each module, and, upon completion of all four modules, a comprehensive program completion certificate.
We encourage you to register for a training that will enhance the effectiveness of psychotherapy in your clinical work.
Best regards,
TFP-Group Ukraine
Ukrainian Institute for Personality Disorders Studies