Wholeview Expands Next-Gen Psychodynamic Programming for Addiction Recovery

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William Gottdiener, PhD

Sarah Church, PhD

Wholeview expands evidence-based psychodynamic addiction care, adding training in Supportive-Expressive and Mentalization-Based therapies for deeper recovery.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, August 26, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Wholeview today announced an expanded clinical and training initiative that deepens the organization’s leadership in evidence-based psychodynamic care for addiction. The program includes increased staff training in Supportive-Expressive Therapy (SET), a manualized, empirically supported psychodynamic treatment originally developed by the late Dr. Lester Luborsky, and expanded delivery and training in Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) led by Wholeview’s CEO and Founder, Dr. Sarah Church.

“Wholeview’s mission is to bring the strongest science into compassionate, real-world care,” said Sarah Church, Ph.D., CEO & Founder of Wholeview Wellness. “By partnering with William H. Gottdiener, Ph.D. on SET and expanding MBT across individual and group formats, we’re giving patients and clinicians proven tools that fit the complexities of addiction and co-occurring conditions.”

Training & Innovation in Supportive-Expressive Therapy (SET)

Dr. William H. Gottdiener—a clinical psychologist (triple board certified in addiction psychology, psychodynamic/psychoanalytic psychology, and psychoanalysis), professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a leading voice in empirically supported psychodynamic treatments for substance use disorders provides training for Wholeview clinicians in SET. Although SET was designed as an individual therapy, Dr. Gottdiener and the Wholeview team are adapting SET into a group format to broaden access and complement Wholeview’s intensive outpatient and outpatient programs.

SET is a manualized approach that helps patients identify and work through core relationship themes driving symptoms and substance use. Its procedures were codified in Luborsky’s Principles of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Manual for Supportive-Expressive Treatment, which paved the way for modern fidelity-focused training. Research programs examined SET alongside other evidence-based interventions, supporting its role for many psychological problems, including comprehensive addiction care.

“Supportive-Expressive Therapy gives clinicians and clients a way forward, via understanding how clients’ relational patterns and inner conflicts, most of which are unconscious to them, contribute to the development and maintenance of their substance use disorder or behavioral addiction. As a result, it also gives therapists and clients tools for positively changing their problematic relational patterns and resolving their inner conflicts, which in turn can contribute toward the resolution of their substance use disorder or behavioral addiction,” according to Dr. Gottdiener. In addition, Dr. Gottdiener noted that SET has been shown to benefit a wide range of psychological problems, which often co-occur with substance use disorders and behavioral addictions.

Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT): Individual and Group Care

Wholeview also delivers MBT, a manualized, psychodynamically-informed therapy developed by Anthony Bateman and Peter Fonagy, in both individual and group formats. MBT strengthens patients’ capacity to understand their own and others’ mental states, a mechanism associated with improved affect regulation and interpersonal functioning. Randomized controlled trials have demonstrated MBT’s effectiveness, particularly for borderline personality disorder, with growing applications across clinical populations relevant to addiction care.

“MBT helps patients pause, reflect, and make different choices in high-risk moments,” Dr. Church added. “When combined with medication management, CBT, DBT, and other evidence-based approaches at Wholeview, it increases insight and creates a practical path for recovery.”

Why This Matters for Patients and Referrers

• Manualized, evidence-based psychodynamic care: MBT is a structured, teachable model with a published manual and research foundation, enabling consistent quality and easier scaling across teams.
• Group + individual delivery: Wholeview’s clinicians offer MBT in individual and group sessions and are piloting a group adaptation of SET to expand access and match patient preferences. They plan to add individual SET this Fall.
• Integrated within Wholeview’s outpatient continuum: These therapies sit alongside Wholeview’s virtual and in-person programs, medication management (e.g., buprenorphine, naltrexone), and family-inclusive services including CRAFT and relational family therapy.

About the Experts

William H. Gottdiener, Ph.D., ABPP, FIPA is a tenured professor of psychology at John Jay College (CUNY) whose clinical and research work focuses on psychodynamic understanding and treatment for substance use disorders and behavioral addictions, including Supportive-Expressive Therapy. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and has served on editorial boards in the fields of psychoanalysis and addiction psychology He is board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology in Addiction Psychology, Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic Psychology, and in Psychoanalysis.

Sarah Church, Ph.D. is the CEO and Founder of Wholeview Wellness. She is a clinical psychologist with more than 25 years of experience in addiction treatment, program development, and implementation science. Prior to founding Wholeview, Dr. Church served for 12 years as the Executive Director of the Division of Substance Abuse at Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she oversaw the largest medical school affiliated addiction treatment program in the country. She is an expert in evidence-based addiction treatments including CBT, MBT and Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA).

About Wholeview

Wholeview is an innovative outpatient addiction and trauma treatment and training center based in Midtown Manhattan, delivering science-based care through expertly trained clinicians in both virtual and in-person formats. Wholeview’s programs include intensive outpatient care, medication management, and specialized group and family care, with a focus on measurable outcomes and patient experience.

Sarah Church
Wholeview Wellness
+1 212-204-8430
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