Long-Term Benefits of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Patients Continue to Improve After Treatment Ends, New Study Finds, Demonstrating the Long-Term Benefits of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy through Self-Knowledge
According to recent research published by the American Psychological Association, psychodynamic psychotherapy is beneficial for a variety of mental health symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and stress-related physical illnesses, and the advantages of the therapy continue long after treatment is over.
Focus is placed during psychodynamic treatment on the psychological causes of emotional pain. Self-reflection, self-examination, and using the therapeutic connection as a window into the patient's dysfunctional interpersonal patterns are its defining characteristics. Its aim is to help people live healthier lives in addition to eradicating the most evident symptoms.
According to research author Jonathan Shedler, PhD, of the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, only more recent, symptom-focused treatments like cognitive behavior therapy or medication have scientific backing. "Physical evidence demonstrates that psychodynamic therapy is quite beneficial. The advantages are at least as substantial and long-lasting as those of other psychotherapies. Shedler looked at eight meta-analyses that included 160 research on psychodynamic therapy, nine meta-analyses of other psychological procedures, and studies on the effects of antidepressants. Shedler concentrated on effect size, which gauges how much of a difference each treatment makes. In both psychological and medical studies, an effect size of 0.80 is regarded as a substantial effect. 1,431 individuals with a variety of mental health issues were included in one significant meta-analysis of psychodynamic therapy, and the effect size for overall symptom improvement was 0.97. (the therapy was typically once per week and lasted less than a year). When patients were reevaluated nine or more months after therapy finished, the impact size increased by 50%, to 1.51.
Shedler claims that all eight of the meta-analyses, which together include the best body of scientific research on psychodynamic therapy, demonstrated significant therapeutic effects. Even for personality disorders, which are characterized by deeply embedded maladaptive behaviors and are notoriously challenging to treat, effect sizes were impressive, he claimed. According to Shedler, "the constant trend toward bigger effect sizes at follow-up shows that psychodynamic psychotherapy initiates psychological processes that result in ongoing change, even after therapy has concluded." "In contrast, for the most prevalent illnesses, such depression and generalized anxiety, the advantages of other 'empirically supported' therapies tend to fade over time."
"Pharmaceutical corporations and health insurance providers have a financial motive to advance the idea that mental anguish can be boiled down to a set of symptoms and that the only effective treatment is to control those symptoms. This makes sense for some particular psychiatric problems," he continued. But more frequently than not, interpersonal patterns, internal inconsistencies, and emotional blind spots are the foundation of a person's emotional distress and are woven into the fabric of their life. Psychodynamic treatment is intended to remedy this. Shedler also pointed out that the advantages that psychodynamic treatment seeks to attain are not sufficiently captured by current studies. "Deeper personality changes are more difficult to measure than changes in acute symptoms. But it is possible.
The research also suggests that other psychotherapies' success might be attributable to the unacknowledged psychodynamic components that they contain. It turns out that competent therapists are doing what psychodynamic therapists have always done—facilitating self-exploration, probing emotional blind spots, and comprehending relational patterns—when you look past treatment "brand names" and consider what they actually accomplish. Actual recordings of therapy sessions were utilized in four research to examine the words and actions of therapists that were successful or unsuccessful. The better the results, according to Shedler, the more the therapists behaved like psychodynamic therapists. No of what kind of therapy the therapists thought they were offering, this was true.
Article: “The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy,” Jonathan K. Shedler, PhD, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine; American Psychologist, Vol. 65. No.2.
