[Evaluation of outpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy: results of a controlled field study ]. / Evaluation ambulanter tiefenpsychologischer Psychotherapie: Ergebnisse einer kontrollierten Feldstudie.

OBJECTIVES: The discussion about the effectivity of psychodynamic psychotherapy is being renewed by recent meta-analyses. Although some well-designed studies have been presented, there is still a dearth of research in this field. METHODS: In a controlled prospective field study we investigated the outcome of outpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy in a pre-post design. This evaluation includes data from the symptom inventories VDS90, VDS30, and HEALTH for 90 patients with different mental disorders before therapy and after the regular end of therapy, compared to a waiting list control group. RESULTS: We found a significant improvement in symptoms, dysfunctional personality features, and quality of life. Rates of statistically and clinically significant improvement were markedly higher after therapy than in the waiting list condition. CONCLUSIONS: Psychodynamic psychotherapy shows an effect on symptoms, dysfunctional personality features, and quality of life.

[Effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy in children and juveniles - results of a pilot study]. / Tiefenpsychologisch fundierte Psychotherapie bei Kindern und Jugendlichen.

QUESTION: The effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy for children and adolescents has yet to be studied sufficiently in Germany. Because psychodynamic psychotherapy aims to reduce symptoms in both the short and long term - besides achieving other long-term goals - in this paper we present results focusing on whether symptoms and problem behavior can be improved within 25 h of outpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy taking place in a practice. Moreover, it addresses whether a positive change of life quality can be achieved in the same timeframe. METHOD: Thirty children and juveniles with emotional, behavioral, and adjustment disorders who had received 25 h of psychodynamic psychotherapy were investigated. Parental reports on the Child Behavior Checklist and parental and expert opinions on the DISYPS-KJ were compared before and after therapy. RESULTS: We found significant improvement on almost all measured CBCL scales, but not on the syndrome scales measured with the DISYPS. Predominantly medium-size effects were calculated. But parents did not report an improvement of general life quality of their children during the course of psychotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that there is an effective reduction of childhood emotional and behavioral symptoms following psychodynamic psychotherapy. The measured timeframe, however, seems to be too short to ensure significant improvements in specific childhood disorders from both parental and expert perspectives.