Thinking without knowing--child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the UK and evidence-based practice.

BACKGROUND: Child psychoanalytic psychotherapy has been criticized for its reluctance to embrace evidence-based practice. This study aims to explore the historical narrative of a sample of child psychoanalytic psychotherapists about progress in developing the evidence base. METHODS: Fourteen psychotherapists were interviewed and the transcripts analysed for common themes about evidence-based practice. RESULTS: Child psychoanalytic psychotherapists were generally positive about developing evidence-based practice but had reservations about the narrowness of hierarchies used by commissioners to assess evidence. CONCLUSION: The child psychoanalytical psychotherapists interviewed for this study recognized the need to promote evidence-based practice, in particular, to inform commissioners of Child Mental Health Services.

Child psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the UK National Health Service: an historical analysis.

This review developed from a discussion with the late Professor Richard Harrington about interventions in Child and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHS) that lacked an evidence base. Our aim is to investigate the literature for signs that child psychoanalysis is a declining paradigm within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in the United Kingdom (UK). We present the literature chronologically since the inception of the UK National Health Service. This study shows that there have been a number of threats to child psychoanalytic psychotherapy, but no significant consistent decline. The profession is beginning to develop the social profile of a scientific discipline. We conclude that child psychoanalytic psychotherapy does not consistently demonstrate features of a declining scientific paradigm.