Evidence Based Research

If you are interested in an easy to read general description of psychoanalytic psychotherapy you might find this paper by Jonathan Shedler (Dept of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine) worth looking at: That Was Then, This is Now: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy for the Rest of Us,   Click Here  [PDF 250KB].

There is a growing body of research evidence which supports the efficacy of both the Jungian therapeutic model and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In Europe, for example, longer term therapy is supported by government funding and, in Germany, Health Insurance benefits are available for Jungian psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

One particular German study (W. Keller, G. Westhoff, R. Dilg, R. Rohner, H.H. Studt , 2006) showed that  patients continue to improve even after psychoanalytic psychotherapy has ended, that is, the research now shows what psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically trained psychotherapists have known for a very long time, that this modality works and works into the long term.

In another study, Milrod and his colleagues (2000) established statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in panic, depression, anxiety and functional impairment both immediately after treatment and at follow-up six months after completion of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Leichsenring and Rabung’s (2008) meta-analysis of the effectiveness of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy showed it ‘was significantly superior to shorter-term’ treatment modalities.

Here are the references for these and related papers if you are interested:

Jonathan Shedler, ‘Where is the evidence for “evidence-based” therapy?’, The Journal of Psychological Therapies in Primary Care, Vol. 4, May 2015, pp. 47–59.

Fonagy, P. (2015). ‘The effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapies: an update’, World Psychiatry, 14, pp. 137-150.

Leichsenring, F., Klein, S., (2014). ‘Evidence for Psychodynamic psychotherapy in specific mental disorders: a systematic review’, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 28, pp. 4-32.

‘Recognition of Psychotherapy Effectiveness’ (2012),  American Psychological Association. Washington  www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.aspx

Abbas, A., Town, J., Driessen, E (2011). ‘The efficacy of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for depressive disorders with comorbid personality disorder’. Psychiatry, 74(1), pp. 58-71.

J. Shedler (2010), ‘The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy’. American Psychologist, 65, 98-109 (click here).

Abbass, A., Kisely, S., Kroenke, K (2009). ‘Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for somatic disorders: Systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials’, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 78, pp. 265-274.

F. Leichsenring and S. Rabung (2008), ‘Effectiveness of Long-term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Meta-analysis’. JAMA, 300(13), pp. 1551-1565.

Bateman, A., Fonagy, P. (2008), ‘8-year follow-up of patients treated for borderline personality disorder: Mentalization-based treatment versus treatment as usual’, American Journal of Psychiatry, 6, pp. 631-638.

Abbass, AA., Hancock, JT., Henderson, J., et al (2006). ‘ Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapies for common mental disorders’, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 4: CD004687.

W. Keller, G. Westhoff, R. Dilg, R. Rohner and H.H. Studt (2006), ‘Effectiveness and utilization of health insurance benefits in long-term analyses: Results of an empirical follow-up study on the effectiveness of Jungian Analysis’.
http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak5/krause/ulm97/keller.htm

J. Stevenson, R. Meares, R. D’Angelo  (2004). ‘Five-year outcome of outpatient psychotherapy with borderline patient’, Department of Psychological Medicine, The University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital.  Psychological Medicine, 2005, Vol. 35, pp. 79-87.

B. Milrod, F. Busch, A.C. Leon, T. Shapiro, A. Aronson, J. Roiphe, M. Rudden, M. Singer, H. Goldman, D. Richter and M.K. Shear (2000), ‘Open Trial of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Panic Disorder: A Pilot Study’. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, pp. 1878-1880.

Norman Doidge (1997), ‘Empirical evidence for the efficacy of psychoanalytic psychotherapies and psychoanalysis: An overview’. Psychoanalytic Inquiry. (Suppl), pp. 102-150.