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American Research

 

American Psychologist (Feb–Mar 2010)

 

Abstract of paper:

 

Empirical evidence supports the efficacy of psychodynamic therapy. Effect sizes for psychodynamic therapy are as large as those reported for other therapies that have been actively promoted as “empirically supported” and “evidence based.” In addition, patients who receive psychodynamic therapy maintain therapeutic gains and appear to continue to improve after treatment ends. Finally, non-psychodynamic therapies may be effective in part because the more skilled practitioners utilize techniques that have long been central to psychodynamic theory and practice. The perception that psychodynamic approaches lack empirical support does not accord with available scientific evidence and may reflect selective dissemination of research findings.

 

American Psychoanalytic Association Research

 

• Empirical Studies of Psychoanalytic Treatments, Process, and Concepts

• Frequently Asked Questions

 

What Happens in a Psychoanalysis? A View through the Lens of the Analytic Process Scales (APS)

© 2003, Sherwood Waldron, Robert Scharf, David Hurst, Stephen Firestein & Anna BurtonPublished in 2004, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85: 443–466

 

‘Efficacy of Psychoanalysis and Intensive Psychoanalytic Therapy for Patients with Substantial Phobias, Anxieties and Panic States: A Comment with New Findings from the Menninger Study’

-Sherwood Waldron

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Resources in the Media

The Economist – Intelligent Life Magazine (Winter 2010)

Freud’s ideas have become part of the fabric of everyday life, yet his methods are going out of favour. Robert Rowland Smith argues that the professionals have got it wrong.

 

New Scientist (2 October 2010)

New Scientist debated whether psychoanalysis has a place in a museum dedicated to science.Here is the response from the psychoanalytic community, now published.

 

Additional Media Resources

See also: Harvard Medical School report | Scientific American Mind article

 

Scientific American Mind

An article in the November/December 2010 issue of Scientific American Mind further supports the case for psychodynamic therapies.The article is by Jonathan Shedler, whose paper in American Psychologist earlier this year was also cited positively in New Scientist. Together with the letter from Mary Target and colleagues to New Scientist, this is a fantastic illustration that the tide is turning in terms of the evidence base for psychoanalytic/dynamic psychotherapy.

 

Shedler gives his readers ‘Fast Facts: The Value of Self-Examination’:

1. Psychodynamic therapy is not the psychoanalysis of Freud's day: patients sit on a chair instead of lying on a couch, have sessions once or twice — not four or five times — a week, and may finish in months as opposed to years.

2. Though often dismissed as too open-ended to solve specific problems, psychodynamic therapy alleviates symptoms as effectively as newer, more targeted therapies.

3. People who undergo psychodynamic therapy continue to make gains after the therapy ends, perhaps because it addresses underlying psychological patterns that affect many areas of life.

 

The article (requires login) can be found at: www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=getting-to-know-me