Affect-Focused Techniques in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Abstract

Having seen a patient and having carried out diagnostic assessment on both a phenomenological and a psychodynamic level, psychodynamically oriented clinicians have to decide what kind of treatment they recommend to a patient. For this reason, it is useful for them to know which treatment approach has been shown to be effective in the treatment of the respective disorder. In this chapter, a review of the efficacy and effectiveness of psychodynamic psy- chotherapy is given. First, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of psychody- namic psychotherapy in specific mental disorders are reviewed. After that, effectiveness studies of long-term dynamic therapy are presented. Studies of psychodynamic psychotherapy published between 1960 and 2006 were identi- fied by a computerized search using MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Current Contents. In addition, textbooks and journal articles were used.