Clinical case or worried well? A description of patients applying for psychoanalytic treatment

Abstract

The present study investigated which mental health aspects were clinically affected in 170 patients who were assigned to long-term ambulatory psychoanalytic treatment, in other words to what extent these patients were sick or distressed. At intake, patients filled in four self-report questionnaires (SCL-90-R, IIP-64, BDI-II, STAI) and underwent a psychodiagnostic assessment consisting of the MMPI-2 and the Rorschach-CS. in order to see how many patients had clinically significant mental health problems in our population, we used the non-clinical norm scores for each measure and the 'caseness criterion'. After combining the test scores of the questionnaires and personality assessment we found that 91% of our patients were identified as clinical cases. Compared to other ambulatory psychotherapy patients, patients assigned to psychoanalytic treatment reported less symptoms but with regard to personality problems they presented similar levels of psychopathology.