The National Institutes of Mental Health has recently made a major policy decision to place more emphasis on effectiveness studies that measure outcomes in psychiatric conditions as they occur in naturalistic settings. These studies will allow for improvement in real-life treatments where the rigorous controls of a laboratory do not exist. The findings in the present report demonstrate the problem inherent to the short-term psychotherapy recommendations of managed care programs.
In an effectivenss study of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, an adaption of the Consumer Reports Survey, the psychoanalytic researchers found that there is a positive incremental effect up to 32 months of treatment and that increased session frequency has a specifiable and differential impact on perceived effectiveness of psychotherapy. With increased duration over the first three years, and with increased sessions per week, there were notable gains in the patients' perception of their psychological well-being.
Contact: Leon Hoffman, MD
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American Psychoanalytic Association
Journal
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association