Dramatic storytelling and naming subjective experiences in psychodynamic treatments of depressed women: An exploratory study of assimilative functions of narrating.

The present study aims to demonstrate how assimilation processes indicated by formal aspects of in-session narratives change in the course of psychodynamic therapy and how this differs by therapy outcome. Two sessions each from the initial, the middle, and the termination phase of six successful and six unsuccessful psychodynamic treatments were compared. All narratives were identified and coded for dramatic narrating and naming of emotions and mental verbs.

Efficacy of high-intensity versus low-intensity psychoanalytically oriented long-term treatments and determinants of outcome: individual participant data Meta-analysis of Long-term Analytic treatment Studies (MeLAS).

Introduction: Long-term psychodynamic/psychoanalytic psychotherapy (LTPP) is a prevalent treatment option for complex mental disorders. Yet, little is known about the role of treatment intensity in LTPP. We present a study protocol for a systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis aggregating and analysing individual data from randomised and quasi-experimental trials by meta-analysis.

Banter in psychotherapy: Relationship to treatment type, therapeutic alliance, and therapy outcome.

Introduction: The use of humor in psychotherapy is widely considered to improve therapy outcomes and typically depends on context, patient sensitivity, and the therapist's humor style. Different types of humor may impact treatment type, therapeutic alliance, and therapy outcome; however, evidence from psychotherapy sessions on the role of banter has been sparse to date. Therefore, the study aims to examine banter in a secondary analysis of psychotherapy sessions.

Can we differentiate between psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy? - An empirical investigation of therapists' self-reports.

Therapy differentiation is a crucial component of psychotherapy research. It refers to whether inspected treatments differ from one another. In the history of psychoanalysis, the differentiation between psychodynamic and analytic psychotherapy was often discussed but seldom inspected empirically.

Testing of the therapist to reduce maladaptive interactional patterns: Categorizing patients' tests.

Objective: This empirical study undertakes a categorization of the core concept of Control Mastery Theory: mostly unconscious testing of pathogenic beliefs that patients exhibit in relating to their therapist to work on their problems. The focus lays on latent meanings of manifest tests.

Method: We qualitatively analyze transcripts of 172 psychotherapy sessions with 23 patients for sequences in which significant patient-therapist interactions occur, and systematize identified tests into thematic categories based on what tests intent to achieve (ICC = .

Passing patients' tests-But how? An analysis of therapists' helping skills in response to patient testing.

According to control mastery theory, patients in psychotherapy try to master their problems by disconfirming their pathogenic beliefs. This can be done by testing the therapist. So far, there is hardly any evidence on what concrete interventions or statements of therapists are specifically helpful in passing those tests.

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In different therapeutic approaches, insight is acknowledged as an important part of patient's therapeutic change process. We examined whether the level of insight (1) differs between psychoanalytic (PA), psychodynamic (PD) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and (2) predicts long-term symptomatic outcome. A completer sample of 67 depressed patients from the Munich Psychotherapy Study was analyzed.

The Processing of Visual Signals in Major Depressive Disorder.

The balanced processing of the internal mental world and the external world is a crucial aspect of everyday well-being. An extensive control of the internal emotional and cognitive world that often results in an internal expression of distress is a common feature of internalizing disorders. However, how depression affects the processing of the external world is still an open question.

[Personality organization and mentalization of depressive inpatients in a long-term-study].

In a naturalistic long-term follow-up design this study investigated the improvement of depressive symptom severity, mentalization deficiency and personality organization. 300 patients with depressive symptoms were assessed at three evaluation times (before therapy, after therapy and one to three years after discharge) with the Patient Health Questionnaire Depression Scale (PHQ-9), the Mentalization Questionnaire (MZQ) and the Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO-16). Patients improved significantly in depressive symptom severity with strong impact.

Treatment-related changes towards normalization of the abnormal external signal processing in panic disorder.

Despite the scientific consensus on the efficacy of psychotherapy for the treatment of psychological disorders, the evidence of treatment-related changes towards normalization of abnormal brain functions in patients is mixed. In the present experiment, we investigated whether treatment can affect early information processing, by testing abnormal event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by internal and external signals in panic disorder. Sixteen patients with panic disorder and comorbid personality disorder and sixteen control participants performed a response-choice task and a passive viewing task in two testing sessions, separated by around 14 months.

Is countertransference a valid source of clinical information? Investigating emotional responses to audiotaped psychotherapy sessions.

The study aimed to test whether countertransference reactions contain valid information about the patient. The authors examined whether a significant part of the variance in emotional, cognitive, and motivational responses to recorded therapy sessions is attributable to the patient. Six student raters listened to 605 audiotaped sessions of 81 patients with major depression treated by 19 therapists and indicated their reactions using a modified version of the Countertransference Questionnaire.

[Can Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy be Reliably Discriminated? - Developement of the "Adherence of Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Therapy Scale" (APP Scale)].

The study aims at the development of an adherence scale (APP) for psychoanalytic therapy (PA) and psychodynamic therapy (PD) with high discriminant ability to differentiate between these 2 treatments. The development of the APP scale comprises 6 steps. Nine trainees underwent an intensive rater training.

[Validation of the German Version of the Psychological Mindedness Scale (PMS-D)].

Unlabelled: Validation of the German Version of the Psychological Mindedness Scale (PMS-D) Objectives: The Psychological Mindedness Scale (PMS) is one of the few established measures for psychological mindedness (PM). PM refers to a capacity and disposition to properly perceive inner processes - feelings, thoughts and conflicts. The aim of this study was the validation of the German translation of the PMS, which was conducted via TRAPDprocess.

Internal and external signal processing in patients with panic disorder: An event-related potential (ERP) study.

Self-absorption describes a pathological tendency towards the internal mental world (internalization) that often conflicts with the accurate monitoring of the external world. In performance monitoring, an augmented electrophysiological response evoked by internal signals in patients with anxiety or depressive disorder seems to reflect this tendency. Specifically, the error-related negativity (Ne/ERN), an index of error processing based on internal signals, is larger in patients compared to controls.

A Comparison of Psychoanalytic Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety (Panic/Agoraphobia) and Personality Disorders (APD Study): Presentation of the RCT Study Design.

Objectives: Anxiety disorders, most notably panic disorders and agoraphobia, are common mental disorders, and there is a high comorbidity with personality disorders. Randomized controlled trails addressing this highly relevant group of patients are missing.

Design: The multicenter Anxiety and Personality Disorders (APD) study investigates 200 patients with panic disorder and/or agoraphobia with comorbid personality disorder in a randomized control-group comparison of psychoanalytic therapy (PT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), including 100 patients in each group.

Outcome trajectories and mediation in psychotherapeutic treatments of major depression.

Trajectories and mediators of change were investigated in a process-outcome study. Patients were allocated at random to psychoanalytic therapy (PA) or psychodynamic therapy (PD), and later to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Measurement points were at pre-treatment, during ongoing treatment, at post-treatment, and during a three-year follow-up.

[Review Model for the Assessment of Psychometric Instruments--Recommendations of the German College of Psychosomatic Medicine (DKPM)].

Objectives: Psychometric instruments are commonly applied in psychotherapeutic research and care for the baseline assessment of symptoms, the planning of therapeutic interventions, the assessment of the longitudinal course of symptoms and outcomes of therapeutic interventions as well as quality management of care. Psychometric properties as well as economic aspects should be considered in the selection of specific instruments. It is assumed that users of psychometric instruments face a great variety of instruments and related information.

Oxytocin-induced coping with stressful life events in old age depends on attachment: findings from the cross-sectional KORA Age study.

Background: Whether oxytocin functions as a stress hormone in older age is unknown. We investigated oxytocin levels and the perceived stress of an adverse life event in an older population-representative sample and considered the effect of a secure/insecure attachment style on this association.

Methods: Non-fasting plasma oxytocin was measured from 952 participants (65-90 years) of the cross sectional KORA-Age study.

Is It All about the Higher Dose? Why Psychoanalytic Therapy Is an Effective Treatment for Major Depression.

Unlabelled: Empirical evidence for the effectiveness of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (LTPP) in patients with mood disorders is growing. However, it is unclear whether the effectiveness of LTPP is due to distinctive features of psychodynamic/psychoanalytic techniques or to a higher number of sessions. We tested these rival hypotheses in a quasi-experimental study comparing psychoanalytic therapy (i.

Aging without depression: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to analyze the association between secure attachment style, loneliness, and social network as risk factors for late-life depression.

Methods: This cross-sectional study examined 969 subjects of the KORA-Age study. We applied the Relationship-Specific Attachment Scales for Adults (Beziehungsspezifische Bindungsskalen für Erwachsene, BBE), the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and the Social Network Index (SNI).

[Utilization and utility of psycho-oncologic support of patients with mamma-carcinoma].

Objectives: This study explores patients' utilization of psycho-oncologic support and the effectiveness thereof.

Methods: At the hospital in Munich-Harlaching, 51 patients were recruited following their first admission to the breast centre, 27 of whom utilized the psycho-oncologic service. They were compared to 24 decliners of the service.

[The influence of patient- and treatment-related factors on the success of inpatient psychotherapy].

Objectives: This study investigates the symptomatic and interpersonal efficacy of inpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy as well as the influence of several patient- and treatment-related factors on the success of psychotherapy.

Methods: In this naturalistic study, 715 patients were assessed with the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R) and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP). The influence of several patient-and treatment-related factors on the success of psychotherapy was analyzed using logistic regression.