Empirical examination of long-term and intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy for severely disturbed patients.

This study examines the effectiveness and efficiency of intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy for severely impaired patients. 104 patients in four public mental health centers underwent intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy. The number and duration of psychiatric hospitalizations were monitored for these patients from one year before therapy to eight years after.

Trajectories of change among highly challenging patients in intensive long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Objectives: This study aimed to identify and describe trajectories of change in distress among highly challenging patients who had received long and intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Methods: The longitudinal version of the K-means algorithm was applied to the outcome measures data of 74 patients treated in four public mental health centers. The patients were measured five times at 6-month intervals for three outcome measures.

Psychotherapy with older adults: Ageism and the therapeutic process.

 This study explores how ageism in therapists is manifested in psychotherapy with older adults and how therapists deal with its impact on their therapeutic work. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 therapists and analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Findings clustered around two themes: (i) maintaining openness to change while acknowledging limitations; (ii) dealing with manifestations of ageism inside therapy by going beyond relating to older patients only in terms of their chronological age.

Do positive features of mental health change together with symptoms and do they predict each other?

In a previous study, it was found that several constructs derived from a positive definition of mental health had changed during psychotherapy. It remains unclear whether they change as part of a single process together with symptomatic change, as part of separate processes, or whether a change in one of the variables predicts change in another variable. Our objective in this study was to examine the relationship between the observed changes and to establish temporal precedence that constitutes a necessary condition for causation.

Changes in playfulness, creativity and honesty as possible outcomes of psychotherapy.

: This study comprised an examination of whether clients' playfulness, creativity, honesty, humor, and happiness changed during psychotherapy. : Sixty-two clients who underwent psychotherapy in a naturalistic setting completed questionnaires at five time points throughout treatment. An HLM analytic approach was applied to account for the hierarchical nature of the data.