Research Finds Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Effective | The Retreat at Sheppard Pratt

Research Finds Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Effective

January 21, 2009 —

For over 100 years, Sheppard Pratt has been following the primary guiding principle laid down by our founder, Moses Sheppard, “to combine every feature that science and experience might indicate as requisite or desirable to minister to the greatest possible advantage to the patient.”  For most of that time, we have had to depend upon experience, as the science of psychotherapy research has been limited by experimental design, lack of adequate control groups, and the length of treatment.  However, a recent landmark study in a flagship journal of American medicine has broken new ground in analyzing the best of the research done over the past 50 years.

The Journal of the American Medical Association published “Effectiveness of Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Meta-analysis” by Falk Leichsenrigh, DSc and Sven Rabung, PhD on October 1, 2008.  The authors reviewed the medical and psychiatric literature from 1960 through 2008 to analyze the efficacy of long term psychodynamic psychotherapy in complex mental disorders (for example, personality disorders, chronic mental disorders, multiple mental disorders or complex depression and anxiety disorders).   Long term psychodynamic psychotherapy was defined as therapy that involved careful attention to the therapist-patient interaction, lasting for at least one year or fifty sessions.

Much has been written about the success of short term psychotherapy in patients experiencing acute distress.  However, a considerable proportion of patients with chronic or complex mental disorders or personality disorders do not benefit sufficiently from short-term psychotherapy.

An editorial written by Richard M. Glass, M.D. about this article in the same issue states “the continuing interest in and attraction of psychodynamic psychotherapy are likely due to the considerable intuitive appeal of the underlying concept that facilitated self-understanding can lead to improvement of mental disorders.”

We no longer need to depend upon intuitive appeal or personal experience alone.  The conclusion of this exhaustive meta-analysis is that long term psychodynamic psychotherapy is an effective treatment for complex mental disorders.

In the longstanding tradition of Sheppard Pratt Hospital, the Retreat at Sheppard Pratt continues to help each patient with the use of psychodynamic psychotherapy in their personal treatment in several ways.  Each patient has individual psychodynamic psychotherapy 3 times per week; he or she is part of a psychodynamic process group twice a week; and there is a teaching course on common psychodynamic concepts to help patient become conversant with frequent themes in psychotherapy.  Finally, the Retreat works closely with the patient’s outpatient program to help carry the momentum of therapy back to the work being done with the current treating professionals, or the Retreat can assist with a referral to a psychotherapist in the local community when appropriate.

- Sara Rosen, MD