Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

For a wide range of complaints: anxiety, depression, somatization, identity problems. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is suitable for young people with early personality problems who keep encountering (the same) problems in their lives and want to change them. The young person is stimulated to understand why he keeps ending up in the same patterns. If it becomes clear what the background and meaning of the current complaints is, the step towards change is easier to take. This psychotherapy is possible in both individual and group settings.

Purpose
The goal of psychodynamic psychotherapy is in the first instance to create a new balance from which the development can start again, so that the symptoms clearly diminish. You will understand your inner world better. You feel freer on the inside and become more firmly established in the world.

Duration and frequency
The therapy lasts six months to a maximum of three years. Each treatment lasts 45 minutes.

Method
Individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy is often a relatively long-term and outpatient psychoanalytic form of treatment. The frequency is usually once a week. During the treatment, you sit opposite the therapist and talk to your therapist about the topics that determine your problems. In short-term forms, the practitioner acts more in a guiding role, focuses on themes that determine the problems and focuses less on other themes.

Children work with both talking and playing. This treatment is almost always combined with parental guidance. In consultation with (older) adolescents, we look at whether and how the parents can be involved in the treatment. During treatment, supportive, insightful or mentalizing techniques can be used.

Factsheets
PD Individual
PD Group

Proven effective
The effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy has been proven by the following scientific studies:

• Shedler, J. (2010). The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, American Psychologist, 65, 98-109.Link tohetArticle.
• Leichsenring F, Rabung S. Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy in complex mental disorders: update of a meta-analysis. Br J Psychiatry. 2011 Jul; 199(1):15-22. Link to the article.
• Town JM, Abbass A, Hardy G. Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for personality disorders: a critical review of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Personality Disorders. 2011; 25(6):723-740. Link to the article.

Group therapy
The goal of the young adult group is that you learn to understand yourself and detach yourself from thoughts, feelings and behavior that limit you. You learn to form relationships with your group members and work on the development of your own identity. Psychodynamic group psychotherapy consists of weekly group sessions of one and a half hours. The treatment lasts 2 years.

The effectiveness of group psychotherapy has been proven by the following scientific studies:

• Piper, W.E. & Rosie, J.S. (1998) Group Treatment of Personality Disorders: The Power of the Group in the Intensive Treatment of Personality Disorders.  In Piper, E. & Ogrodiczuk, J.S.  Brief Group Therapy, p. 15.
  Link to the article.
• Heather Munroe-Blum and Elsa Marziali (1995). A Controlled Trial of Short-Term Group Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder. Journal of Personality Disorders: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 190
  Link to the article.
• Perry JC, Banon L, Lanni F. The effectiveness of psychotherapy for personality disorders (1999). AmJ Psychiatry 156:1312-132.
  Link to the article.