Objectives: Considering the importance of assessing the range of phenomena that can change in psychodynamic therapy, and lack of appropriate assessment scale in Persian language, the present study assessed the reliability of the Persian mastery scale. The mastery scale is a comprehensive research tool for assessing a patient's mastery of transference-related interpersonal conflicts during the treatment process. Methods: After preparing the Persian version of the mastery scale through the forward-backward translation process, a sample of 36 relationship episodes was rated by three independent judges. Data were collected in Mashhad, Iran in 2015. The psychometric properties of the instrument, including inter-rater reliability and test-retest analysis were assessed. Results: The test-retest correlations of the 3 judges were (0.80, 0.91 and 0.95), highly significant at P < 0.0001 and the inter-rater reliability indicated a good level of agreement (The ICC (3, 3) 0.84, 95% CI [0.72, 0.90]). Conclusions: The current study has provided evidence that the Persian mastery scale is a reliable instrument for assessing changes in inner capacities and resources through psychodynamic treatments. However, further studies are required to investigate the validity of this scale.

SummaryAims: The present study attempted to see whether the use of supportive techniques and improving working alliance in the initial sessions of short-term supportive-expressive (SE) psychodynamic psychotherapy results in a change in symptoms of patients with depressive disorder. Materials and methods:The study was an experiential single case. The subjects were 6 women with major depressive disorder who were selected by a purposive sampling method. Measures included the Working Alliance Inventory-12, the Quality of Life Scale, and Beck Depression Inventory II. Visual analysis with graphs, mean, standard deviation and the Friedman test was used for data analysis.Results: There was no significant increase or decrease in the severity of depression on the baseline (χ 2 = 3.54, P=0.14) and during evaluation sessions (χ 2 = 0.85, P=0.65), but participants showed a significant improvement in quality of life once the sessions had started (χ 2 = 8.95, P=0.01). The mean scores on all three working alliance components showed a slight increase over three sessions and the scores on the bond subscale showed a significant increase (χ 2 = 11.56, P=0.003).Discussion: It was clear that despite a slight increase in the severity of depression in at least four participants, patients' quality of life and working alliance, especially the bond component, improved during the initial sessions of psychotherapy. Conclusions:These findings may reflect the importance of working alliance in the initial sessions of therapy, which can lead to a change in the patient's experience of quality of life.working alliance, depression, psychodynamic therapy