Therapists’ Experiences of Psychodynamic Therapy with and without Transference Interventions for Adolescents with Depression

Abstract

Psychodynamic therapy is an effective treatment for depression. However, a large number of adolescent patients with depression do not respond and/or drop out of therapy and little is known about what therapists actually do in therapy with adolescents. Thus, more research is needed to explore the various actions that therapists do in therapy, so that therapists can tailor their therapy more specifically to each individual adolescent. The present study aimed to investigate how the experience of psychotherapists differs between two treatment modes for adolescents with depression: psychodynamic psychotherapy with and without transference interventions. In-depth interviews were conducted with six therapists. The data, which were analyzed using thematic analysis, generated three key themes: (1) The therapists experienced that transference interventions are often useful in therapies with adolescents with depression, (2) therapies without transference interventions can be challenging for therapists, but still helpful for patients, and (3) the experience contributed to the deepening recognition of therapists that they always need to adapt their techniques to the particular patient. The results enhance our knowledge of the significance of therapists’ actions in therapy with adolescents. The therapists highlighted issues that are important for identifying barriers to incorporating new knowledge into clinical practice.

What contributes to good outcomes? The perspective of young people on short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy for depressed adolescents

“…Although there have been some attempts at 'dismantling' studies to assess the impact of specific aspects of therapy [such as the use of transference interpretations, e.g. [22], service users' lived experience provides invaluable insight not only into the effectiveness of therapeutic treatments but also the way in which young people give meaning to their experiences and understand what contributed to change [21,23,24].…”

Psychotherapy as making

“…Describing psychotherapy as an intervention is commonplace across the contemporary psychotherapy research and practice literature. For example, the term is widely used in psychotherapy studies and reviews in relation to such approaches as cognitive-behavioral therapy ( Keles and Idsoe, 2018 ; Miller et al, 2021 ), psychoanalytic psychotherapy ( Jones et al, 2020 ; Pitillas, 2020 ) and family therapy ( Tsvieli and Diamond, 2018 ; Carr, 2019 ), as well as in cross-theoretical articles ( Lamb et al, 2019 ). At the present time, one of leading journals in the field of psychotherapy, the Journal of Clinical Psychology, routinely includes a sub-section titled “Intervention Research.” Although the concept of intervention is often associated with a medicalized form of practice in which diagnosis leads to the implementation of an evidence-based intervention, such an understanding does not, in our view, do justice to the multi-faceted nature of medical practice.…”

Ergen Davranışsal Aktivasyon Programının Uyarlanması ve Etkililiğinin Karma Yöntem ile İncelenmesi

“…Interventions for adolescent depression are mainly carried out in the axis of (Pass et al 2018b) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) (Ros and Brannigan. 2008), Interpersonal Relationship Therapy (Santor and Kusumakar 2001), Family Therapy (Waraan 2008), and Psychodynamic Therapy (Jones et al 2020). Implementing these therapy models requires appropriately trained mental health professionals, but a limited number of therapists have received such training and have the necessary qualifications (Pass et al 2018a).…”