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Affect-Focused Techniques in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

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Handbook of Evidence-Based Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Part of the book series: Current Clinical Psychiatry ((CCPSY))

Abstract

In a review of the research literature contrasting psychodynamic–interpersonal (PI) and cognitive–behavioral (CB) treatment, Blagys and Hilsenroth [1, 2] identified seven techniques/processes that distinguished PI from CB therapies. In particular, PI treatments contained greater frequency of emotion focus and encouraged patients to express their feelings. This affect-focused process garnered the most evidence for distinguishing PI from CB [1, 2], suggesting a heightened attention in psychodynamic treatments to patient emotions.

This chapter is based in part on the doctoral dissertation of the first author. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the North American Society for Psychotherapy Research, Newport, RI (2003, November) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Rome, Italy (2004, June). We thank Dr. Matthew Blagys for his assistance in reviewing the literature for relevant studies. We are grateful to Dr. Jared DeFife for permission to use his Effect Size Calculator computer software.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Freud’s [18] discussion of the evolution of his technique, where he explained that the underlying purpose of the various interventions he proposed was “to fill in gaps in memory…to overcome resistances due to repression” (p. 148).

  2. 2.

    Shear and colleagues [25] present data comparing CBT, emotion-focused psychotherapy, and imipramine for patients with panic disorder; however, only outcome data are reported with no process ratings utilized to examine specific effects of emotion-focused techniques.

  3. 3.

    The larger sample of 42 patients, from which the current study was drawn, had to meet criteria for compulsive, avoidant, dependent, passive-aggressive, histrionic or mixed personality disorder and could not have an Axis II diagnosis of paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, narcissistic, or borderline personality disorder.

  4. 4.

    Therapists rated themselves as more psychoanalytic (M = 3.75, SD = 0.50) than humanistic (M = 2.75, SD = 0.96) or behavioral (M = 1.50, SD = 0.58) on five-point scales [28].

  5. 5.

    This calculation was done using software developed by DeFife [49].

  6. 6.

    Once again, these analyses were performed with the assumption that n = 15 for each of the two patient groups (i.e., improved and unimproved) rather than n = 5.

  7. 7.

    The difference between these two correlations was statistically significant, z = 2.67, p < 0.01 [46].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American School of Professional Psychology, Argosy University/Washington DC, 1550 Wilson Blvd., Suite 600, Arlington, VA, 22209, USA

    Marc J. Diener

  2. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA

    Mark J. Hilsenroth PhD

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  1. Marc J. Diener
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Correspondence to Marc J. Diener .

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  1. Psychotherapy Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Raymond A. Levy (Clinical Director) & J. Stuart Ablon (Director) (Clinical Director) &  (Director)

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Diener, M.J., Hilsenroth, M.J. (2009). Affect-Focused Techniques in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. In: Levy, R.A., Ablon, J.S. (eds) Handbook of Evidence-Based Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-444-5_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-444-5_10

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