Treatment intensity and regularity in early outpatient psychotherapy and its relation to outcome

✍ Scribed by Susanne Kraft; Bernd Puschner; Hans Kordy

• Book ID: 102120400
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 104 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1063-3995
• DOI: 10.1002/cpp.505

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The distribution of treatment sessions (number of interruptions, weeks without psychotherapy and number of sessions) during the first three months of psychodynamic psychotherapy (PD), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychoanalytic psychotherapy (PAP) was analyzed prospectively over two years in a sample of 256 outpatients.

Number of weeks without psychotherapy in early treatment was predicted by initial helping alliance in PD and by initial quality of interpersonal relations in CBT. Level of initial psychological or physical impairment showed no effect on distribution of sessions during early treatment. In PD and CBT, session distribution early in treatment did not predict subsequent course of improvement. Only in PAP did weeks without psychotherapy and number of sessions affect rate of symptom change, in that participants showed better outcome when treatment started continuously at a rather slow pace. Implications for psychotherapy practice and research are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.