Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) was developed out of the need for relatively short psychodynamic psychotherapeutic treatment approaches to complex and resistant patient populations so common in public health systems. Based on extensive study of video recordings, Habib Davanloo discovered, and other researchers have validated, some important clinical ingredients that align the...

Most meta-analyses have concluded that psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy yield roughly similar efficacy in the short-term treatment of depression, with psychotherapy showing some advantage at long-term follow-up. However, a recent meta-analysis found that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors medications were superior to psychotherapy in the short-term treatment of depression. To incorporate ...

OBJECTIVE Identification of pretreatment patient characteristics predictive of psychotherapy outcome could help to guide treatment choices. This study evaluates patients' initial level of immature defense style as a predictor of the outcome of short-term versus long-term psychotherapy. METHOD In the Helsinki Psychotherapy Study, 326 adult outpatients with mood or anxiety disorder were randomi...