A Brief Review of Psychoanalytic Outcome Research

There are a few promising studies of psychoanalysis that suggest the efficacy of this treatment and the importance of its frequency and intensity. Studying the efficacy of psychoanalysis is a very worthwhile undertaking. At this moment in time, there is a great deal of interest in this topic. Analysts have concluded that it is necessary for us to provide data to validate that the work we do actually benefits the patients we treat in order to receive economic support from insurance payers. Such practical reasons for supporting outcome research are understandable. There are also scientific reasons why studying psychoanalytic process and outcome is important. Until the results of prospective longitudinal studies appeared, there were many assumptions made about psychoanalysis that the actual data failed to confirm. For example, in psychoanalysis: 1) It was assumed that “cure” came only from interpretations; the data showed that considerable therapeutic benefit was derived from supportive measures as well as from interpretative ones (Wallerstein, 1986). 2) It was assumed that patients who manifested more serious mental illness, especially disturbances in reality testing, were unsuitable for psychoanalysis; the data showed that some patients with serious disturbances in reality testing were able to benefit from psychoanalysis when their analysts were able to tolerate and analyze this level of psychopathology (Wallerstein, 1986;