This project continues a series of studies which represent the first systematic research to focus on the process and outcome of brief dynamic psychotherapy (BDP) with older adult populations. The goals of these studies are to determine both the effectiveness of BDP with older adults and to investigate how therapist interventions facilitate (or hinder) the process and outcome of therapy. Under the current project, the psychotherapies of 15 older-adult patients (65 years of age and older) will be studied by measuring the relative contributions of patient and therapist foctors to the therapy process and outcome. This will be accomplished by developing a reliable dynamic formulation for each patient which includes the patient's goals for therapy, how the patient will work in therapy to achieve them, and a description of how the therapist should respond in order to help the patient achieve these goals. Based upon this formulation, the degree to which therapist behaviors are in accord with a given patient's goals will be rated. Then a variety of measures will be employed to examine how the immediate progress and eventual outcome are influenced by these therapist behaviors.
The specific aims of this project are: (a) to test empirically whether older-adult patients can be effectively treated by BDP; (2) to examine what factors account for the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of psychotherapy with patient's of this age group; (3) to compare the process and outcome of psychotherapy with older-adult patients with similar data from middle-aged and young-adult patients in order to isolate unique and similar aspects of psychotherapy for these three age groups; (4) to conduct methodological studies of new process and outcome measures and of a new forced-choice triadic comparison procedure for rating process measures. It is expected that the problems for which older-adult patients enter therapy will differ from those of young-adult and middle-aged patients. Nonetheless, it is predicted that older-adult patients will profit from BDP, as do middle-aged and young-adult patients, and that their ability to do so is dependent upon the capacity of the therapist to accurately diagnose their goals for therapy and tailor interventions accordingly.
| Weiss, J (1995) Bernfeld's ""The facts of observation in psychoanalysis"": a response from psychoanalytic research. Psychoanal Q 64:699-716 |
| Silberschatz, G; Curtis, J T (1993) Measuring the therapist's impact on the patient's therapeutic progress. J Consult Clin Psychol 61:403-11 |
| Weiss, J (1988) Testing hypotheses about unconscious mental functioning. Int J Psychoanal 69 ( Pt 1):87-95 |
| Windholz, M J; Silberschatz, G (1988) Vanderbilt Psychotherapy Process Scale: a replication with adult outpatients. J Consult Clin Psychol 56:56-60 |
| Rosenberg, S E; Silberschatz, G; Curtis, J T et al. (1986) A method for establishing reliability of statements from psychodynamic case formulations. Am J Psychiatry 143:1454-6 |
| Silberschatz, G; Fretter, P B; Curtis, J T (1986) How do interpretations influence the process of psychotherapy? J Consult Clin Psychol 54:646-52 |
