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The role of insight in exploratory psychodynamic psychotherapy
Author(s) -
Høglend Per,
Engelstad Vibeke,
Sørbye Øystein,
Heyerdahl Oscar,
Amlo Svein
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
british journal of medical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.102
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 2044-8341
pISSN - 0007-1129
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1994.tb01799.x
Subject(s) - psychodynamics , psychology , psychodynamic psychotherapy , psychotherapist , outcome (game theory) , psychoanalytic theory , exploratory analysis , clinical psychology , person centered therapy , mathematics , mathematical economics , data science , computer science
Psychoanalytic theory holds that dynamic insight is used for self‐observation and self‐analysis during and after explorative therapy. Such self‐analysis is held to lead to stable dynamic change. Within a sample of 43 moderately disturbed out‐patients, pre‐treatment level of insight was associated with treatment length, with not being an early or late drop‐out, and with receiving additional psychotherapy during a four‐year follow‐up period. Pre‐treatment level of insight turned out to be not directly correlated with outcome two and four years after therapy. However, level of insight was significantly correlated with outcome in interaction with treatment length. Gain of insight measured at two‐year follow‐up was the strongest predictor of overall dynamic change four years after therapy, compared with all the other outcome assessments made at two‐year follow‐up.