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Results of a new study find that in many cases, treating patients with mental health issues using psychotherapy can be more beneficial than treating them with drugs.
Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy, (LTPP) as it is called, relies more on the individual who is being treated as it is based on their mental health condition, stressing psychological support that is customized to their specific needs, a fact that is not often the case when drug therapy is introduced.
11 randomized controlled trials and 12 observational studies, were analyzed to reach this conclusion.
Patients who received LTPP faired better up to 96% of the time compared to patients who received shorter intense drug therapy.
“Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy yielded large and stable effect sizes in the treatment of patients with personality disorders, multiple mental disorders, and chronic mental disorders. The effect sizes for overall outcome increased significantly between end of therapy and follow-up,” said Falk Leichsenring of the University of Giessen, Germany.
Writing in the October 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the authors state: “Evidence indicates that short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy is insufficient for a considerable proportion of patients with complex mental disorders, i.e., patients with multiple or chronic mental disorders or personality disorders.”
