Psicoterapias breves psicodinâmicas: características da produção científica nacional e estrangeira (1980/2003)

It presents a survey of some formal characteristics of the scientific production with the aim of knowing whom, where, and what have been indexed in electronic databases, under the entry: “brief psychodynamic psychotherapy” and “time-limited psychodynamic psychotherapy”. Foreign and national productions were checked and critiques were presented. The sample of 534 abstracts (1980 to 2003), published in Brazil and abroad, indicated that the foreign production was quantitatively superior concerning the number of references, journals and authors. However, the national production compares in some aspects such as: reference average by author, predominance of unique authorship and adoption of integrative psychotherapy, in which influences of other approaches, rather than the psychodynamic, are identified. In the two realities there was a predominance of publications about adult single psychotherapies, in psychiatric journals. It is expected that, with the expansion of psychology database, the last characteristic changes, at least in Brazil.