[Effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy in children and juveniles - results of a pilot study].

QUESTION: The effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy for children and adolescents has yet to be studied sufficiently in Germany. Because psychodynamic psychotherapy aims to reduce symptoms in both the short and long term - besides achieving other long-term goals - in this paper we present results focusing on whether symptoms and problem behavior can be improved within 25 h of outpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy taking place in a practice. Moreover, it addresses whether a positive change of life quality can be achieved in the same timeframe. METHOD: Thirty children and juveniles with emotional, behavioral, and adjustment disorders who had received 25 h of psychodynamic psychotherapy were investigated. Parental reports on the Child Behavior Checklist and parental and expert opinions on the DISYPS-KJ were compared before and after therapy. RESULTS: We found significant improvement on almost all measured CBCL scales, but not on the syndrome scales measured with the DISYPS. Predominantly medium-size effects were calculated. But parents did not report an improvement of general life quality of their children during the course of psychotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that there is an effective reduction of childhood emotional and behavioral symptoms following psychodynamic psychotherapy. The measured timeframe, however, seems to be too short to ensure significant improvements in specific childhood disorders from both parental and expert perspectives.