Is psychotherapy any good?

A review of evidence relating to psychodynamic psychotherapy and the nature of psychodynamic assessment

  • Seán Manning
DOI: https://doi.org/10.9791/ajpanz.2010.09

Abstract

This document is intended as a resource to stimulate discussion around the validity and effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychodynamic assessment. It is written in an atmosphere of, to this writer, unhelpfully argumentative debate between 'scientific' (symptom and behaviour oriented) clinical psychology, and the more descriptive, relationship-oriented psychotherapies, in which the latter have been criticised as unscientific and lacking evidence for their practice (Surgenor 2006).

Author Biography

Seán Manning

As recorded in 2010.

Seán Manning is a psychotherapist in a therapeutic community in Dunedin, with a small private practice. His academic and professional background is in psychology and social work. Raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he has lived in Aotearoa New Zealand since 1975. A former member of the Board of the International, Transactional Analysis Association, and of the Training & Certification Council of Transactional Analysts Inc, until recently Chair of Ethics for the Western Pacific Association for Transactional Analysis and is the current president of the NZ Association of Psychotherapists. He is intensely interested in how psychotherapy works, and in what happens in the human brain as a result. He has authored a report summarizing the effectiveness of psychotherapy and a number of papers on antisocial behaviour and the unconscious.

Published
2010-12-30
How to Cite
Manning, S. (2010). Is psychotherapy any good? A review of evidence relating to psychodynamic psychotherapy and the nature of psychodynamic assessment. Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand, 15(1), 74-91. https://doi.org/10.9791/ajpanz.2010.09
Issue
Vol. 15 No. 1 (2010): Forum: The Journal of the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists (Inc.)
Section
Articles