Effectiveness of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy in Reducing Symptoms and changing Defense Styles in Patients with Depression

The present study aimed to examine effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) in reducing symptoms and changing defensive styles in patients with depression. The study employed an applied quasi-experimental design and used a pretest and posttest and a control group. The statistical population included all University of Mashhad students with depression who referred to the clinic of Faculty of Education and Psychology during 2001–2002 school year. The sample consisted of 16 students who were selected using purposive voluntary sampling, and were randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group. The data was collected using a demographic questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Defensive Style Questionnaire (DSQ) in both groups. The experimental group received a 20-session ISTDP while the control group received no intervention. BDI and DSQ were administered in both groups in the pretest phase. The data were analyzed using ANCOVA in SPSS software. The results showed that ISTDP was effective in reducing symptoms of depression (p<0.001) and immature (p<0.17) and neurotic defensive styles (p<0.001), and in increasing use of mature defensive styles (p<0/001) in the experimental group. In other words, ISTDP increased patients’ moods and their use of mature defense style and it decreased use of immature and neurotic defense styles.