the Effectiveness of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy in dissociative experiences, object relations and delayed reward discounting in patients with substance use disorders and addiction.

The aim of this study was to investigate the Effectiveness of Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) in the domain of dissociative experiences, object relations and delayed reward discounting in patients with substance use disorders and addiction.

This study was a semi-experimental research conducted in the form of pretest-posttest with control group. The sample of this study included 30 males with substance abuse disorder in the addiction treatment clinics in Marivan city of Iran. Patients were selected by an experienced psychiatrist and Structured Clinical Interview. Patients were randomly assigned either experimental (n=15) or control groups (n=15). Participants completed the Dissociative Experiences Scale-II (DES-II), Bell's object relation inventory (BORI) and the Monetary-Choice Questionnaire (MCQ) in the pretest and posttest. The experimental group received the Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) for fifteen 90-minute sessions. Data were analyzed by multivariate covariance.

The findings of this study showed that Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) after 15 sessions had significant effects on dissociative experiences, object relations and delayed reward discounting of the experimental group compared to the control group.

The results of the current study showed that Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) was an effective strategy to improve the symptoms of dissociative experiences, object relations and delayed reward discounting in patients with substance use disorders and addiction and can be used as an effective therapeutic approach.