The Effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on Pain Anxiety and Self-Empathy in Women with Breast Cancer: Multiple baseline single subject research

The objective of current study was to determine the effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on the pain anxiety and self-empathy of women suffered from breast cancer.

The research was conducted with the logic of single-case multiple-baseline designs with follow-up phases.The statistical population was  all female patients with breast cancer who came to Tehrans’ hospitals in 2021-2022.  A sample of 3 patients was drawn from the latter population and the therapy sessions were conducted individually for each case. The investigation tools were McCracken and Dhingra's Pain Questionnaire (2002) and Manavi Pour et al.'s Empathy Questionnaire (2019). using improvement percentage index and within and between situation analyzes, the data were analyzed in SPSS and Excel software.

The improvement percentage results illustrated that intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy adequately powered patients with breast cancer where the impact for patients in the treatment stage was moderate and for those in the follow-up phase moderate to high. Moreover, results for self-empathy variable for patients in the treatment stage the effectiveness was medium to high while for the follow-up phase the effect was significant on patients. Visual analysis and the results of intra-situational and inter-situational analyzes indicated a significant difference between the baseline and intervention stages for all subjects (PND=100). The efficacy and stability of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy on pain anxiety and self-empathy of women with breast cancer was confirmed in the follow-up phase.

The outcomes of the research revealed that intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy is promising method on pain anxiety and self-empathy of women with breast cancer. Therefore, it would suggest that clinical psychologists use this treatment to reduce pain anxiety and increase self-empathy in women with breast cancer.