Relationships between therapeutic interventions, motivation for change, and adaptive efficacy in brief psychotherapy

Abstract

This exploratory study aimed to analyze the evolution of two processes of brief psychodynamic psychotherapies (PBP) focusing on the association between the variables of patients and the interventions of therapists. The variables of the patients were: stages of change, clinically evaluated by the Scale of Change, and the quality of adaptive efficiency, measured with the Scale of Adaptation. The interventions of the therapists were classified as expressive, neutral or supportive. Two independent judges assessed the stages of change of all sessions. They also evaluated the adaptive efficacy at the beginning and at the end of the processes. Two other judges categorized all the therapists’ interventions. It was observed that interventional strategies were related to the evolution of the stages of change, the adaptive configuration of patients as well as the different stages of psychotherapeutic processes. Systematic studies involving these variables are needed to confirm the relevance of the associations observed in this case.

Keywords: therapeutic change, case study, brief psychotherapy.